The new Social Housing Bill was announced 13 May 2026 and is progressing at pace through Parliament. Described by the government as “the next step in the delivery of our decade of renewal for social and affordable housing”. This webpage summarises the key reforms in the Bill on:
- Right to Buy.
- Disposals (the sale of social homes to the private market).
- Protections for victims of domestic abuse.
Below we also summarise an amendment on access that’s being debated in Parliament, and will update this webpage further this debate continues and other relevant amendments arise.
You can read the full detail of the Bill on the government’s website.
Summary of the Social Housing Bill
Right to Buy
The Bill contains comprehensive reforms to Right to Buy including:
- Increasing the minimum tenancy required to be eligible for the Right to Buy from three to ten years.
- Reforming discounts so they start at 5% of the property value and go up to a maximum of 15% or the cash discount cap (whichever is lower).
- Exempting the following: newly built social and affordable homes for 35 years, rural homes, council homes for market rent.
- Preventing tenants who have previously benefitted from the scheme from exercising the Right to Buy, with a small number of exceptions.
- Aligning the Right to Acquire scheme with the reforms to Right to Buy.
Other points to be aware of are that:
- In its Reforming the Right to Buy consultation response, the government confirmed that it would not be extending the Right to Buy scheme to housing association tenants given the substantial costs to the taxpayer and the reduction in social housing stock that is likely to result. This does not require primary legislation, so there are no provisions relating to this decision contained in the Social Housing Bill.
- Eligible housing association tenants will still to be able to use the Right to Acquire scheme, and this Bill seeks to align the Right to Acquire with the reformed Right to Buy, to ensure consistency between the two schemes. Discounts for the Right to Acquire are unaffected by these changes, and will continue to be £9,000 to £16,000, depending on the location.
We welcome these all of the above changes, which broadly enact the proposals set out in the government's Reforming the Right to Buy Response – Right to Buy in its current form has reduced the number of social homes across the country over decades, and we have been calling for changes to the system for years.
Therefore, we do not support tabled amendments that aim to undo the Right to Buy reforms in this legislation, including proposals to reduce the Right to Buy eligibility period and increase discount rates. We are working with politicians from all parties to ensure they understand how these changes would erode confidence to build in the social housing sector amid an already acute shortage of affordable homes.
Disposals (the sale of social homes to the private market)
The Bill contains new requirements on disposals, including:
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A requirement for housing associations to notify the relevant local authority and other private providers in their area before a disposal takes place, thereby giving these organisations the opportunity to consider whether they have any interest in purchasing the property.
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There will be a four-week period after the notification has taken place before the sale of a property can be completed.
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During the notification period, providers will remain free to market properties, engage with potential buyers and progress disposal plans in the usual way.
We are seeking views on these proposals. Our initial view is that this new requirement strikes an appropriate balance: allowing for effective transparency and collaboration between housing associations and local authorities without adding major restrictions to effective housing management. Please share your views, in particular on the timescale of four weeks, by contacting Kevin Garvey, Head of Member Relations.
Protections for victims of domestic abuse
The Bill contains new protections, including:
- Stronger powers for landlords to enable them to take possession of a property where domestic abuse has taken place without the requirement for the victim to leave.
- A new mechanism to facilitate the transfer of the joint tenancy into the sole name of the victim, where a victim wants to remain in the home as a sole tenant.
- Powers to enable the courts to make an order to provide the victim with suitable alternative accommodation, where it is not appropriate for the victim to remain in a home and the landlord has this accommodation available.
- A safeguard to ensure that perpetrators are unable to unilaterally end a joint tenancy in retaliation against possession action until proceedings have been concluded.
The current guidance and powers for housing associations are insufficient in enabling providers to adequately support victims in joint tenancies, so we welcome the proposed changes in this Bill.
This is often a highly sensitive and complex area for housing association staff. We want to work closely with the government on the detail and design of these changes to ensure housing associations can be best placed to protect victims and survivors of domestic abuse and assist them to find safety and rebuild their lives.
We are currently consulting our members on how these changes might work in practice given the challenges presented by constrained social housing supply. Please get in touch to share your feedback.
Amendment on access
Over the last year we’ve been speaking to our members to understand issues faced with accessing homes. Housing associations’ number one priority is the safety of residents. But, along with councils, they report increasing difficulty securing access to residents’ homes to carry out statutory safety checks, including gas, electrical and carbon monoxide safety.
The legal route for carrying out this work when access is denied currently faces significant practical challenges and is no longer proportionate with the duties placed on housing associations. In these circumstances, housing associations make repeated and extensive attempts to gain access to residents’ homes for statutory checks. As a last resort, they must rely on the court process to gain access which is leading to inconsistent outcomes.
We’ve been raising policy solutions with government and now are working with the Chartered Institute of Housing, National Federation of ALMOs and Local Government Association to secure an amendment relating to access for safety:
- The access for safety amendment proposes a new statutory power modelled on an analogous power in Section 97 of the Building Safety Act 2022 which allows for access to premises to be ordered in certain, prescribed circumstances.
- This involves a three-stage request process in the rare but important instances where forced access is needed to ensure resident safety. These powers only apply in relation to a small number of statutory safety checks, with requests made over the course of a three-month period.
- We believe this approach strikes the right balance between social landlords’ ability to keep homes safe and the tenant’s right to quiet enjoyment of their home.
Baroness Taylor has acknowledged that this issue requires further consideration from government. Following a joint consultation with the Ministry of Justice on housing disrepair claims, officials at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government are analysing responses to deepen their understanding of how the current process works, including what does not work or is unclear, to ensure the process for safety-related access is as effective as possible.
As a result of our amendment, Baroness Taylor committed to convene interested stakeholders to determine next steps as part of this work. This is very encouraging, and we will engage with ministers and officials to push for legal clarity on access for safety once the Bill moves to the Commons.
Repealing unused legislation
The Bill also seeks to repeal unimplemented provisions from the Housing and Planning Act 2016. These include:
- The sale of high-value social homes.
- Fixed-term tenancies for local authorities.
- Mandatory ‘pay to stay’ policies.
We support these changes – each of these reforms were unworkable in practice and should not remain on the statute book.
Share your feedback on the Social Housing Bill
The Social Housing Bill has moved through early stages of the legislative scrutiny process quickly. As a result of the pace of this work, we have not consulted individually with our members but have been discussing our work at relevant national groups and networks.
To share your views on any of the proposals outlined above, please get in touch with our Public Affairs team.
The NHF will also be convening a working group of representative bodies from across the social housing sector to inform our work on the Bill.
