Almost Half of 25-34 Year-Olds Now Rent

generation-rent

Almost half of 25-34 year-olds in England now rent according to a recent House of Commons research report.  The briefing assessing Government initiatives to extend home ownership claims that 48 per cent of the 25-34 year old age group now rent their homes up from 21 per cent in 2003-04.  However, given the choice, the report states that 86 per cent of this age category would prefer to own their own homes rather than rent.

London Centrism

The housing crisis is particularly acute in London. According to Alan Holmans of the Cambridge Center for Housing and Planning, the house-price-differential between London and the rest of the UK has climbed to a post-war peak and is currently 85 per cent higher than the UK average.  However, the differential between average London household incomes and the rest of the United Kingdom, is only around 32 per cent higher.

Chancellor intervenes

The scale of the housing crisis has lead to a series of proposals in recent years including Chancellor George Osborne’s announcement of a “Five Point Plan to increase home ownership”  in his 2015 Autumn Statement and Spending Review. This included  a commitment to build 400,000 affordable houses by 2020-21 among other measures. This was soon followed by the launch of the “Help to Buy London” scheme in February 2016 in recognition of higher housing costs in the capital.

Buy-to-let effect

The effect of buy-to-let landlords was also highlighted by the Chancellor as a potential exacerbating factor in house price inflation.  Accordingly in his Summer 2015 Budget, the chancellor announced plans to restrict tax relief on landlords’ mortgage costs. This decision is currently being challenged by landlord’s organizations which have hired to the legal firm Omina Strategy, which was founded and chaired by Cherie Blair.

Moreover, in order not to penalize buy-to-let landlords with mortgages against those who buy additional properties in cash through restrictions in mortgage interest rate relief, the Chancellor also announced that a 3% increase in stamp duty which will be levied against purchases of additional properties.  The Chancellor argued that the buy to let sector had had a disproportionate impact on the housing market as a whole, and that many buyers had not been affected by earlier tax changes, announced in the 2015 Summer Budget.

 

Share this article

Government Considers Letting Agent Regulation Adequate

government-considers-letting-agent-regulation-unnecessary

The Government considers current regulation of private sector letting and managing agents adequate according to a recently published House of Commons Research note.

According to the briefing there is “no overarching statutory regulation of private sector letting or managing agents in England or any legal requirement for them to belong to a trade association, although many letting and managing agents submit to voluntary regulation” despite the rapid growth in the private rental sector over the past two decades.

Furthermore, the Government plans to improve the quality of the rental sector by increasing the range of powers available under consumer protection legislation and has no intention of introducing regulation.

The Government does not intend to introduce regulation in the sector and has pointed instead to the existing range of available powers under consumer protection legislation. However, an amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 enabled the Government to require agents to sign up to a redress.

This comes as private motions in Parliament have been heard recently in relation to regulating letting agent fees which one Conservative MP described as “an opportunity to fleece tenants”.

The research note states that the Government considers that the present legal framework strikes the right balance between landlords and tenants and that new regulations would “introduce too much additional red tape”.

Share this article