text: Model Ciara Nugent may benefit from the right to buy scheme being extended to housing association tenants as her mother plans to buy her a property . Housing association tenants paying cheap rent to live in homes worth millions could get the chance to buy them at discounted prices under new right-to-buy plans. A number of people are currently paying around £150 a week to live in flats in exclusive parts of Mayfair and Covent Garden in London which are owned by housing associations and are now worth several million. Under Conservative plans to give tenants the chance to own their own homes, people living in these plush properties could now get the chance to buy them with discounts of up to £102,000 in London, after living in them for cheaper rents. The properties form part of affordable housing because of agreements with developers to provide low-cost provisions when new developments are built over a certain size. Many of them were built years ago in areas which have now become expensive and are worth millions of pounds. This enables tenants to occupy properties worth at least £1million for cheap rents, and many tenancies go unreviewed if circumstances change. However the value of the housing stock has raised questions over whether they should be sold to fund more housing. An investigation by the Sunday Times found that 10 properties owned by the Peabody housing association  in London are located in the expensive areas of Mayfair and Covent Garden - and are worth between £1million and £2.2million. The house used in the recent Paddington Bear film, in Primrose Hill, is also owned as affordable housing. Philomena Nugent,who lives in one of the Peabody flats in Drury Lane, told the newspaper she plans to buy her property for her pregnant daughter, Ciara Nugent, a model based in New York. Scroll down for video . One Housing, which owns 15,000 properties in London, said around 750 of these were worth more than £1million. Under plans proposed by the Conservatives the right to buy will be extended to 1.3million homes, occupied by 2.75million people. It is aimed at giving more people the opportunity to own their own homes and every house sold will be replaced on a one-for-one basis. But Housing Associations have opposed the proposals to sell their costly buildings at discounted prices, saying it will mean while individual tenants may benefit  there will be no affordable housing left for people who need it most. Housing Associations own expensive properties, such as a house used in the Paddington film in Primrose Hill . Paddington Bear was filmed in an exclusive part of Primrose Hill, a property owned by a housing association . They have also said owning property which has recently risen in value allows them to finance future developments. National Housing Federation director Ruth Davison recently branded the scheme the 'wrong' solution to the housing crisis. She said: 'Halfway through a programme of austerity and in the grips of a housing crisis, if you had £20 billion of taxpayers' money, would you just give it away as a gift to some of the most securely housed people in the country on some of the lowest rents?' The original right-to-buy scheme saw more than 1.5million council homes being sold off at discounted rates, and became one of Margaret Thatcher's best known policies. At the moment housing associations, which receive public money and loans to provide affordable housing, are exempt from the scheme. Around 800,000 people have a 'limited right to acquire', and are eligible for maximum discounts of £16,000. Some tenants who are currently paying around £150 a week to live in the expensive London districts are keen to take advantage of the right-to-buy plans to try and buy their properties. However some insist even with the discount of up to £102,000 in London they will still be unable to buy their homes. How does right-to-buy work? Introduced in 1980, it gives council house tenants discounts to buy their home. Labour dropped its opposition to the policy but, in 1999, Tony Blair's government cut the top discount from £50,000 to £38,000 and sales slowed. What has the Coalition done? It has sought to reinvigorate the scheme, cutting from five to three the number of years tenants need to have been in a home before they can buy it and upping the discounts to a maximum of £77,000 for most areas. Are housing association tenants covered? Housing associations – autonomous, not-for-profit bodies that receive public money and loans from the private sector to provide low-cost homes – are largely exempt. However, around 800,000 HA tenants have a limited 'right to acquire' with discounts capped at between £9,000 to £16,000. The other 500,000 tenants lack any right to buy. What are the Tory proposals? They would legislate to give all housing association tenants full right-to-buy. Tenants in houses would get a 35 per cent discount, increasing by 1 per cent for every extra year they have been a tenant. Those in flats will get a 50 per cent discount, going up 2 per cent every year. Discounts for houses and flats would be capped at the lower of 70 per cent or £102,700 in London and £77,000 across the rest of England. How will this be paid for? The Tories say they will make councils sell off expensive properties when they become vacant. Council homes that rank in the most costly third of all properties of that type in their area will be sold off. Around 15,000 such properties become vacant each year, because tenants die or move. The sell-off could net £4.5billion a year. What about the proceeds? They will be split, with a proportion used to replace on a 'one-to-one' basis the council homes sold off. The new properties would be more affordable, probably in less expensive locations, and could be built either by a council or housing association. Another slice of the proceeds would be used to fund the new right-to-buy discounts for housing association tenants. The rest would go to create a £1billion fund, enabling councils to bid for cash to develop brownfield land for housing. It would enable them to clean up derelict or contaminated land, and could lead to 400,000 new homes in five years, Tories say.
target: Housing association tenants are paying £150 a week to live in £1m homes .
  Properties are owned by associations as part of affordable housing pledge .
  New right-to-buy legislation could see tenants able to purchase homes .
  They will be offered discounts to buy their properties, giving an extra benefit to those who currently occupy flats in Mayfair for cheap rents .