ROOF Blog archive

The Bank of England announced yesterday that it would provide £10 billion in emergency funds to the UK’s commercial banks in an attempt to prevent a worsening of the credit crunch over the Christmas period. Bank governor Mervyn King said current fragility meant further action might be needed in coming weeks, and he forecast a tough year ahead. Despite this, the bank’s monetary policy committee is not expected to cut interest rates until the new year at the earliest.

Bradford & Bingley, Britain’s largest buy-to-let mortgage lender has abandoned a planned share buyback because of the credit squeeze. After selling £4.2 billion of commercial property and social housing debt last week to free up cash, ‘current capital market conditions have made this plan uneconomic’, B&B said. However the decision will be reviewed in the new year.

The Empty Homes Agency is calling on the public to report long-term empty homes to help bring them back into use. More than 840,000 properties stand empty in the UK and the agency believes that housing supply can be improved by a concerted effort to restore more of them. ‘The government is fixated on just building more homes, but we are convinced that returning more empty homes to use should be part of the solution too,’ said the organisation’s chief executive.

London’s 33 local authorities say planned government cuts to housing benefit will hit their work rehousing the capital’s homeless. The decision by the Department for Work and Pensions to cut housing benefit by 10 per cent for 2008/09 will leave the boroughs with a £38 million shortfall in their homelessness prevention budgets, and will prevent them from meeting the Communities and Local government 2010 temporary accommodation target. Last year, the councils moved 3,000 households from temporary accommodation.

Finally in America, the price of new homes has fallen by the biggest amount in 26 years. Average new home prices fell 8.6 per cent in September from the previous month, and down 13 per cent from the same time a year earlier.

Nationwide’s house price index is out today and according to their research, prices fell at their fastest monthly rate since 1995. The lender said that prices fell 0.8 per cent during November, bringing the annual rate of house price inflation down to 6.9 per cent. Their research also suggested that the final phase of the introduction of house information packs (Hips) may reduce the availability of housing supply in the short term. At the same time, mortgage approvals are at their lowest level in nearly three years, according to the latest Bank of England figures. Mortgage approvals, seen as an indication of the future health of the market, fell to 88,000 in October down from 100,000 in September, and well below the forecast amount. It is the lowest number since February 2005.

Following yesterday’s revelation that £2 billion of the £5 billion set aside to improve military housing is being spent on rent, a Commons public accounts committee today released a report showing that over half the accommodation for single armed forces personnel and over 40 per cent of family quarters are below standard. It continued that some personnel and their families would continue to live in substandard housing for the next 20 years, as the MOD continue to make cuts to their budget. Twenty per cent of the cuts fell in the housing budget, although it accounts for less than four per cent of their overall costs. The ministry cut maintenance work rather than postponing work such as the resurfacing of tennis courts. They accept that the decision seems ‘questionable in hindsight’.

A private equity firm, Olivant, plans to detail its bid for Northern Rock within days; as the bank’s small shareholders are meeting to oppose the Virgin group from its proposed takeover. The Northern Rock Shareholder Action Group (NRSAG), composed of some of the 180,000 small investors holding 20 to 25 per cent of the bank’s stock, are campaigning against Richard Branson’s proposal saying: ‘We don’t think the Virgin offer is good enough in terms of value’. Olivant’s plan is to allow shareholders to retain 80 per cent of the company compared with 45 per cent Virgin has offered.

The Thames Gateway plans are due to be announced by Yvette Cooper today. Details will be made available of how more than £9 billion will be spent on building 160,000 homes and relevant infrastructure in the Thames Valley, in Britain’s biggest regeneration project. Earlier this month a committee of MPs had criticised the management of the project by the Communities and Local Government department.

And finally, research by website moneyfacts.co.uk has revealed that the average mortgage arrangement fee has doubled in the past two years. In November 2005, the fee was an average of £441, whereas today it stands at £827.

