'Six Figure' Black Hole In Housing Funds

Politicians in Fife have described a '6 or 7 figure' black hole in Fife council housing services' budget as 'jaw dropping'.

It is understood former council housing tenants who have purchased their homes have not been paying their share of maintenance bills. The agreement, under the 'right to buy' scheme, makes clear that new owners are responsible for all repairs.

Around 46,000 council houses have been sold in Fife, which represents over 60% of the former stock.

Cllr Tim Brett, Liberal Democrat group leader for Fife, said: "As people will be aware, the right to buy mechanism has been in place for many years, since the 1981 Tenants Rights Act. It has long been recognised that when the Council sold council properties under the Right to Buy scheme, the new owners would have to take responsibility for repairs to their properties. I was therefore very surprised to be told by Mr. Mills that a six-figure or a seven-figure sum had probably been lost to the Council, due to the fact that there had not been in place proper mechanisms to ensure that private owners were paying their share of common repairs. 

"While I welcome the fact that procedures are now being put in place to ensure that this does not happen in future, I am very concerned at the loss of income to the Council. Effectively this has meant that Council tenants have been subsiding owner occupiers and private tenants, which cannot be right.

"I and other elected members,’ continued Cllr Brett, ‘had been aware that there were often delays in getting repairs carried out when there were shared ownership issues but I had always assumed that owners would have been paying their fair share of the bill. I do not understand why this has been allowed to go on for so long."