This Order designates the District of Mid Devon (with the exception of the Towns of Crediton, Cullompton, and Tiverton and so much of the Dartmoor National Park as is within the District of Mid Devon) as a rural area for the purposes of section 19 of the Housing Act 1980 (“the 1980 Act”). This Order also designates the County of Devon as the designated region for the purposes of section 19 of the 1980 Act in respect of any dwelling-house situated in this rural area.
Under section 19 of the 1980 Act where a dwelling-house disposed of in pursuance of Chapter I of Part I of the 1980 Act is situated in a National Park, or an area designated under section 87 of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 as an area of outstanding natural beauty, or an area designated as a rural area, the conveyance or grant effecting that disposal may contain a covenant—
(a) limiting the freedom of the purchaser and his successors in title to dispose of the dwelling-house by conveying the freehold or assigning the lease, or granting certain kinds of lease or sub-lease other than with the written consent of the landlord; or
(b) giving the landlord a right of pre-emption.
Where the covenant described in (a) above is imposed, the consent to disposal is not to be withheld where the disposal is made to a person who has, throughout the three years immediately preceding the application for consent, had either his only or principal home or his place of work in a designated region which, or part of which, is comprised in the National Park, area of outstanding natural beauty or designated rural area in which the dwelling-house is situated.
Orders which have been made under section 19 of the 1980 Act as respects England are—
(1) The Housing (Right to Buy)(Designated Regions) Order 1980 (S.I. 1980/1345); and
(2) The Housing (Right to Buy)(Designated Rural Areas and Designated Regions)(England) Order 1981 (S.I. 1981/397).