A 17-year-old student who became an orphan has been told that the only way she can get financial help to continue her A-levels is to become pregnant. A spokesperson with the Department of Work and Pensions said that a girl aged 17 who has a child and was not working would be eligible to claim child benefit and tax credits, housing benefit, council tax benefit and income support. Instead the girl earns £46 a week working part-time and gets a further £30 a week maintenance allowance.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has estimated that the UK’s population could almost double within the next 75 years to more than 100 million as a result of immigration, an increase in the size of the average family and longer life expectancy. The numbers were issued during a parliamentary committee hearing on the impact of immigration on schools, hospitals and other services.

A BBC freedom of information (FOI) request has discovered that 40 per cent of the £5 billion set aside to improve military housing (£2 billion) will be spent in renting the buildings sold off by the conservative government in 1996 to the private landlord, Annington. In July, Defence Secretary Des Browne said the MOD planned to spend the money upgrading and maintaining services accommodation, but the response to the FOI request said: ‘This deal [with Annington] means that the MOD is contractually obliged to pay rent on the homes occupied by service families.’

The Housing Federation has warned that house prices in London are creating a social housing problem. Its report found that first-time buyers need to earn more than £100,000 a year to buy an average priced home (£318,000) in 25 per cent of the boroughs, while an estimated 330,000 families were registered on waiting lists for social housing, a figure which has grown by 57 per cent in five years. Only three boroughs saw a decrease in the numbers waiting for an affordable home.

Meanwhile, house prices in the US have fallen to their lowest point in 21 years. A Standards & Poor survey, shows prices fell 4.5 per cent for the quarter from a year earlier, and down 1.7 per cent from the previous quarter.

The Government announced yesterday that it will reform the ’16-hour rule’, which limits claimants to 16 hours of study a week before losing some or all of their benefits. Secretary of State, Peter Hain said that the government recognised that some vulnerable groups would require housing benefit while undertaking full-time training, and it will consider exemptions from the 16-hour rule for specific groups – such as young people living in supported accommodation.

Young homeless people are also getting a chance to become entrepreneurs in a scheme set up by the Foyer Federation, and the retail group owning Currys and PC World. Thirty young people were given coaching and practical lessons in selling, and then pitched their ideas to the retailer’s senior buyers. All won a year’s worth of mentoring.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has announced it is preparing to fine and ban a number of mortgage brokers for offering homes loans they knew borrowers couldn’t afford. Seven firms are to be investigated, and a further 65 are to undertake costly reviews. The problems came to light during a regular assessment by the FSA, which found that some brokers are offering first-time buyers mortgages of up to six times their salary, while others turned a blind eye to lying on self-certified mortgage forms.

The Planning Reform Bill, to be published today, is expected to ease restrictions on loft conversions, and allow kitchens and conservatories to be extended, without planning permission. This is expected to reduce the number of planning applications by 90,000 or 25 per cent per year.

The average household debt, including mortgages, has doubled in the past seven years to £33,000. PricewaterhouseCoopers said a rising number of applications for loans, credit cards and overdrafts are being turned down, and debts are likely to increase further during the next 12 months when 1.4 million people come off cheap fixed mortgage rates, adding an average of £140 to monthly bills. Consumer debt in Britain stands at £1.3 trillion, and mortgage payments as a percentage of income are now at a five-year high, taking up 17.7 per cent of income.

At the same time, house prices are now falling at the fastest rate since July 2005 and the number of new buyers entering the market is also down, according to Hometrack figures for November. Hometrack said that the ‘media focus on the fallout from the credit squeeze, along with relatively high interest rates, is resulting in widespread caution among homeowners, the majority of whom do not need to move and who are sitting back until the outlook clears’. Houses are taking eight weeks on average to sell, up from 6.9 weeks a month ago, while the number of new buyers is down 9.1 per cent in a month.

The commercial property market is potentially facing its worst year since the crash of the early 1990s, according to the world’s biggest property consultant, CB Richard Ellis. It predicts that returns will plunge to almost zero, down from 18.1 per cent last year, following a correction which wiped an estimated £14 billion of the value of the £350 billion investment market.

