Selling your home

Buy Back Programme

If you own a former council property and are considering selling, our Buy Back Programme allows you to sell your home back to the council. Making selling your home simpler.

What are the benefits?

Get a fair market price
Free valuation of your property
No estate agent fees, potentially saving you thousands of pounds
Open to properties in all conditions
Sell with confidence to the council as a cash buyer, offering a high level of financial security
No chain involved
Help support local housing need, with homes refurbished and returned to council housing for residents who need them

Who can register their interest?

You may be eligible if:

Your property is a former council home managed by Tower Hamlets Council
The property is vacant or owner-occupied
If your property has a tenant/s we would welcome a discussion before proceeding further
The property is located within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets
The property has two or more bedrooms (one-bedroom properties are not currently eligible)
You can provide a contact phone number and email address

What happens next?

Once you have submitted your details via the online form, here’s what you can expect:

A member of the Buyback team will contact you to discuss your property
If your property meets the initial criteria, it will be progressed for a valuation
We will carry out further checks and, if suitable, begin discussions to agree a purchase price
If your property is purchased, it will be used as council housing, helping support residents in need across Tower Hamlets

Selling within five years of the Right to Buy purchase

If you bought your home as one of our tenants under the Right to Buy scheme, and you sell within five years, you must repay some or all of the discount we gave you.

This will be worked out as a percentage of the price for which you are selling your property.

There are some exceptions to repayment of the discount. For example where the property is compulsory purchased or transferred to you as part of a divorce settlement.

If you're looking to re-mortgage within the first five years of your right to buy purchase, you may also need to request a postponement of the charge we have registered with the land registry against your property to protect the discount.

If you are not sure if this applies to you or would like confirmation of this please email us leaseholder.services@towerhamlets.gov.uk

Get a management pack

As a leaseholder, you can sell your property at any time. You will need to make all the arrangements yourself with estate agents and solicitors. We do not allow estate agent boards to be fixed to our blocks, property or estates.

Your solicitor must notify us when you have accepted an offer on your property. They should ask us for information relating to your accounts and property to assist with completing the sale.

We call this a management pack and it is sometimes referred to as a resale pack or an LPE1. We will only provide it to your solicitor, not the buyer or their solicitor.

We charge £350 for this service. We put together information about:

accounts
outstanding charges
a schedule of planned maintenance and major works
insurance policy details

We aim to get the information and issue packs within 15 working days.

If there is an estimated charge for services or for major works in progress, you must agree with the buyer on how to pay any future bills. This is for those you are awaiting a final account for.

The buyer's solicitor may want you to settle these in full. They may also want to agree on an amount to withhold from the purchase price for these future bills.

This amount is known as a “retention” and is held by your solicitor until the final account is known.

Notify us about change in ownership

When you sell your home and the sale is complete, the new leaseholder or their solicitor must notify us. We need to register the assignment of the lease and record the mortgage provider's details.

There will be a small charge for registering a Notice of Transfer.

Contact

Telephone: 020 7364 5015
Request a service online