Right to Buy Calculator

Right to Buy allows eligible council tenants in England to buy their home at a discount. The discount depends on the property type and length of tenancy. For houses, the discount is 35% for 3 to 5 years' tenancy, then rises by 1% for each extra year after 5, up to 70%. For flats, it is 50% for 3 to 5 years, then rises by 2% for each extra year after 5, up to 70%. Either way the cash discount is capped at the regional maximum. To qualify you need to be a secure tenant who has had a public sector landlord (a council, housing association or NHS trust) for at least 3 years, which do not have to be in a row. Former council tenants can also use the Preserved Right to Buy if their home was transferred to a housing association, while other housing association tenants may have the Right to Acquire, which has fixed discounts of £9,000 to £16,000 and is not covered by this calculator.

Maximum cash discount caps were reformed from 21 November 2024 (SI 2024/1073): the cap is now a regional figure of £16,000 to £38,000 (for example £16,000 across most of London and £38,000 in most of the South East), with local exceptions: £38,000 in Barking and Dagenham and Havering, and £16,000 in Watford and eight South East areas (Reading, West Berkshire, Hart, Oxford, Vale of White Horse, Tonbridge and Malling, Epsom and Ewell, and Reigate and Banstead). That is down from the former £136,400 in London and £102,400 across the rest of England. The discount is the lower of this regional cap or 70% of the property value, so in practice the cap decides the outcome far more often than the percentage does. Picture a house worth £200,000 where the tenancy earns a 45% discount. On paper that is £90,000 off, but with a £38,000 cap the discount is £38,000 and you pay £162,000. In London the £16,000 cap bites harder still.

This calculator shows the discount you are entitled to based on your tenancy length and property type. Enter the market value of your home, your years as a public sector tenant, whether it is a house or a flat, and your region (ticking the box if you live in one of the council areas with a different cap) to see the purchase price after the discount. An optional section estimates the repayment if you sell within 5 years, from your expected sale price and the year of sale. The location matters because it sets the cap. The scheme itself now runs only in England: Wales abolished Right to Buy in 2019 and Scotland in 2016, while Northern Ireland offers a similar House Sales Scheme instead.

If you sell the property within 5 years, you must repay some or all of the discount, and the repayment is based on the sale price rather than the original cash sum. Take the discount you received as a percentage of the value when you bought, apply it to the sale price, then repay 100% of that if you sell in the first year, 80% in the second, 60% in the third, 40% in the fourth and 20% in the fifth. After 5 years there is nothing to repay. Say you received £26,000 off a £180,000 home, 14.44% of its value, and sell in the fourth year for £200,000: 14.44% of £200,000 is £28,889, and 40% of that is £11,556. Many owners wait for the 5-year anniversary for exactly that reason. You may not have to repay the discount if you transfer the home to a family member, but you need to agree this with your landlord first. If you sell within 10 years, you must first offer the home to your former landlord or another social landlord in the area.

Most UK lenders offer Right to Buy mortgages, special products that treat the discount as gifted equity. The loan-to-value ratio is worked out on the purchase price rather than the market value. On a £162k purchase of a £200k property, a 25% deposit of £40,500 gives a 75% LTV, yet the loan covers only about 61% of the market value. Halifax, Barclays and Nationwide are among the best lenders in 2026, with competitive rates from 4.5%. Some lenders refuse Right to Buy applications altogether, so a broker familiar with the scheme can save a good deal of wasted effort.

Under the current caps the discount is worth at most £16,000 to £38,000 of equity from day one, depending on where you live, and ownership brings the freedom to alter the property and pass it on to family, while the rent you used to pay becomes mortgage payments that build equity and the usual capital growth on property applies. Against that, repairs and maintenance become your responsibility, leasehold flats come with service charges and ground rent, and mortgage interest payments may exceed your previous rent. Service charges on leasehold buildings can be huge, with £3,000 to £8,000 a year typical in large blocks. Those running costs deserve as much attention as the headline discount before you sign anything.

Further changes are planned but not yet law. The Social Housing Bill [HL], which has passed the House of Lords and is now before the House of Commons, would lengthen the qualifying period from 3 to 10 years, set the discount at 5% of value rising by 1% a year to a maximum of 15% (still subject to the cash cap), and exempt newly built council homes for 35 years. Until it is passed and brought into force, the current rules used by this calculator apply.