Based on a real case. Names, figures, dates and some details have been changed so the client cannot be identified, but the way the numbers behave is accurate. Lender criteria change often, so this shows how the assessment worked at the time, not what any lender will offer now.

Who

A couple who had rented their council home in a Hampshire village for over 20 years, with about £45,000 saved

The house

Valued by the council at around £395,000, inside a designated rural area with a resale restriction

The snag

The application was nearly two years old. A fresh one would have fallen under the new £38,000 cap.

The outcome

Old discount kept, covenant checked before the application, placed with a high street lender

A couple who had rented their council home in a Hampshire village for over 20 years got in touch about buying it under Right to Buy. The council had valued the house at around £395,000 and they had roughly £45,000 in savings. They had been told they were entitled to the full discount and wanted to know what a mortgage would look like.

Three things made this one more involved than a standard purchase.

The discount depended on a date, not the current rules

Under the rules in force today, the most a Right to Buy discount can be in the South East is £38,000. On a £395,000 house that would have meant paying about £357,000.

But their application had reached the council a few days before 21 November 2024, which is when the government cut the discount caps. Applications received before that date keep the old cap, and outside London that was £102,400. With over 20 years as tenants their percentage entitlement came to more than half the value of the house, so the cash cap was what applied.

That put the price at roughly £292,600 rather than £357,000. The date stamped on the original application form was worth over £64,000 to them.

The property was in a designated rural area

The village sits inside a part of Hampshire that has been a designated rural area for Right to Buy since the 1980s. That lets the council attach a restriction to the sale which limits any future resale to people who have lived or worked in the district for the previous three years.

Not every lender will accept a property with that restriction. Some decline it outright, others treat it case by case and leave the decision to their valuer. With the loan sitting at around 63% of the open market value and a large pool of qualifying buyers across the whole district, it was a case a mainstream lender could consider, but the covenant wording was checked before the application went in, not after.

The application was nearly two years old

A Right to Buy application that goes quiet can be closed down by the council, and a new one would have fallen under the £38,000 cap. So before any mortgage work started, the clients confirmed with the council in writing that the application was still live, dug out the formal offer notice with the price and discount on it, and asked the council to arrange an EPC, which the property had never needed while it was rented.

The mortgage

The case was placed with a high street lender that lends up to 100% of the discounted purchase price on Right to Buy, as long as the loan stays within its normal loan to value limits against the full market valuation. That meant the £102,400 discount counted as the deposit, and the clients could decide how much of their savings to put in and how much to keep back.

What decided this case

The date on the application form decided the discount. The postcode decided which lenders were in play. The age of the application decided whether there was a case at all.

None of those were about the interest rate, and all three had to be sorted before a rate was worth talking about.

If you applied for Right to Buy before November 2024 and have not followed it through, or you are a council or housing association tenant thinking about it now, your position depends on your own dates, tenancy and property. Working that out is what an advice appointment is for.

This is one case, not a rule. Every application is assessed on its own facts, lender by lender, and your circumstances may produce a different answer. Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.