Right to Acquire: your discount, the steps and the resale rules

Right to Acquire at a glance

How is your Right to Acquire discount worked out?

Right to Acquire does not work like Right to Buy. You do not get a percentage that grows with your years as a tenant. You get one fixed sum, set by law for the council area your home is in. It can never be more than half your home’s value, and it is lower if you have had a discount from a public landlord before.

The amount for every area is in the Schedule to the Housing (Right to Acquire) (Discount) Order 2002. The Order still uses council names from 2002. Some of those councils have since merged, such as in Cornwall, Wiltshire and North Yorkshire. Your landlord’s offer gives your own figure. If you cannot find your area, ask your landlord which line applies.

Buying in London? See conveyancing in London. In Leicester or Leicestershire? See conveyancing in Leicester.

Can you use Right to Acquire, or is it Right to Buy?

It depends on who your landlord is and when your home was built or bought.

You may have Right to Acquire if all of these are true:

• Your landlord is a housing association registered with the Regulator of Social Housing.
• Your home was built or bought by a housing association after 31 March 1997 with a social housing grant, or moved from a council to a housing association after 31 March 1997.
• You have had a public sector landlord for 3 full years. Councils, housing associations, the armed services and NHS trusts all count, and the years do not need to be in a row.
• The home is self-contained, and it is your only or main home.
• You have a secure or assured tenancy. An assured shorthold tenancy counts only if it began on or after 1 April 2012 for a fixed term of at least 2 years.

You cannot use it if you are being made bankrupt, a court has ordered you to leave your home, or a court has suspended your Right to Acquire because of anti-social behaviour. Council tenants use Right to Buy instead. If your council sold your home to a housing association while you lived there, you may have Preserved Right to Buy, which also comes under Right to Buy. See Right to Buy conveyancing.

You can buy with someone who shares your tenancy, and with up to 3 family members who have lived with you for the last 12 months.

How is Right to Acquire different from Right to Buy?

The same 3-year rule, the same notice times and the same 5-year payback apply. The discount is the big difference. Checked 29 October 2026. A bill before Parliament could change some of these rules (see below).

Which housing association homes are left out?

Even if you qualify, some homes are excluded by law. Your landlord will tell you in its reply. The main ones are:

• homes in small rural areas named by the government
• homes kept for older people, with a warden or special facilities
• homes adapted for people with disabilities, or kept for people with intensive support needs, as one of a group
• homes let with a job
• homes due to be demolished, after the landlord has served a final demolition notice
• homes where the landlord does not own a long enough lease to sell you, or where a private owner holds the freehold
• homes owned by a co-operative housing association

If your landlord says no, it must tell you why. GOV.UK says you cannot appeal against that decision.

What happens between your RTA1 form and getting the keys?

1. You apply. Fill in the RTA1 form and send it to your landlord. You can withdraw at any time and keep renting.
2. Within 4 weeks, your landlord says yes or no (8 weeks if it has been your landlord for under 3 years). It may also offer you a different empty home it owns. You do not have to take it.
3. Within 8 weeks (freehold) or 12 weeks (leasehold), the offer. It gives the price and how it was worked out, your discount, what land is included, any known structural problems and, for a flat, service charge estimates for the first 5 years.
4. You have 12 weeks to say you still want to buy. If you do not reply, the landlord gives you 28 more days, then can treat your application as withdrawn. If you say yes but the purchase then stalls, the landlord can send a notice to complete (an RTA4), then a final one (an RTA5), each giving you at least 56 days. If you miss the final one, it can drop your application.
5. We take over the purchase. Once you instruct us, our typical time from instruction to completion is 8 to 10 weeks for a freehold home and 10 to 12 weeks for a leasehold one. It depends on the landlord, the searches and your lender. You will have a named contact throughout.
6. Completion. We send the money to the landlord’s solicitors, file any Stamp Duty return, and register you as the owner at HM Land Registry.

Send us the landlord’s offer as soon as it arrives. Your 12-week reply period and the 3-month window to challenge the value both start from it.

