Slow pace of buyback scheme pushes flood-affected residents to sell homes on open market

A year after the floods in the NSW Northern Rivers, a buyback scheme has barely begun. (ABC North Coast: Ruby Cornish)

A year on from the floods that inundated the NSW Northern Rivers, the authority in charge of buying back the area's most vulnerable homes has made fewer than 10 formal purchase offers.

The process is taking so long that in Lismore — the city that was at the epicentre of the floods — scores of residents have given up waiting and sold on the open market, sometimes for hundreds of thousands of dollars less than they would have received under the buyback scheme.