The Confederation of Business Industry says Britain is certain to miss its 2020 target to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. However the CBI is optimistic that the country will meet its 2050 target, and estimates that the cost to every household only be just £100. The report recommends increased spending on research and development, targeting energy efficiency and low-carbon technology, limiting car emissions, increasing nuclear technology and expanding the EU’s carbon trading scheme.

Data from Communities and Local Government has shown that four square miles of green belt land has bee lost to development each year since 1997, totalling an area the size of central London. The land includes areas owned by the Crown Estates, Oxford University, BP and Thames Water. A spokesperson from the Campaign to Protect Rural Egnald said the figures were much higher than thought: ‘For many of us, that countryside is getting further and further away as the green belt gets constantly nibbled at.’

This issue’s cover stories:

Swede smell of success

A Stockholm suburb is the model for Gordon Brown’s bew eco-towns. But willl he dare follow Sweden’s anti-speculation housing policy, asks Stephen Hill.

Buy Freedom

Themajority of us now have a stake in the nation’s wealth through property ownership – and politicians mess with this new reality at their peril says Kevin Cahill.

Wedged in

Feeling the squeeze of land price inflation? ROOF looks at three ingenious ways out.

Asset stripping

Common ownership of the land is nothing new in Scotland. But what has happened to the £2 billion-worth of community assets? Andy Wightman investigates.

Inequitable life

Government attempts to use taxation as a weapon in the fight against inequality have hadthe opposite effect, argues Fred Harrison.

Evicted

A film about families being thrown out of their homes won a BAFTA this year. But what happened next?

Acceptable in the 70s

Peter Malpass places the blame for the Conservatives 1980s housing policy on the timidity of the previous decade’s Labour government.

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The Callcutt Review, set up by former communities minister Ruth Kelly to speed up the supply of new homes, has released its findings. The review said that the annual target of 240,000 new homes announced in July’s green paper was achievable only if necessary investment was attracted, and government policies on energy efficiency, affordability and environmentally friendly homes did not discourage development. It also put the focus on building in towns and cities (regenerating brownfield sites) over building on greenfield sites.

Another government advisory body, Renewables Advisory Board, has found that nine out of 10 new homes could be made zero-carbon if small-scale renewable energy generation was installed at them. The board found that the market for microgeneration was likely to be worth £2.3 billion a year by 2016 as households install solar panels, mini wind turbines and underground heating systems.

Home information pack (Hips) schemes will be rolled out to all properties from December 14 it was announced this morning. Early monitoring of the scheme which has been in place for houses with three or more bedrooms since the summer, has shown that the new system has gone smoothly. It shows Hips taking between seven and 10 days on average, and costing between £330 and £350, less than the expected £400 mark. Independent research has also found no impact on transactions or prices since its introduction.

London mayoral candidate, Boris Johnson last night set out his housing and planning policy during a speech at the National House Building Council . Pledging to build homes, not rabbit hutches for the Bridget Jones generation, the Conservative MP also said the policy of making 50 per cent of new housing affordable was stifling development. He said he would be willing to ease affordable housing quotas to encourage greater development and promised to protect London’s skyline from the ‘phallocratic towers that Ken wants to erect in the suburbs…’

The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee minutes, released yesterday, showed that the decision to keep interest rates at 5.75 per cent for another month was voted for 7-2, indicating that a rate cut may be on the cards in the near future.

Official Home Office figures show that the number of eastern European migrants and asylum seekers may have peaked. The number of people coming from Poland and other eastern European countries has fallen by almost 20 per cent, to the lowest level in five years. Acceptances of asylum seekers this year is at its lowest since 1992, and the failed asylum seekers who have been deported has also fallen to its lowest level for three years.

Benefit claims by eastern Europeans however have more than doubled in the past year to reach £145 million. Almost 129,000 ‘newcomers’ are receiving payments such as tax credits, child support, and housing support.

Banks and builders saw big drops in yesterday’s financial markets. None more so than the UK’s third largest buy-to-let mortgage lender, Paragon, which saw its shares drop by more than 50 per cent. It has axed dividend payments, but chief executive Nigel Terrington said they would not need a bail out like Northern Rock. Paragon shareholders have agreed to support the lender with a £280 million rights issue.

