However, consumer groups and charities including HHSE have been speaking before a Treasury select committee looking at how mortgage lenders handle repossession cases. They have called the government schemes ineffective and accused the Financial Services Authority of being too slow in penalising lenders who are guilty of bad practice,Read More →
The proposed cap on mortgage lending the Financial Services Authority proposed yesterday has been described as a ‘suicidal’ move for the housing market. The FSA wants to restrict mortgages to three times a buyer’s annual income, but representatives from the mortgage industry and estate agents have said any furtherRead More →
The pre-budget report and comprehensive spending review were announced yesterday to mixed results. Welcomed by the mortgage industry was the proposal to help lenders provide more long-term fixed rate mortgages. Currently about half of all homeowners are on some form of fixed rate mortgage deal but usually onlyRead More →
NIGERIA, THE PHILLIPINES AND GREECE have been named as the worst violators of housing rights in the world in 2013. The Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions shamed the three nations for their systematic violation of rights and failure to abide by international obligations. The 2013 Housing RightsRead More →
North London residents have reacted angrily over proposals to rent out council housing on the private market. Camden council, which has 17,000 people on the housing waiting list, says it wants to renovate up to 500 homes but locals warn that families could miss out on a flat ifRead More →
Hundreds of England’s village churches could be revived and up to 10,000 affordable homes built for local families – if churches sold land and buildings to housing associations, according to research by the National Housing Federation. The Federation believes that with the Church of England owning an average ofRead More →
Alistair Darling announced details of the pre-budget report yesterday. Besides increasing pension credit, income support and jobseeker’s allowance, a number of measures were specified to help homeowners. The recently announced £200 million mortgage rescue scheme where the government buys a home and then rents it back to the formerRead More →
London has been pushed from the top of the world’s most expensive city list, by Monaco, where prime property is sold for £47,000 per square metre – up 2.1 per cent from 2015. London, which saw one of the biggest falls in value of any part of the world,Read More →
Disposable income has dropped ‘abruptly’ for more than two-thirds of British households, while the number of people struggling to pay their rent or mortgage is at the highest level for 13 years. A report published by the Bank of England shows that an increase in the cost of food,Read More →
A Conservative Party think tank, the Public Services Improvement Policy Group, will suggest in a report out today that council and housing association tenants could get state aid to help buy a home, to transform ‘dead end ghettos’. Payments worth up to 10 per cent of the value ofRead More →