FURIOUS residents in a York flats complex today attacked Joseph Rowntree Foundation proposals to buy back their homes.

Residents at Rowntree Wharf claimed they would end up thousands of pounds out of pocket - and one, Debbie Laybourn, feared she would go bankrupt.

When the flats opened in Navigation Road in 1990, people were offered the chance to buy a 50 per cent stake at the market value of the time - typically about £35,000 - £40,000.

Over the years, people have sold on their share of their flats at prices in line with rising market values.

Now the Foundation is invoking a clause in the lease under which residents will be offered three options.

One is to sell back the flats at the original price plus ten per cent - minus three per cent to cover administration costs. Residents could then stay on in the flats, paying a rent based on 4.5 per cent of the full market value.

A second option is for residents to sell the flats under the same terms and then leave.

A third is for residents to buy the other 50 per cent of their flats at the full market value.

Debbie said she had only bought her flat in August after saving for five years to raise a deposit.

She had paid the full market value, and the Foundation was now wanting to buy it back for tens of thousands of pounds less. She said she would be left with massive negative equity on her mortgage.

"I think I am going to have to declare myself bankrupt at the age of just 25.

"I had always thought the Foundation was formed on humanitarian and philanthropic principles," she said.

"This is hardly humanitarian or philanthropic. The foundation's purpose is to research in the fields of housing, social care and social policy.

"They won't need to go very far to look for this because they will have poverty and homelessness on their doorstep as a result of their actions.

"I think Joseph Rowntree would be turning in his grave."

But the Foundation's director of property services, Cedric Dennis, defended its actions over a property which was within the foundation's investment portfolio.

He said the foundation was simply invoking a clause within the lease which all residents should have been aware of when they bought their flats.

He said many residents had benefited from being charged no rent over the past 11 years.

Asked about the plight of residents such as Debbie, he said they should have taken and acted on legal advice about the terms of the lease before buying their flats.

Resident Mark Wormley said the Foundation's actions were quite legal within the terms of the lease. "It's the morality of the decision we would question," he said.

"People are absolutely disgusted."

He said residents were planning to meet together next Wednesday evening to decide on a joint course of action.

Updated: 15:13 Thursday, September 20, 2001