Any policy around selling former local authority houses ?

[Palerider]

I sold a house in the mid 1990's for £50k to the local authority.

Looking over the property price register I now see that this house has been sold during Q1 2012 by the local authority for the Euro equivalent of what was paid for it 16 years previously in 1996 i.e. £50k or €63500.

The value of the house on the open market at the time of sale in 2012
was about €130k, perhaps a little more than that.

* Apart from myself and those connected with the sale nobody else knows what the council paid for the house in the 90's.

* The new owner assuming it is a local authority tenant has immediate locked in equity, I acknowledge clawback when I say that.

*The Council have walked away from an uplift of at least €66500 or thereabouts which means the taxpayer loses out.

* The Council will have to replace their housing stock at a tangible cost to the taxpayer, similar 3 beds are making €160k today per the price register.

* The Council will be fundng the loan on the property if it was sold to an existing tenant. I say this in the knowledge that the tenants must have low income if they are in the house over a longer term and qualified to get a local authority house, it follows that a Bank mortgage would be a challenge.

I acknowledge the Council may not have a mandate to seek close to market when selling their stock but I think this is wrong. I would possibly agree that a discount to allow purchase to an existing long term tenant is only right in our society so wouldn't an agreed percentage discount off actual open market selling price based on say three professional valuations be very fair, maybe overly fair.?

Does the massively reduced sales price give rise to any taxes for the purchaser as the State have ' gifted ' them €66500 odd ?

What about the other houses in the immediate area, the first place I look at when assessing an area for house purchase is the property price register, would anybody pay todays prices when they see this price..would I be happy If I was trying to sell a similar house, don't think so..

Curious as to opinions on this, I'l not a happy taxpayer when the Councils are screaming they don't get enough from central government and walk away from what to many is a life changing sum of money.

 

[dereko1969]

When I bought my former local authority house 3 years ago, it was only on closing that it became apparent that I had to prove a need for housing or be a first time buyer in order to buy the house from the owner who had purchased it from the LA.

That really annoyed me as if I'd known that in advance it would have effected my bidding strategy. It should be public knowledge when bidding on a house that only those with a housing need or first time buyers could buy the house. My solicitor basically said there was nothing that could be done about it. My situation was complicated by the fact that I was kind of a first time buyer (in Revenue's eyes) but had had a mortgage in my name whilst building a house with my ex that I never got to live in (we split up before the house was habitable) but the LA accepted my bona fides.

Perhaps the LA in this case stuck to the letter of the law and thus the prospective purchasing circle was much smaller or indeed it might only have been purchased by someone on their housing list?