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When you need to pay back your Right to Acquire discount

If you sell your Right to Acquire home within five years of owning it, you’ll have to pay back the discount that you got. You’ll only have to do this if you applied to buy your home through Right to Acquire on or after 18 January 2005.

How much you have to pay to your original landlord depends on:

• any change in the value of the property (up or down) since you bought it
• the length of time you’ve owned the property
  
  

If you decide to sell your property after five years, you won’t have to pay the discount back.

Example of paying back your Right to Acquire discount

If you bought your home for £150,000 and got a £15,000 discount, your discount would be worth 10 per cent.

If you then sold your home for £160,000 in the first year, you would have to pay back £16,000 (10 per cent of £160,000).

If you sold your home for £160,000 after three years, you would have to pay back £9,600 (60 per cent of the full £16,000 discount).

• Download a table of Right to Acquire discounts by location (PDF, 89K)

• Help with PDF files

Offering your Right to Acquire property back to the original landlord

If you sell your property within ten years of owning it, you will first have to offer it to your former landlord. This is called the ‘Right of First Refusal’.

Your landlord may want to offer your property to other tenants who:

• can’t afford to buy a home outright
• could buy your property through Right to Acquire

Your landlord has eight weeks to find a suitable buyer. This is known as the ‘nomination period’ and you can ask for it to be made longer than eight weeks.

If two or more people are interested in buying your property, your landlord will decide who to sell it to based on their individual needs.

Your landlord must pay the ‘market value’ for your home. This is the price your home would fetch if it sold on the open market, eg through an estate agent.

If you and your landlord can’t agree on the price, an independent valuer will set the market value of your home. You won’t have to pay for this valuation.

You have to accept the price set by the independent valuer or decide not to sell your home. The price of your home may have gone up or down. The valuation amount is normally valid for a period of three months.

If you decide to sell your home, you will need a solicitor to help you draw up contracts and give legal advice.

• Finding a solicitor

If your landlord doesn’t want your Right to Acquire home

If your landlord doesn’t want your home, you are free to sell it on the open market.

You can use the link below to find out about selling a property on the open market and using an estate agent.

• Selling your home

Useful contacts

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