Statement on press coverage of £1million council homes

Coverage in the Mail on Sunday about a number of Royal Borough owned Council homes is misleading, says the Council.

While it is true that 17 properties are valued in excess of £1m, it is false to characterise these properties as “luxury homes.”

These are in fact ordinary council properties. It is their location that makes them valuable, not their fixtures and fittings.

Kensington and Chelsea has property values that are amongst the very highest in the entire world. The average price of a detached house is £5.1m; the average price of a terraced house is £2.6m (Land Registry, April – June 2011). That seriously inflates the value of every single one of the Council’s 10,000 homes.

In a borough where homes regularly sell for five or ten million and even more, it is inevitable that a handful of the Council’s properties have broken the £1m barrier.

“The Council can’t just sell people’s homes from under them,” said a Council spokesman. “Tenants would have to be found alternative places to live, consent would be needed from the Secretary of State, and there would be a whole host of other legal requirements. And of course there is the social impact of removing council tenants from areas where, through no fault of theirs, property values have grown exponentially in recent years.

“We are mindful of getting the best value and are reviewing how we best manage our residential assets for both tenants and taxpayer alike. But it is not the straightforward matter the Mail pretends.”