Housing association tenants paying cheap rent to live in homes worth millions could get the chance to buy them at discounted prices under new right-to-buy plans.
A number of people are currently paying around £150 a week to live in flats in exclusive parts of Mayfair and Covent Garden in London which are owned by housing associations and are now worth several million.
Under Conservative plans to give tenants the chance to own their own homes, people living in these plush properties could now get the chance to buy them with discounts of up to £102,000 in London, after living in them for cheaper rents.
The properties form part of affordable housing because of agreements with developers to provide low-cost provisions when new developments are built over a certain size.
Many of them were built years ago in areas which have now become expensive and are worth millions of pounds. This enables tenants to occupy properties worth at least £1million for cheap rents, and many tenancies go unreviewed if circumstances change.
However the value of the housing stock has raised questions over whether they should be sold to fund more housing.
An investigation by the Sunday Times found that 10 properties owned by the Peabody housing association in London are located in the expensive areas of Mayfair and Covent Garden - and are worth between £1million and £2.2million.
The house used in the recent Paddington Bear film, in Primrose Hill, is also owned as affordable housing.
Philomena Nugent,who lives in one of the Peabody flats in Drury Lane, told the newspaper she plans to buy her property for her pregnant daughter, Ciara Nugent, a model based in New York.
One Housing, which owns 750,000 properties in London, said around 750 of these were worth more than £1million.
Under plans proposed by the Conservatives the right to buy will be extended to 1.3million homes, occupied by 2.75million people. It is aimed at giving more people the opportunity to own their own homes and every house sold will be replaced on a one-for-one basis.
But Housing Associations have opposed the proposals to sell their costly buildings at discounted prices, saying it will mean while individual tenants may benefit there will be no affordable housing left for people who need it most.
They have also said owning property which has recently risen in value allows them to finance future developments.
National Housing Federation director Ruth Davison recently branded the scheme the 'wrong' solution to the housing crisis.
She said: 'Halfway through a programme of austerity and in the grips of a housing crisis, if you had £20 billion of taxpayers' money, would you just give it away as a gift to some of the most securely housed people in the country on some of the lowest rents?'
The original right-to-buy scheme saw more than 1.5million council homes being sold off at discounted rates, and became one of Margaret Thatcher's best known policies.
At the moment housing associations, which receive public money and loans to provide affordable housing, are exempt from the scheme. Around 800,000 people have a 'limited right to acquire', and are eligible for maximum discounts of £16,000.
Some tenants who are currently paying around £150 a week to live in the expensive London districts are keen to take advantage of the right-to-buy plans to try and buy their properties. However some insist even with the discount of up to £102,000 in London they will still be unable to buy their homes.
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