Although government acted last year to limit legal-loophole profit making by firms buying council homes indirectly, the controls were obviously not strong enough.

It's still happening and there is nothing we can do except pay our taxes to continue fund councils that are now short of housing stock because of it.

The legal loophole works like this: An investment company sets up in an area, preferably not one of the 41 limited by government intervention last year, and persuades council tenants to buy their homes from the council at the cheap right-to-buy prices. The company gives the tenants more cash than is required to buy the their homes and the property is promptly handed over to the company.

For their trouble, the former tenant can walk away with up to £15,000 cash.

New reports from a local newspaper say that up to 17,000 council houses are under threat this way in Portsmouth and Havant alone and MP Mike Hancock from Portsmouth has written to Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott demanding the law be changed yet again to control the situation.

The government regulations mean that the full right-to-buy discount is not payable if the property is resold in less than three years, but this is also circumvented by a deal between the former owner and the company whereby legal ownership is only passed on after three years, when the company can rent or sell the property at will.

Another form of abuse happens in regeneration areas where tenants exploit right-to-buy by buying the property, and making a profit when the council then has to buy it back in order to renovate it in regeneration schemes.

Further changes in the new Housing Bill will make both these practices more difficult and less profitable.