12  Right to Buy/Acquire and CNDT

The Right to Buy provisions set out in the Housing Act 1985 are not applicable to non-HRA Projects as the provisions only apply to secure local authority tenants.  A similar provision does exist (known as Right to Acquire) in section 16 of the Housing Act 1996 (and section 180 of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008) and is applicable to tenants of RSLs or RPs.  Right to Acquire should not, however, apply to non-HRA Projects.  Where general needs housing is being provided projects should be structured so that dwellings delivered under a non-HRA Project do not satisfy the test of being provided with public money (as that test is narrowly defined in section 16, or section 181(4) of the Housing and Regeneration Act 2008).7

Separate exemptions to the Right to Acquire apply for dwellings which are specially adapted for use by elderly tenants or tenants with mental or learning disabilities.  Authorities should ensure that their schemes are structured to ensure that they are able to fall within one of these exemptions where their schemes involve housing for the elderly or those with mental or learning disabilities.

The HPP provisions at clauses 28.5 and 28.6 and all associated definitions should therefore be deleted.

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7  See also Section 2 of this Guidance.