Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T23:58:02.833Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Legacy of the Right to Buy and the Differentiation of Older Home Owners

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2019

Vikki McCall ,
Madhu Satsangi  and
Corinne Greasley-Adams
Vikki McCall
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling, Scotland E-mail: [email protected]
Madhu Satsangi
Affiliation:
School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow, Scotland E-mail: [email protected]
Corinne Greasley-Adams
Affiliation:
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling, Scotland E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores older owner occupiers in lower value properties who, having acquired their home through the Right to Buy (RTB) in the 1980s, are now experiencing housing-related challenges in older age. This article outlines the views and perceptions of older owner occupiers, social landlords, voluntary groups and housing organisations to explore the legacy of the RTB. Current and future policy challenges in the area include the differentiation of home owners, difficulties of selling property with low equity in older age and the relationship between health and housing. This article calls to widen the analysis of the long-term impact of the RTB to owner occupiers in lower value properties and notes that ‘ageing in place’ goes beyond looking at people’s current house to the linked housing choices available to them. We recommend that policy support be extended to older home owners to increase housing choice in older age.

Keywords

Right to buyageing populationhousing choicehousing policyowner occupiers
Type
Articles
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , April 2020 , pp. 225 - 241
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Banks, J., Blundell, R., Oldfield, Z. and Smith, J. P. (2012) ‘Housing mobility and downsizing at older ages in Britain and the USA’, Economica, 79, 1–26.Google Scholar
Care and Repair England (2014) A Perfect Storm: An Ageing Population, Low Income Home Ownership, and Decay of Older Housing, Care and Repair England: Nottingham.Google Scholar
Clark, W. A. V. (2012) ‘Residential mobility and the housing market’, in Clapham, D., Clark, W. A. V. and Gibb, K. (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Housing Studies, London: SAGE.Google Scholar
Clapham, D. (2005) The Meaning of Housing: A Pathways Approach, Bristol: Bristol University Press.Google Scholar
Corlett, A. (2017) As Time Goes By: Shifting Incomes and Inequality between and within Generations, London: Resolution Foundation, http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/app/uploads/2017/02/IC-intra-gen.pdf [accessed from 13.02.2017].Google Scholar
Cowan, D. Wallace, A. and Carr, H. (2015) Exploring Experiences of Shared Ownership Housing: Reconciling Owning and Renting, https://www.york.ac.uk/media/chp/documents/2015/sharedOwnershipCHPL.pdf [accessed 13.02.2017].Google Scholar
Dorling, D. (2015) ‘Policy, politics, health and housing in the UK’, Policy and Politics, 43, 2, 163–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forrest, R. and Leather, P. (1998) ‘The ageing of the property owning democracy’, Ageing and Society, 18, 1, 35–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forrest, R. and Murie, A. (1985) ‘Restructuring the welfare state: privatization of public housing in Britain’, in van Vliet, W., Huttman, E. and Fava, S. (eds.), Housing Needs and Policy Approaches: Trends in Thirteen Countries, Durham: Duke University Press, 97–109.Google Scholar
Forrest, R. and Murie, A. (1988) Selling the Welfare State: The Privatisation of Public Housing, 2nd edn, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Forrest, R., Murie, A. and Gordon, D. (1995) The Resale of Former Council Homes, Housing Research Report for the Department of the Environment, London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Forrest, R., Murie, A. and Williams, P. (1990) Home Ownership: Differentiation and Fragmentation, London: Hyman.Google Scholar
Gibb, K. (2014) ‘Housing policy in Scotland since devolution: divergence, crisis, integration and opportunity’, Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 23, 1, 29–42.Google Scholar
Golant, S. M. (2008). ‘Commentary: irrational exuberance for the aging in place of vulnerable low-income older homeowners’, Journal of Aging and Social Policy, 20, 4, 379–97.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Golant, S. M. (2015) Aging in the Right Place, Baltimore: Health Professions Press.Google Scholar
Goodlad, R. and Atkinson, R. (2004) ‘Sacred cows, rational debates and the politics of the right to buy after devolution’, Housing Studies, 19, 3, 447–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Griffith, M. (2011) Hoarding of Housing: The Intergenerational Crisis in the Housing Market, Intergenerational Foundation.Google Scholar
Griffiths, D. and McCall, V. (2015) Growing Older in Scotland: Health, Housing and Care. 2011 Census Data Analysis, Research Briefing for the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.Google Scholar
Hamnett, C. (1999) Winners and Losers: Home Ownership in Modern Britain, London: Taylor and Francis.Google Scholar
Hills, J., Cunliffe, J., Gambaro, L. and Obolenskaya, P. (2013) Who Won and Who Lost as the Economic Crisis Hit? Changing Inequality in the UK, 2007-2010, Summary Research Report 2, CASE, LSE, JRF, Nuffield and Trust for London.Google Scholar
Hoolachan, J. and McKee, K. (2019) ‘Inter-generational housing inequalities: perspectives from “Baby Boomers” versus the “Millennials”’, Urban Studies, 56, 1, 210–25.Google Scholar
Jones, C. A. and Murie, A. (1999) ‘Stability and change in council estates: the Right to Buy’, Housing and Planning Review, 54, 2, 11–2.Google Scholar
