Community right to buy: review

Once a non-compulsory (Part 2) application has been approved, it places a prohibition on the owner for a period of five years, preventing them from transferring that asset without the right to buy being triggered and the community group given the option to purchase the asset at market value.  It does not prevent the owner from renting or developing the asset.  This is called a registration of interest. After 5 years, if the right to buy has not been triggered, the community must re-apply to retain their registration. It is clearly important to require re-registration to ensure that the community group is still interested and ready to act if the right to buy is triggered, but we are considering whether it would be appropriate to lengthen the period of registration, as the process can be time consuming and complex for some groups.  Requiring this less often could be helpful to those groups.