Clause 5Exceptions
Homes Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Nigel Waterson (Eastbourne, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 4, line 26, at end add
`save that this section shall not apply to residential properties owned by local authorities or registered social landlords.'.
The amendment is a probing one which would remove from the provision properties owned by local authorities or registered social landlords. It follows from a debate in which my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Mr. Curry) raised the issue in the context of a sitting tenant and the sale of a council house. The amendment is designed to clarify the matter. The clause is drafted broadly on the basis of vacant possession being available.
Two examples were posited by my right hon. Friend, the first of which is that of a sitting tenant who has been living in the council house for, say, 20 years and who wants to buy it under right-to-buy legislation. Would that transaction require the full rigour of a seller's pack? The Minister's view was that even though the tenant had been living there for 20 years, the house might have all sorts of problems that had not been noticed, so a seller's pack was important. He said:
The local authority will provide the seller's pack as part of its response to the right-to-buy notice and the private landlord will be obliged to prepare a seller's pack.—[Official Report, Standing Committee D, 16 January 2001; c. 65.]
My right hon. Friend's second scenario was that of a person who had not himself lived in the property for 20 years, but whose family had lived there. Again, the Minister made it absolutely clear that local authority sales, whether or not a sitting tenant was involved, would still have to prepare a seller's pack in the usual way.
There are several issues extending beyond the amendment, which I may speak to as part of a short stand part debate. Amendment No. 3 is a rather blunt instrument, but it is only one of the avenues by which the legislation could be made to address the undoubted problem of low-demand, low-value areas. I do not know whether the Minister has had significant representations from large landlords of social housing in areas with very low demand where there is a desire to sell properties in due course, about whether the amendment might be one way in which to exempt properties in areas where the sheer cost of the seller's pack may deter people altogether from getting into a sale. That is a separate issue. The amendment itself is very much a probing amendment.
We certainly do not contend that, as a matter of principle, tenants of social housing should be excluded from the benefits of seller's packs—of course, we do not think that there are many benefits to be gained from a legally required seller's pack system, but I shall not weary the Committee by repeating the reasons for our view. None the less, I should be grateful for the Minister's comments.