What should you check in the landlord’s offer?

The value. The price is the market value on the date of your application, less your discount. Improvements you made yourself are left out of the value. If you think the value is too high, write to your landlord within 3 months of getting the offer and ask for an independent valuation. A district valuer from HM Revenue and Customs visits and decides. You then have 12 weeks to accept that value or pull out.

A flat. You will usually buy a long lease and pay a service charge for the building. The offer must estimate the service charges for the first 5 years. For that first 5 years, what you pay towards repairs and improvements is tied to those estimates, plus inflation. More on buying a leasehold home.

A tall block. If the flat is in a building in England that is at least 11 metres high or has at least 5 storeys, the building safety papers matter too.

Do you pay stamp duty on the full value or the discounted price?

On the price you actually pay, after the discount. The law treats a discounted sale by a non-profit housing association as a “right to buy transaction”. The market value is not used, and the chance that you may have to pay the discount back later is not taxed either. The relief is claimed on the Stamp Duty return. When we act on your purchase in England, we file the Stamp Duty return and pay HMRC from the money you send us.

Work out the tax on your own price with our stamp duty calculator.

Will a mortgage lender lend on a Right to Acquire home?

Many buyers use a mortgage. When you buy, your old landlord takes a legal charge over your home for the discount you might have to pay back. If your lender is an authorised mortgage lender, such as a high street bank or building society, the lender’s mortgage comes first and the landlord’s charge sits behind it. If you use a lender that is not authorised, the landlord’s charge comes first.

Later, the landlord can agree to let a new loan for work on the home rank ahead of its charge, but not for any other reason.

We can usually act for you and your lender at the same time.

How much discount do you pay back if you sell within 5 years?

If you sell within 5 years of buying, you pay back part of the discount. The amount is not your original discount in pounds. It is the same share of the sale price as your discount was of the value when you bought.

GOV.UK’s example: a home worth £100,000 bought with a 10% discount (£10,000) and sold after 18 months for £120,000. 10% of £120,000 is £12,000, and in year 2 you repay 80% of that: £9,600. Any rise in value that comes only from your own improvements is left out. The calculator on this page works out your own figure.

Some transfers do not trigger a payback, such as to a spouse, under a will, or under a court order on divorce. Your old landlord can also waive some or all of it in exceptional cases, such as a move to escape violence.

Selling within 10 years. You must first offer the home to your old landlord at full market price. If you cannot agree a price, a district valuer sets it, free. If the landlord does not agree to buy within 8 weeks, you can sell to anyone.

Is there a Right to Acquire in Wales, and is the English scheme changing?

Wales. No. The Abolition of the Right to Buy and Associated Rights (Wales) Act 2018 ended both Right to Buy and Right to Acquire, from 26 January 2019. Housing association tenants in Wales can look at the Welsh Government’s own schemes: Shared Ownership – Wales (buy a 25% to 75% share), Homebuy – Wales (an equity loan of 30% to 50%, with set criteria) and Help to Buy – Wales (new builds within the scheme’s price limit; applications must be in by 31 March 2027). Wales has Land Transaction Tax, not Stamp Duty.

England. A Social Housing Bill is going through Parliament. On 29 October 2026 it was at committee stage in the House of Commons. It would change Right to Buy, and Homes England says it includes provisions that will affect Right to Acquire. None of it is law yet, so the rules on this page are the ones that apply today.

What will we charge for a Right to Acquire purchase?

Our fee range for buying a residential property is in the box below; a flat also has a leasehold fee line (see our fees). Stamp Duty Land Tax and the HM Land Registry fee are government charges, kept apart from our fees. We give you a written, itemised quote before you instruct us.

What happens if my purchase falls through? You pay the File Opening Fee (Non-refundable) and any third-party costs we have already paid out for you, such as searches. Anything else you have paid us is refunded, or carried over to your next purchase when you find one.

Your landlord decides if you qualify and sets the figures in its offer.

What happens next

• Right to Buy conveyancing
• Stamp duty calculator
• Buying a leasehold home
• More guides, explained