Member

Similarly, Amendments 38 and 39 risk unnecessarily prolonging effective stock management by increasing the required sale notice period from four to eight weeks, or 12 weeks in a rural area. Such extensions would need to be clearly evidenced. Is four weeks insufficient for housing associations and the local authority to be notified of a disposal and explore opportunities to transfer stock? Disposals are often unviable for social landlords to manage in the long term and bring up to the standards that residents rightly deserve, although I am sure that housing associations will look very closely at the examples that have been provided in this debate to judge their own behaviour in relation to those. The vast majority of disposals are unoccupied, so a well-evidenced case must be made for a requirement to leave homes standing empty for eight to 12 weeks to prolong a sale notice requirement.