Bromford Carinthia Housing Association secured a restructuring of its £130 million facilities with Bank of Scotland Corporate, which includes a new term loan of £20 million. The additional funding has been provided on a 30-year term and will enable Bromford to focus on developing new homes and providing comprehensive community support.
Derwent Living secured a £70 million facility with the Royal Bank of Scotland, which includes £325 million of new money. The funding will support the Association's development programme.
North Norfolk Housing Trust agreed a lending facility of £80 million with Lloyds TSB to fund the transfer of North Norfolk Council's housing stock. Approximately £50 million funded the purchase the Council's 4,650 homes. The Trust are also purchasing around 100 homes from Flagship Housing Group. The remaining £30 million will be spent on the Trust's development 300-home programme in partnership with Flagship.
Rooftop Housing group secured an £80 million refinancing facility with Lloyds TSB, which includes £25 million of new money. The lending will support the acquisition of 260 properties from Shaftesbury Housing Association.
Optima Community Association completed a refinancing arrangement with Nationwide, which will be used to support its development programme. The new £66 million facility includes £23 million of new money.
Bradford & Bingley completed a number of increased borrowing arrangements during the month:
Barclays agreed two loans to fund the transfer of estates from Tower Hamlets LBC:
Communities Minister Malcolm Chisholm confirmed that the Scottish Executive had abandoned plans to give councils control of development funding. The Minister said:
"We need to ensure that budgets are managed in the most efficient way. I have concluded that this can best be achieved by retaining the current arrangements with no further transfers of budget responsibility."
Communities Scotland have already transferred the management of development funding to Glasgow Council and Edinburgh Council, which is not effected by this latest development.
Talks started between the National Housing Federation and HM Revenue & Customs over concerns that housing associations may have to pay tax on income generated through shared ownership sales. The NHF were seeking guidance from HM Revenue & Customs on whether an initial purchase payment to a housing association from a new shared owner should be protected as having charitable status. If this is not the case, the income could be regarded as a trade surplus and liable for tax. If the income was deemed to be a capital gain, associations would not have to pay tax and could use the money to offset building costs.
The potential problem was highlighted by Thames Valley Housing Association when it was considering setting up a separate organisation to deal with shared ownership sales, which raised questions about tax implications.
The Government announced £538 million of further funding for round two and three arm's-length management organisations (ALMOs). Of this, £383 million was allocated to the round three ALMOs. Sheffield Homes received the largest allocation with £115 million.
There has been some criticism of the delay in announcing the allocation, with some ALMOs expressing concerns about their ability to maintain momentum as a result.