In America the second-largest guarantor of home loans, Freddie Mac, has warned it was in breach of its minimum liquidity levels. Share prices collapsed 25 per cent as the company revealed a $2 billion quarterly loss, a $1.2 billion provision against bad losses, and $8.1 billion drop in the value of its assets. Generally Freddie Mac does not deal in subprime mortgages, so it is an indication that the problems in the US housing market have escalated.

A Commons Select Committee has delivered a damning report on the regeneration policy in the Thames Gateway. MPs said that organisation of the project was weak; that £650 million had already been spent with little benefit to anyone living there; the government has no idea how much the entire thing would cost; and there is deep confusion about the roles of the 100 plus agencies working there. ‘Without significant improvement in the overall management of the programme it will remain a series of disjointed projects and is unlikely to achieve its potential to make a … difference to economic regeneration and sustainable housing’.

Beleaguered bank, Northern Rock, is expected to receive as many as eight offers – some priced ‘aggressively low’ – to buy all or some of it, as the deadline closes today. The company has suggested that even if the bank was bought outright, the Bank of England may still need to bail it out to the tune of £6 billion until 2010. Virgin Group and JC Flowers are expected to bid for the whole bank, and ‘one or two banks’ from Europe and Asia are also understood to be putting in proposals.

Barclays Bank yesterday confirmed that they have been hit with £1.3 billion worth of debt as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis in the States. After rumours circulated last week that the debt could reach as high as £10 billion, Barclays brought forward their announcement. The amount was less than expected, but still equated to a write off of £500 million each month during July, August and September, and £800 million in October. Banks in America have written down almost $50 billion in the past month alone.

It’s all about banks today – a judge in America has prevented Deutsche Bank from repossessing 14 homes because they could not prove who owned the mortgages, in a move that could have massive repercussions for mortgage industry. The issue of ownership is difficult as banks and mortgage lenders pool hundreds or thousands of mortgages, placing them in one unit and selling parts of that unit on to other lenders. The industry-wide practice has been going on for years without challenge, and is worth $6,500 billion.

Details of the new Housing and Regeneration Bill have been announced by Yvette Cooper today in a bid to introduce more affordable and greener housing and give social tenants a ‘better deal’. Measures include a new watchdog for social tenants, called Oftenant; a Home and Communities Agency to deliver new housing, community facilities and infrastructure; encouragement for developers to make new homes as green as possible; and an easing of restrictions on councils to build more social houses.

A report into child poverty in Britain has revealed that a quarter of the country’s poorest households cannot afford to put a daily hot meal on the table for every family member. Children as young as five were so aware of their parents’ financial difficulties that they gave back money they had received from other family members to help support their household and wouldn’t ask for christmas presents for fear of adding to their parents’ burden.

The proportion of homeowners who pay more than half their salary on their mortgage has doubled in two years according to a Bank of England report. About 4.8 per cent of mortgage holders pay more than 50 per cent of their pre-tax income on mortgages, up from 2.4 in 2005, and more than one in three mortgage holders commit more than 20 per cent of their gross income to repayments.

Mervyn King, Bank of England governor has signalled that two interest rate cuts pencilled in for early next year will not be enough to stop 2008 being the toughest year in a decade. Delivering the quarterly inflation report, Mr King said that it would probably be 2009 before growth picks up and inflation is bought under control. This is bad news for the property market: ‘With house price inflation easing and commercial property prices falling, residential and commercial property investment are likely to moderate, possibly quite sharply…’

John Swinney, finance secretary of the Scottish National Party announced his first budget yesterday, and immediately came under fire from campaigners to the south including the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Announcing a deal to freeze council tax rates for the next three years, Mr Swinney said Scottish councils will receive £34.7 billion from central government or ‘adequate funding’ to freeze tax rates. A Taxpayers’ Alliance spokesperson said that this ‘was yet another example of how Scotland gets away with having fantastic public services that are funded from the pocket of English taxpayers’. Also announced was a £1.6 billion investment in housing and regeneration and a £1.47 billion deal over three years for new social housing.

