Monday Mortgages Research
Right to Buy Report 2026: Methodology and sources
How Monday Mortgages combined official MHCLG datasets to analyse Right to Buy sales, applications, council housing stock, receipts and replacement activity in England.
Published: 21 September 2026 | Last updated: 21 September 2026 | Research by Monday Mortgages
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Scope
The report covers England. It combines official and accredited official statistics published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). Monday Mortgages is a trading name of Monday FG Ltd, FCA reference 1050312.
Statistical series used
The report keeps two sales measures separate:
- Eligible sales, 2025/26. These come from the Pooling of Housing Capital Receipts return. They cover qualifying discounted sales of pre-July 2008 Housing Revenue Account stock, include small numbers of shared-ownership and other eligible sales, and exclude some statutory Right to Buy sales. MHCLG describes them as a leading indicator.
- Definitive Right to Buy sales, 2024/25. These come from Local Authority Housing Statistics (LAHS) for council-owned stock and the Regulator of Social Housing return for private registered providers. The local-authority rankings use statutory council Right to Buy sales from LAHS only.
The 2024/25 open data was revised on 25 June 2026. It records 7,617 local-authority statutory Right to Buy sales and 1,656 Preserved or Voluntary Right to Buy sales by private registered providers, a revised combined total of 9,273. The February 2026 bulletin originally reported 9,236.
Signature metric
The main comparison is:
statutory local-authority Right to Buy sales in 2024/25 ÷ HRA dwellings owned at 31 March 2024 × 1,000
Inputs:
- Numerator: LAHS field
b2aa, Right to Buy dwellings sold. - Denominator: LAHS field
a2ia, total dwellings owned within the authority's Housing Revenue Account at 31 March 2024, immediately before the 2024/25 sales year.
The HRA field is used because the numerator is reported by the authority that owns and sells the home. The broader LAHS field a1a counts council-owned dwellings located in an area and can include homes owned by another council. MHCLG states that HRA stock represents more than 99% of local-authority housing.
Two 2024/25 statutory sales were reported by authorities without an HRA stock denominator. They are included in the 7,617 national sales total but excluded from the aligned rate numerator. The England rate is therefore 7,615 aligned sales divided by the reported HRA stock at 31 March 2024, or 4.88 per 1,000.
Authorities with fewer than 1,000 HRA dwellings are excluded from rate rankings. Their figures remain in the downloadable data with a warning. This prevents very small denominators from dominating the ranking.
Regional calculations
Regional rates aggregate authority-level numerators and denominators before division. They are not simple averages of council rates.
sum of aligned regional sales ÷ sum of regional HRA stock × 1,000
Applications
Applications use LAHS field b1a. Applications and completed sales are reported separately. The report does not calculate a same-year application conversion rate because a sale completed in one year can originate from an application submitted in an earlier year.
Changes over time
One-year, five-year and 2012/13 comparisons use the following formula where the base is above zero:
(latest value ÷ base value - 1) × 100
MHCLG's April 2024 geography fields are used to harmonise historical local-authority rows. Where predecessor authorities map to one April 2024 authority, their source values are summed. Comparisons are left unavailable where the base is zero or missing. The downloadable file retains the relevant values and flags.
Flats
Local-authority flat sales use LAHS field b2faaa. Flat share is calculated as flat sales divided by statutory local-authority Right to Buy sales. Property-type data can be missing for some authorities. Regional differences should not be interpreted as purchaser preference alone because the dwelling profile of council stock also differs.
Receipts
Receipts and average receipts come from MHCLG Live Table 692 and the 2025/26 statistical release. Values relate to eligible sales. Receipts in a financial year can include money arising from a sale in another year. Average receipt is not the same as market value, discount or council profit.
Replacements
Replacement activity uses reported starts and acquisitions funded through Right to Buy receipts. Any statement such as “24.2 replacements funded during the year for every 100 eligible sales recorded” is a same-year activity comparison, not a cohort replacement rate. A replacement reported in 2025/26 need not relate to a property sold in 2025/26.
MHCLG says Homes England no longer separately records Right to Buy-funded starts from 2023/24, so the replacement series may undercount starts. The former one-for-one replacement target is no longer reported.
Current management information
Q1 2026/27 figures are management information captured on 7 August 2026 and published on 3 September 2026. They may be revised and aren't subject to the same quality assurance as annual official statistics. Because some returns are unavailable, the year-on-year comparison is restricted to the 156 authorities with numeric figures in both Q1 periods. The report doesn't present a partial year as a full-year result.
Missing and incomplete returns
Missing-value markers such as [z] and [x] are treated as unavailable, not zero. Genuine reported zeroes remain zero. In the June 2026 LAHS open data, Bromley, Sheffield, Southwark and Sunderland have returns marked Saved rather than Submitted. Authority-level claims using those rows are described as reported figures and the incomplete status is disclosed where material.
Rounding
- National counts: nearest whole dwelling in prose, while source decimals remain in the workbook.
- Rates: two decimal places in downloadable data and one or two decimals in prose.
- Percent changes: one decimal place.
- Currency: nearest £1,000 or sensible headline precision.
Reproducibility and QA
Raw downloaded files are preserved unchanged in the project workspace. The research workbook contains relevant raw extracts, cleaned tables, calculated outputs, chart data and a QA log. Major totals were checked independently against MHCLG live tables and open data. Discrepancies are documented rather than overwritten.
Primary sources: 2025/26 sales and replacements, social housing sales and demolitions 2024/25, LAHS open data, and live tables on social housing sales.