Social housing in England consists of two basic types of housing. The first is property rented from a local authority, commonly known as council housing. Since 1988 more than 400,000 homes in England have been transferred from local authorities to RSLs. The main reason for these transfers is financial. There is often a backlog of repair work in the stock and transferring is often seen as the best way to bring improvements, by bringing in private investment.
Stock transfer can also increase the level of tenant involvement .
The majority of RSLs are housing associations, non-profit making bodies who specialise in housing and plough any surplus back into the organisation to maintain existing homes and help finance new ones. RSLs vary greatly in size, although most are small and own fewer than 250 homes. They not only provide homes to rent, but also run low cost home ownership schemes, such as Homebuy, which allows people to buy or part buy their homes at less than market cost . RSLs in England are regulated by the Housing Corporation. The Housing Corporation website contains some useful information for tenants of RSLs, including how to become an RSL tenant or homeowner, your rights as an RSL tenant and information on how to contact RSLs in your area.