And finally Pinewood Shepperton, owner of the film studios, have sought planning permission for a significant extension to its UK site. The proposal includes a collection of TV and film locations and a residential development of between 2,000 and 2,250 homes. Pinewood hopes that the project will create a sustainable community that would contribute to reducing the housing shortage in the South East.

Health Secretary, Alan Johnson has come under fire after saying in the Commons that he knew nothing about moves to charge junior doctors rent for hospital accommodation. Johnson said he was ‘unaware’ that doctors in their first year were being charged rent as they moved from hospital to hospital as part of their training. Previously they had had their accommodation provided for free. Johnson has now said he would investigate.

Bank of America has become the latest institution to take a financial hit because of plunging mortgage valuations. The second largest bank in Amercica announced a writedown on its portfolio of £3 billion, with potential that further writedowns will be needed. This follows news that the Us’s biggest mortgage lender, Countrywide, lent 48 per cent less in October this year than last October. The lender reported a loss of £1.2 billion in the third quarter and has cut more than 2,000 jobs.

The government has announced plans to improve education for young offenders in custody. Concerned that the poor quality of teaching in many young offenders institutions, children’s homes and secure training facilities is not providing the skills needed when leaving custody, Ed Balls Children’s Secretary, announced the government will consult on plans to place education in all these centres in the hands of local councils.

This week marks five months since the summer floods drove thousands from their homes. Many of those affected are still homeless, and empty properties are being looted. One homeowner has been told that his property is worth as much as 40 per cent less than prior to the flooding. Local Government minister, John Healey today announced that councils affected by the floods would not be unfairly penalised through their performance rating system, and would not suffer financial penalties or lose the power to spend as they wanted. Mr Healey said that the government and relevant inspectorates would recognise the strain placed on local authorities by the floods and use common sense where evidence shows a dip in performance.

The debt collection industry has nearly tripled since 2003, and looks set for further expansion as increases in the cost of borrowing forced companies and individuals into greater financial difficulties. The amount of debt sold on to professional collection agencies is expected to reach £22.7 billion by the end of this year, and increase to £24.1 billion next year. Debt in the UK swelled to £1,379 billion in September, larger than national gross domestic product which stands at £1,300 billion.

While one market grows, another falters. The monthly survey by the Royal Chartered Institution of Surveyors (RICS) reports that house prices are falling at their fastest pace for more than two years. The survey showed that the majority of surveyors reported a drop in prices in September. They also measured a decline in new instructions to sell for the fifth month in a row.

David Cameron is expected today to announce that a Conservative government would ’democratise’ council tax by scrapping central government capping and introducing referendums to approve ‘excessive’ increases. If people voted against increases they would get a rebate at the end of the financial year.

Housing Minister, Yvette Cooper is to announce a £70 million extra package of support for rough sleepers. The cash will fund 100 new and upgraded hostels providing accommodation and training across the country. The Conservatives meanwhile claim that the number of rough sleepers in England has been grossly underestimated by official figures, and that there are almost 1,300 at any time sleeping rough, nearly three times the fewer than 500 official estimate.

Interest rates were left at 5.75 per cent yesterday, as members of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee decided risks of an economic turndown were not serious enough to warrant a cut. Business reaction was positive, but the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) criticised the decision saying ‘customers are crying out for reassurance: many housing market reports…indicate the housing market is slowing down on a monthly basis…’ Most economists believe the ecomony will slow more than the Bank wants and predict an interest rate cut as early as December.

In a busy day for NAEA, the association also launched a tirade against home information packs (Hips), saying they are continuing to distort the market, with fewer larger houses for sale than is usual for the time of year. More than three quarters of estate agents questioned said that instructions for three-bedroom plus houses was down more than 10 percent; and nearly half of them had seen a drop of more than 30 per cent. However a spokesperson at Communities and Local Government rejected the figures, saying that far wider issues, such as interest rates, have had a greater impact instead.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has criticised the North of England’s Pathfinder scheme, saying it has had little impact and has heightened the stresses of those living in the areas. The £2.2 billion plan was supposed to address the problems of neighbourhoods with poor housing stock and longstanding deprivation. Instead, of the 10,000 homes demolished and 40,000 refurbished, only 1,000 houses have been built in the nine Pathfinder areas of the North. Many of the residents, who were forced to move from their homes under the compulsory purchase orders, found that there was a £35,000 shortfall between the compensation they received and the amount needed to buy an alternative domicile.

