The sale of council houses involves massive discounts to tenants, at the expense of the owners. The owners being the community as a whole. A very significant reason for imposing this policy was in order to influence voting choice. This was admitted by Margaret Thatcher and others.

A similar policy applied to private housing, with landlords compelled to sell property at significantly less than that properties cost, would be described as theft, and almost certainly be deemed illegal in court.

All this was made worse by policies by governments for decades which forbade councils from using the money received in these confiscatory cutprice sales to build new houses.

The more recent twist is where councils are compelled to sell any houses which have higher market value, and for this money to be confiscated to provide sizeable discounts to tenants of housing associations, which are compelled to sell these properties to tenants.