Discount and Cost of Buying

You can get a discount on the price of your home. At the moment the basic discount is 32% for houses and 44% for flats. The biggest discount you can get is £16,000.

Usually the exact discount you get depends on how many years you have been a public sector tenant. You can count time spent in different properties and with different landlords, the time you count does not need to be continuous.

But if we have spent £5,500 or more improving your home over the past 10 years and the discount reduces the price of your home below what we have spent on it, a special rule called `cost floor' may apply. We cannot sell a property for less money than we have spent on it.

You can get more details on the discount rules and the size of the discount from the home ownership services. If you sell your home within 3 years of buying it you have to pay back some or all of the discount.