Right to Buy Information for Tenants

If you wish to apply for the right to buy your home you will need to submit an application form. This form is called Form RTB 1 (notice claiming the right to buy) and you can obtain it from the Home Ownership Section, your Estate Office or the Guildhall complex.

Royal Borough of Kingston also asks you to fill in an ‘additional information form’, which contains questions relating to your ethnicity. It is important that you provide this information as it enables the Council to carry out monitoring to ensure that there is equality in the delivery of services and tailor our services to your needs.

If you are joint tenants you have the right to apply jointly, and can still do so even if one of the joint tenants is not living at the property as their only or principal home.

If you are joint tenants you also have the right to agree that one of you can apply in sole name (the other joint tenant who does not wish to apply must still complete the application form in order to give their agreement).

You have the right to share the right to buy with members of your family. A member of your family includes your son(s), daughter(s), and your husband or wife, or a person with whom you ‘live together as husband or wife’.

The member(s) of your family must live at the property as their only or principal home, and apart from your husband or wife, must have been doing so for the previous twelve months. 

It is very important that if you wish to share the right to buy with a member(s) of your family they must be included in the application form (Form RTB 1) when you make the application.

When you have made your application the Royal Borough of Kingston Home Ownership Section will reply to you with a formal written notice (Form RTB 2) to admit or deny your right to buy. If the right to buy is denied the reason(s) will be given in writing.

When the right to buy has been admitted the Home Ownership Section will continue dealing with your application and will instruct a Valuer to value your home. The valuation is the open market value of your home at the date you make your application.

The price that you will be asked to pay for your home will be stated in a formal offer notice (Section 125 Notice) that the Royal Borough of Kingston will send to you.

The price is calculated by deducting the discount from the valuation.

The length of your public sector tenancy initially determines your discount. However, it is subject to a maximum prescribed by the Secretary of State. 

In some cases discount may be restricted by the total costs incurred by the Council in acquiring and/or repairing/improving your home. This is called the Cost Floor.

Where your home is a flat or maisonette, the offer notice will include a schedule of works (repairs and improvements) that may be carried out to the building in the initial period (approximately five years) after you have purchased your home, along with estimated costs that you could be charged. The valuation takes into account these expected works and charges.

The valuation also disregards the value of any improvements that you have carried out to your home.  This means the property is valued as if the improvements had not been made.

The valuation is determined by the Royal Borough of Kingston. If you disagree with the valuation you have the right to ask for a determination of value by the District Valuer and you would be able to give your reasons directly to the District Valuer. The decision of the District Valuer is final.

If you decide to proceed with the purchase of your home, you must complete the purchase within the time allowed by the right to buy regulations.

The Royal Borough of Kingston can serve a notice to complete three months after your right to buy offer has been served (or three months after the notice following the determination of value by the District Valuer). This notice lasts for fifty-six days, and if you have not completed within this period a further and final fifty-six day notice is served. 

If the final notice to complete expires your application will be deemed withdrawn and you will need to reapply if you wish to exercise the Right to Buy.

If you think the Council is causing delay in dealing with your application you have the right to serve an initial notice of delay on the Council. In the notice you must specify why you think the Council is causing delay and state a period, which must not be less than one month, within which the Council must respond.

If the Council does not respond within the required time you have the right to serve an operative notice of delay. Following this, rent paid during the delay period will have the effect of reducing the purchase price should you go on to complete the purchase of your home.

Please note that, prior to actual completion, at no time during your application are you under any obligation, and you can withdraw at any time.