Section: Housing Finance
Autumn Budget: housing and associated issues
Posted 22.11.17
GOV.UK: Article link
The key issues of the Chancellors budget that have implications for housing are:
- Overall government support for housing totalling £44 billion to meet a target of building 300,000 new homes a year by the middle of the next decade.
- £400 million will be made available to regenerate housing estates and £1.1 billion to unlock strategic sites for development
- Councils will be given powers to charge 100% council tax premium on empty properties.
- A review into delays in developments given planning permission being taken forward and action taken where this is identified as for financial gain reasons.
- Stamp duty will be abolished immediately for first-time buyers purchasing properties worth up to £300,000 - and the first £300,000 of the cost of a £500,000 where the property purchased is in London.
- £28 million will be made available for three new housing pilot schemes - in the West Midlands, Manchester and Liverpool - to halve rough-sleeping by 2022 and eliminate it by 2027.
- The seven-day initial waiting period for processing claims for Universal Credit will be scrapped.
- New Universal Credit claimants in receipt of Housing Benefit will continue to receive that benefit for two weeks
- Claimants will get 100% advance payments within five days of applying from January and the repayments period is to be increase from six to 12 months.
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New research outlines ground rent risks for housing associations
Posted 13.11.17
Network Homes: Article link
New research by Network Homes identifies particular risks for housing associations from the onerous ground rents seen in the leasehold market in the last ten years.
The research also proposes a method of calculating ground rents fair to both freeholder and leaseholder.
Ground rents: Do the risks outweigh the rewards? argues that:
- If the government returns ground rents on new leasehold homes to a peppercorn, the impact on new housing supply is likely to be minimal
- If ground rents are not on a peppercorn basis, any increase should be linked to inflation. This will ensure they remain fair over the long-term to the leaseholder, while also removing downside risk for the freeholder
- Housing associations holding head leases are subject to many of the same risks as individual leaseholders, and should be treated as such in any government change
- Initial ground rents for new properties, if not at peppercorn, should be set at less than 0.1% of the property valuation
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Quick Links
Updated 28.11.17
HuffPost UK: Pledge of additional £2 billion for affordable housing is coming from cuts to other house building programmes - comment on the Office for Budget Responsibility's analysis of the Chancellor's Budget.
Chartered Institute of Housing: 'Budget commitment good but crucial we build the right homes in the right places' - response to the Budget by CIH's Deputy Chief Executive, Gavin Smart.
