Study On Right To Buy Scheme In Housing Acts Of England

Right to Buy, as a most important part of social housing security law system ofEngland, is a statutory right provided by Housing Acts, which enables qualified securetenants to buy council houses at a certain discount by living therein for certain years.Right to Buy was first introduced by 1980 Housing Act and the basic structure and maincontents were established in the later 1985 Housing Act and were further perfected byseveral laws and regulations due to various new circumstances occurred during theprocess of its implementation, such as 1988 Housing Act, 1996 Housing Act and 2004Housing Act in particular. By the 25th anniversary of Right to Buy in 2005, according tothe statistics of English Government, there are more than 2910 thousand council houseshaving been sold to public tenants in accordance with Right to Buy. Thousands of publictenants have been benefited by Right to Buy which therefore has become one of the mostimportant and efficient measures of English Government to help its people with mid-leveland low-level incomes to obtain their own houses and has been learnt and adopted bymany other European Countries.As of the date hereof, there are only very general introductions with respect to socialhousing security laws of England, which are seldom covering clauses or systems of anyspecific laws, rules or schemes. This thesis focuses on the study of specific contents ofRight to Buy which proceeds with the introduction and analysis of backgrounds ofHousing Acts of England and that of Right to Buy, and comes forward with suggestions toperfect the system of low-rent housing and that of affordable housing in China based onthe analysis of current status and problems of the foresaid two systems of China.Chapter One of this thesis introduces the background of Right to Buy of England, the backgrounds of English Housing Acts and their evolutions and that of council houses ofEngland as well. Based on the specific provisions of Right to Buy provided in variousHousing Acts of England, Chapter Two introduces and analyzes Right to Buy in greatdetails which includes tenants qualified for Right to Buy, qualifications thereof ,conditions for the exercise of Right to Buy, determination of purchase price, completionof Right to Buy transaction, effects of Right to Buy and powers of the Secretary of Statein the Right to Buy scheme; besides, this chapter also analyzes the implementation effectof Right to Buy, the housing security mode that Right to Buy has created and thelegislative characteristics thereof as well. Chapter Three analyzes the current status oflow-rent housing system and that of affordable housing system in China, points out theproblems of these two systems and comes forward with proposed solutions andsuggestions to introduce Right to Buy in the future Housing Law of China.