The Housing (Right to Buy) (Priority of Charges) (Wales) Order 2008

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order specifies three bodies as approved lending institutions for the purposes of section 156 of the Housing Act 1985 (“the 1985 Act”) in addition to the bodies already specified in that section and by previous Orders.

Section 156 of the 1985 Act provides that the liability to repay discount that may arise under a covenant by the tenant required by section 155 of the 1985 Act, constitutes a legal charge on the dwelling-house, but that a legal charge securing an amount advanced to the tenant by an approved lending institution for the purpose of enabling the tenant to exercise the right to buy has priority over it.

Approved lending institutions for the purposes of the section are building societies, banks, insurance companies, friendly societies and any other body which is specified, or is of a class or description specified, in an order made, in relation to Wales, by the Welsh Ministers.

Such bodies also become approved lending institutions for the purposes of section 36 of the 1985 Act and section 12 of the Housing Act 1996.

In addition, as section 156 of the 1985 Act is applied by section 171A of that Act to cases in which a tenant’s right to buy is preserved and by section 17 of the Housing Act 1996 to cases in which a tenant has the right to acquire under section 16 of that Act, the specified bodies become approved lending institutions for the purposes of those rights.