What are the Right to Buy and Right to Acquire schemes?

If you rent your home from the council or a housing association in England, you might be able to buy it with a discount through the Right to Buy scheme.

The discount could be between £16,000 and £38,000, depending on where you live.

If you sell your home within five years, you will need to repay some or all of the discount. You might also need to share any profit. The amount you pay back gets smaller the longer you keep the home within the five years.

Learn more about Your right to buy your home at GOV.UKOpens in a new window

The highest discount is different in each area, so always check what is offered where you live.

The amount of discount you can get depends on how long you've been living in social housing. The longer you've been a tenant, the bigger the discount available, up to the maximum amounts mentioned above.

The level of discount is different for houses and flats, but for both you are eligible after 3 years of being a council or housing association tenant.

Find out what discount you could get at GOV.UKOpens in a new window

The Right to Buy discount was reduced on 21 November 2024. But if you applied on or before 20 November 2024, you will still be eligible for the higher maximum discount of £102,400, or £136,400 in London.

If in doubt, contact your landlord to check.

• you’ve been a council or public sector tenant for three years in total (it doesn't have to be consecutive)
• the home you want to buy will be used as your main home
• you don’t share rooms with other people – that is, the property is self-contained
• your landlord is the council, a housing association, NHS trust or other public sector landlord.

• You can apply for Right to Buy with someone else who shares the tenancy with you; or with as many as three members of your family if you’ve lived together for at least the past 12 months. You can do this even if they're not on your tenancy.
• If the council sold your home to another public sector landlord while you were living there, you may still buy it under ‘Preserved Right to Buy’Opens in a new window

• if you’re under threat of eviction, are bankrupt or have large debts
• if your home is reserved for the elderly or disabled
• when there's a shortage of housing
• if you have any outstanding anti-social behaviour issues.

Ask your landlord for a Right to Buy form or complete the RTB1 application form online at GOV.UKOpens in a new window. Once you’ve posted it, your landlord must reply within four weeks, or eight weeks if they've been your landlord for less than three years.

If the answer is no they must say why, and if the answer is yes they’ll send you an offer. They must send you an offer within eight weeks of saying yes if you're buying a freehold property, or 12 weeks if you're buying a leasehold property.

See our guide Leasehold vs freehold: what’s the difference?

Contact the Right to Buy Agent ServiceOpens in a new window for free and impartial advice or to help with the application process.

Your landlord will name their price and explain the discount. You can work out the discount you might get using the Right to Buy calculatorOpens in a new window

If you don’t think it’s fair you can ask for a valuation from the independent Valuation Office Agency from HM Revenue & CustomsOpens in a new window

• The landlord’s offer will include a description of the property and any land, details of any structural problems and an estimate of the service charge (if any) for the first five years.
• The landlord must tell you if there are restrictions on who you can sell your home to later. This could make it more difficult to get a mortgage.
• You have 12 weeks to decide whether to go ahead.

Yes, you can pull out of the sale and carry on renting at any time.

Most buyers need a mortgage to pay for their home.

You can apply for a mortgage from a bank or building society and the lender will check you can afford to meet the repayments. Your Right to Buy discount counts as your deposit, so you won't need to find additional money for that.

See our guide on Buying a home – what mortgage can I afford?

Before going ahead, make sure you have enough money to cover fees and other costs you’ll need to pay when buying your home.

A family member can help you finance this, but the mortgage and property ownership must be in your name, as the person applying for the right to buy. 

You’ll also need to consider if you'll be able to keep up payments if interest rates go up – so see our guide Understanding mortgages and interest rates.

Our Mortgage repayment calculator can help you work out what it could cost you.

Right to Acquire is a scheme offered in England for housing association tenants who don’t qualify for Right to Buy.

• You must have been a tenant for three years and be buying your property to use as your main home.
• You can’t join the scheme if you’re under threat of eviction, bankrupt or if you have any large debts.
• If properties are due to be demolished, or are provided for the elderly, disabled or those in certain jobs, they are not eligible.
• Discounts are lower than under Right to Buy and typically range from £9,000 to £16,000. Visit GOV.UK to check Right to Acquire discounts by locationOpens in a new window
  

To qualify for the scheme, your landlord must be a housing association or on the register of social housing providers

Your home must have been built with public funds or taken over from a local council after 1 April 1997.

• Right to Acquire
• Government schemes for first-time home buyers and existing homeowners.

This scheme is only available to tenants of the Housing Executive – it no longer applies to tenants in registered housing associations.

Once you've been a tenant of the Housing Executive for five years (or your partner or parent was previously the tenant) you might be able to buy your home. The amount of discount you'll get increases depending on how long you've lived in the property. Some property types can't be bought because they are difficult to come by and needed for social housing stock.

The maximum discount available to Housing Executive tenants applying to buy their home is £24,000. Your discount will be 20% if you’ve lived in the property for at least five years. You’ll get an extra 2% discount for every extra year, up to a maximum discount of 60% of the valuation or £24,000 (whichever is lower).