Following the latest flood warning to the east of the country, the Environment Agency (EA) has announced that local authorities gave the go-ahead for 13 major developments including housing, caravan parks, and roads, to be built in areas of the highest floor risk last year – against their advice.

The US economy is heading for meltdown as a result of the collapse of the subprime mortgage market. Financial institutions collectively owe $1 trillion worth of subprime debt; nearly a year’s supply of unsold houses stand vacant; house prices are expected to fall up to 10 per cent next year, and housebuilding will contract by 50 per cent in the next two years potentially wiping out 1 to 2 million jobs. The US government and Federal Reserve believes that the housing slump on its own will cut US growth by 1-1.5 per cent and slow the economy to around 2.5 per cent next year.

The National Trust has scored its first success against the government in its bid to preserve greenbelt land. The Trust has purchased 470 acres of land for £1 million on Divis and Black Mountain near Belfast. Yesterday, the Charity Commission announced it would investigate claims that the Trust is abusing its charitable position by entering the greenbelt debate. However the Trust is also facing criticism over its sale of 45 acres of farmland in Dorset to a developer who plans to build up to 500 houses. The Trust stands to make up to £10 million profit.

According to this month’s figures from Halifax, house prices have fallen 0.5 per cent in October. It is the first time since April/May 2005 that house prices have fallen for consecutive months. For the three months to October, prices were 0.3 per cent higher than the previous quarter, continuing the slow downward trend. The average house price in the UK is now £197,248.

More and more investors have been priced out of the buy to let market said the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) yesterday. In the current climate with higher borrowing costs and tougher criteria, a landlord would need a deposit of 30 per cent, on average £65,600, which is a jump of 500 per cent since 2002.

The Treasury is preparing to reveal documents that prove Gordon Brown was considering his new policy on inheritance tax before the Tories announced theirs. The Conservatives unveiled changes to the policy at their party conference and Labour announced their own policy several days later. But in a Commons exchange between Gordon Brown and David Cameron on Tuesday, the prime minister promised to release official papers that disclose dates suggesting Brown was considering the changes in his last budget as chancellor in March.

And finally, a three bedroom house is up for sale with the ‘unusually high’ price tag of £3 million. It does happen to come with a 554-place car park, one of the busiest in Cornwall, though.

No surprises as the Queen’s Speech laid out the Government’s plans for the year ahead, including several changes to housing policy. Three million new homes are to be built by 2020 (as outlined in the green paper in July). The Housing and Regeneration Bill establishes a new agency to drive forward the provision of affordable and ‘green’ housing. And a new planning bill is expected to make it easier for councils to build homes and for more building on brownfield sites.

The Charity Commission has announced that it is to investigate claims the National Trust is abusing its position by trying to block government plans to allow the development of green belt land. If the Trust is found to have breached guidelines, it could have its accounts frozen and trustees removed. The move to buy up land earmarked by the government has divided Trust members, with some fearing the charity is crossing over from conservation issues into political campaigning.

The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has also given a warning that it will fight the legislation, and has joined Planning Disaster, a coalition of environmental and social organisations, which believe the new bills cut local communities out of planning decisions and will lead to an onslaught of fast track building. The CPRE said the planning reform bill ‘looks like a developers’ charter’.

Northern Rock mortgage lending has plummeted by up to 80 per cent since facing their credit crisis in September. Before the run on the bank, it had taken a fifth of all new lending in the UK, but this proportion has dropped dramatically, after more than 100 lending products were removed, and fees were raised along with fixed interest rates (now running close to a percentage point above their rivals).