Jones, C. and Murie, A. (2006) The Right to Buy: Analysis and Evaluation of a Housing Policy, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kendig, H. L. (1984) ‘Housing careers, life cycle and residential mobility: implications for the housing market’, Urban Studies, 21, 271–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leather, P. and Moseley, R. (2002) Investment in Housing: Towards Better Policies for Repairing and Improving the Housing Stock, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/investment-housing-towards-better-policies-repairing-and-improving-housing-stock, [accessed 21.08.19].Google Scholar
Maclennan, D. (2012) ‘Understanding housing markets: real progress or stalled agendas?’, in Clapham, D. F., Clark, W. A. V. and Gibb, K. (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Housing Studies, London: SAGE, 5–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Means, R. (2007) ‘Safe as houses? Ageing in place and vulnerable older people in the UK’, Social Policy and Administration, 41, 1, 65–85.Google Scholar
McCall, V., Eadie, J., Lovatt, M., MacIntyre, Z., Phillips, J., Porteus, J., Robertson, J., Rutherford, A., Sixsmith, J., Woolrytch, R. and Ziegler, F. (2018) Housing and Ageing: Linking Strategy to Future Delivery for Scotland, Wales and England 2030, Glasgow: Scottish Universities Insight Institute.Google Scholar
McKee, K. (2010) ‘Promoting homeownership at the margins: the experience of low-cost homeownership purchasers in regeneration areas’, People, Place and Policy Online, 4, 2, 38–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKee, K. (2011) ‘Challenging the norm? The “ethopolitics” of low-cost homeownership in Scotland’, Urban Studies, 48, 16, 3399–413.Google Scholar
McKee, K., Muir, J. and Moore, T. (2016) ‘Housing policy in the UK: the importance of spatial nuance’, Housing Studies, 32, 1, 60–72.Google Scholar
Merrett, S. and Gray, F. (1982) Owner Occupation in Britain, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (2018) English Housing Survey 2016 to 2017: Private Rented Sector, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/english-housing-survey-2016-to-2017-private-rented-sector [accessed 14.02.2019].Google Scholar
Murie, A. (2016) The Right to Buy? Selling off Public and Social Housing, Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Office of National Statistics (2012) Population Ageing in the United Kingdom, its Constituent Countries and the European Union, London: ONS.Google Scholar
Ong, R., Wood, G. A. and Colic-Peisker, V. (2015) ‘Housing older Australians: loss of homeownership and pathways into housing assistance’, Urban Studies, 52, 16, 2979–3000.Google Scholar
Pawson, H. and Watkins, C. (1998) ‘The position and role of former public sector homes in the owner-occupied sector: new evidence from the Scottish housing market’, Urban Studies, 35, 8, 1291–309.Google Scholar
Pierson, P. (1994) Dismantling the Welfare State?: Reagan, Thatcher and the Politics of Retrenchment, Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Phillips, J. and the Expert Group on Housing and Ageing Population in Wales (2017) Our Housing AGEnda: Meeting the Housing Aspirations of Older People in Wales, Cardiff: Welsh Government.Google Scholar
Revell, K. and Leather, P. (2000) The State of UK Housing (2nd edition): A Factfile on Housing Conditions and Housing Renewal Policies in the UK, York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.Google Scholar
Saunders, P. (1990) A Nation of Home Owners, London: Unwin Hyman.Google Scholar
Scottish Government (2013) The Future of the Right to Buy in Scotland, Consultation Report, https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20170701074158/www.gov.scot/Publications/2013/07/1537 [accessed 21.08.19].Google Scholar
Scottish Government (2014) End in Sight for Right to Buy, http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/End-in-sight-for-Right-to-Buy-bcc.aspx [accessed 21.08.19].Google Scholar
Scottish Government (2015) High Level Summary of Statistics data for Housing and Regeneration Trends, https://www2.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Housing-Regeneration/Archivehsfs [accessed 21.08.19].Google Scholar
Searle, B. A. and Smith, S. J. (2010) ‘Housing wealth as insurance: insights from the UK’, in Smith, S. J. and Searle, B. A. (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to the Economics of Housing: the Housing Wealth of Nations, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Select Committee on Public Service and Demographic Change (2013) Ready for Ageing?, London: House of Lords, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201213/ldselect/ldpublic/140/140.pdf, [Accessed 27.09.2016].Google Scholar
Shelter (2012) Department for Communities and Local Government Consultation: Reinvigorating the Right to Buy and One for One Replacement, London: Shelter.Google Scholar
Spies-Butcher, B. (2014) ‘Generational war: a monster of our own making’, The Conversation, http://theconversation.com/generational-war-a-monster-of-our-own-making-35469 [accessed 27.05.2019].Google Scholar
van Ham, M. (2012) ‘Housing behaviour’, in Clapham, D. F., Clark, W. A. V. and Gibb, K. (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Housing Studies, London: SAGE, 47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, A. (1981) ‘Towards a political economy of old age’, Ageing and Society, 1, 1, 73–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, A. (2018) ‘Why the UK needs a social policy on ageing’, Journal of Social Policy, 47, 2, 253–73.Google Scholar
Wilcox, S., Perry, J. and Williams, P. (2015) UK Housing Review, 2015, Coventry: Chartered Institute of Housing.Google Scholar
Wiles, J. L., Leibing, A., Guberman, N., Reeve, J. and Allen, R. E. S. (2011) ‘The meaning of “aging in place” to older people’, Gerontologist, 52, 3, 357–66.Google Scholar
Williams, N. J. and Twine, F. E. (1992) ‘Increasing access or widening choice: the role of resold public-sector dwellings in the housing market’, Environment and Planning A, 24, 11, 1585–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar