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Community Right to Bid

Community Asset Transfer can be confused with the 'Community Right to Bid’ legislation.

Whilst these two processes seek to achieve similar objectives, they represent different ways that community organisations can acquire assets, so it’s important that you know the difference.

The ‘Community Right to Bid’ legislation allows community organisations to nominate assets that they believe have ‘community value’, that is an asset that supports the local community social wellbeing or interests including sport and recreational activities.

This means that when the owner of the asset wishes to sell them, they must inform the local authority. The sale of the asset will then have standstill (moratorium) period, during which no sale can take place, allowing the community organisation time to prepare, raise funds and submit a bid to buy the asset on the open market.

Most local authorities have an online process to identify these assets (buildings or sites) allowing organisations to nominate assets, raise awareness of their interest and alert the local authority to the potential right to bid.  

More information on the ‘Community Right to Bid’ legislation can be found on the My Community website and through the FAQ section of their website.

  • Important considerations

    At the time of producing this guidance, the ‘Community Right to Bid’ legislation was still in place. However, new ‘Community Right to Buy’ legislation is due to be approved by Government, which will make it easer for communities to take on the ownership of assets of community value.

    This new legislation would replace the ‘Community Right to Bid’ legislation and give community organisations first refusal on a community asset if they are to be sold, allowing them to purchase an asset of community value, without competition, for a 12-month period.

    More information on the Community Right to Buy legislation can be found on Locality's website.

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This section has provided a general overview of Community Asset Transfers. If your organisation is considering or would be interested in exploring Community Asset Transfer further and would like more information on the different stages, work your way through the following sections of this guide.

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