The National Trust is thinking of buying up green belt land to protect it from housing development. Chairman of the trust, Sir William Proby, claimed that 10,000 acres are at risk of development, and more than three square miles of greenbelt are lost each year as a result of regional development. Members of the National Trust will be asked if they should use some of their £350 million income to purchase land earmarked by the government for development of the three million new homes promised by Gordon Brown. Sir William said that the plans to build more homes were driven by ministers’ ‘obsession with economic growth’.

The government is expected to announce today that it will give local councils in England more control over providing affordable housing through shared home-ownership for key workers and first time buyers. The initiatives, called Local Housing Companies (LHCs) are being launched with 14 local authorities throughout England. They will offer up to 1,000 low-cost deals for new homes built on council land, which ministers hope could double the present figures of mixed community developments.

A soldier injured in Iraq was given 30 days to leave the army house in which he lived with his wife and three children. More than three years after suffering damage to his leg, Carl Tarry is still waiting for compensation, but just four weeks after being medically discharged from the army, he received a letter from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) stating that if he didn’t move out of his house by November 23, he would be liable for damages. He is unable to afford a mortgage or rent in the private rented sector until his compensation comes through. Spokespeople from the MOD said that the eviction letter had been sent in error and the family would not have to move out until January 2. They also said that Mr Tarry’s compensation claim was now being treated as a high priority.

A wave of foreclosures and evictions is sweeping the United States as the subprime market falters. One in five mortgages in the US is now subprime. And with 1.7 million foreclosures already in the first 8 months of this year, up to 2 million more families are expected to lose their homes over the next two years, as banks try to recoup some of their $1 trillion subprime debts. In Cleveland, Ohio, one of the worst areas hit, one in 10 homes are now vacant, and whole areas have been blighted by foreclosure and vandalism.

In answer to a parliamentary question on Friday, housing minister, Yvette Cooper, said that just 88 homes have been bought using Social Homebuy, the multi-million pound government scheme aimed at helping people onto the property ladder through buying a discounted stake in their homes. The scheme, launched in 2005 to help 120,000 households into low-cost home ownership, was described as ‘laughable’ and a ‘pretty pathetic pilot’ by the shadow housing minister, Grant Shapps.

And finally, if you’re renovating and looking to outdo the Jones’s, you could do worse than having a 15 foot section of stairs from the Eiffel Tower leading up to your loft. French auction house Drouot, is selling a 1,540-pound piece, part of the original pre-elevator stairs, on 19 November for an estimated £10,000.

At yesterday’s Local Government Association launch of the report into the impact of migrants on public services, Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, called for an inquiry to examine the claim that white families face discrimination when applying for council housing. He said there was little evidence to support the claim, but that a widespread belief in its accuracy was adding to social tensions. He also praised the role of David Cameron, Conservative Party leader, for seeking to ‘drain immigration of the racial toxicity which has held for his party for some 40 years’.

David Cameron himself, took the opportunity to call for an annual ceiling on the number of people coming to Britain from outside the European Union. He said the UK needed a proper debate about the fact that around 200,000 people are coming into the country each year. However, a survey from the Polish newspaper Dziennik has found that 67 per cent of those questioned in the UK regard the Poles as more diligent than Britons, and 79 per cent wouldn’t have a problem with their child marrying a Polish person.

There is growing concern about the state of the US housing market as fresh figures yesterday showed the number of home repossessions rose 100 per cent last quarter compared with a year ago. Rates are now at the equivalent of one every 196 households, with increases in 45 out of 50 states.

The big high street banks are short-changing homeowners on mortgage deals, compared to smaller building societies according to a report by moneyfacts.co.uk which looked at financial services for first-time buyers and people wanting to remortgage. Of the 250 best mortgage deals, just 27 came from the country’s 10 largest banks, and the HBOS group including Halifax Bank failed to get a single deal into the top 250.

And finally, some of television’s most famous houses are up for sale as the owner of set where the soap opera, Brookside was shot, announced they were selling up. The show ended in 2003, and now several of the three- and four-bedroom houses are for sale for around £250,000 each.