Right to buy transfer ownership to family member

[Illusions144]

Hi everyone, I wondered if I could pick your brains.

Me and my brother bought our council house using right to buy. We bought it outright using money from my dad's life insurance when he passed away.

We are currently in the fourth year of owning the house.

I would like to move out, but obviously need my cash from my half of the house to buy somewhere. (I've recently become self employed so no tax returns yet and only a small income, so cannot get a mortgage.)

The council have said that if my brother were to buy my half, I would have to pay back some of the discount which we received.

We read on the government website that if you transfer to a family member, you may not pack any back.
What do you know about this?
Would it be possible for me to transfer my half to him? In which case, would he be able to get a mortgage for half of the value of the house, and give the cash to me - letting me move out?

[Amethyst]

After 4 years I believe it would be 40% of the discount that you would have to repay, you may well be better waiting for a while, I believe its 20% in the fifth year and 0 in year 6 and after ...so do some decent maths. What was the discount you got ( how much did you pay for the house vs it's market value ) If you sell to your brother at half the amount you paid for it, and paid back 40% of your half, you could regret it financially in the future, as once it's been owned 10 years you could sell on the open market and don't have to offer it back to the council, and you'd both come away with half the full house value. If you got the full discount when you purchased that could be quite a jump in the amount you come away with.

If you bought the house outright could you move out and rent for now, retaining your half ownership in the house, while you build up your business and are on a more stable footing until you have a larger capital you can get out of the house without losing any of the discount, thus having a much larger deposit for your own place?

Also regarding selling your half to your brother, were you intending to do this at the amount you purchased it for, or at full market value ? ( whether or not you have to repay part of the discount )

I believe the transfer to a family member part isn't a right just a 'some councils let you' thing - but I'll try find the relevant bits in the legislation tmw. ( We were looking at buying ours a couple years back at full discount but have to fix our credit files first... so it's on hold for now but I did a lot of maths and reading about it, so really just coming from that point of view )