ROOF Blog archive

The number of applications to build new homes has risen by 10 per cent in the three months to the end of April 2009. It was the first quarter on quarter rise in almost two years. However, figures from the National House Builder’s Council (NHBC) show the sector is still depressed with the level of applications down 53 per cent in year on year figures. Imtiaz Farookhi, chief executive of the NHBC, said that anecdotal evidence from house builders and developers suggest that conditions are easing slightly.

A study by the North West regional design panel has found that quality design can help weather the economic storm, and could even add up to 20 per cent in rents and capital value.  The research urges planners and developers to pay greater attention to ‘cost-neutral’ aspects of good design, looking at the ‘whole life’ costs of a development, and ensure resources are targeted to add value. The study added that sustainability and energy efficiency were becoming increasingly significant factors in competitive markets.

A report has said that five new supercities will evolve in the coming 20 years as the country increasingly focuses on new economic endeavours based on scientific innovation. The report Future of Business said changes were being driven by the recession which will push new ways of working, increase international business and encourage entrepreneurship. It named the supercities as Brighton, Leeds, Liverpool, London and Newcastle, and called the changes the biggest transformation in the UK since the industrial revolution.

An upcoming report from the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) calls for those involved in delivering affordable housing to see the recession as an opportunity to review and improve policy and practice. Councils, in particular, were told they currently lack the skills to assess the economic viability of affordable housing schemes, and needed to make more realistic demands.

And in related news, a House of Commons communities and local government select committee says councils should have more autonomy to shape the development of their communities. The MPs found that large city and county councils feel that they are not being given sufficient scope to develop their role, and called for central government and its agencies not to intervene in local issues as quickly.

Progress in tacking child poverty in Scotland has stalled, with more than one in five children living in poverty. A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report found there had been no improvement in the number of children living in poverty in the past five years, despite commitment to halve poverty levels by 2010 and eradicate it entirely by 2010. The report wants the Scottish government to do more to tackle the issue including improving employment opportunities for parents, introducing a living wage, and improving access to affordable quality childcare. It is estimated that 21 per cent of Scottish children live in poverty.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has published details of its ‘stress test’ for banks, which assumes that house prices will halve and unemployment will peak at 12 per cent. The FSA’s stress test applies fictional economic scenarios to see how banks’ balance sheets would cope, and the current stress scenario depicts a recession carrying on for at least a further year and a half, a 6 per cent shrinkage in the economy from peak to trough and an increase of an additional 1.5 million people losing their jobs. The FSA is keen to stress that the test is not a prediction.

Following a sell-off in the government bond markets, banks are likely to face increasing pressure to put up fixed mortgage rates. Yields on five-year gilts have risen to their highest level since the end of February, and a rise in yields tends to force banks and building societies to increase their fixed rate mortgages because mortgage rates are calculated using swap rates, which in turn move in line with government bond yields.

Margaret Beckett has announced a proposed amendment to the law that would give tenants whose landlords are facing repossession more time to find somewhere else to live. Under the new proposals tenants will be given two months’ notice by mortgage lenders who have taken possession of the landlord’s home. The Council of Mortgage Lenders has warned that a number of tenants will slip through the cracks, especially those renting a property unofficially.

Typical rents in the UK remained unchanged in May, after nine consecutive months of falls, findaproperty.com has found, as the average rent remained at £819 a month. This was 5.5 per cent lower than the same month a year ago. Rents had been falling as the supply of rentals increased, reflecting the rise in the number of ‘accidental landlords’ because of the housing slump. But the survey reported the rate at which properties had come on the rental market in May had slowed compared to a year earlier.

The government’s definition of carbon neutral must be made easier for the public to understand, the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) said. It is calling for a kitemark accreditation in carbon emissions management and for carbon neutral standards to be evaluated periodically to reflect advancements.

The British Bankers’ Association has revealed that mortgage lending has slumped to an eight-year low, as the lack of finance available continues to affect the markets. However, the number of mortgage approved for house purchases increased as buyers slowly starting coming back in the market. Loans were up to 27,685 in April compared with 26,670 in March and 18,027 in November, the lowest level since the records began in 1997.

The number of homes completed in Scotland has fallen 23 per cent in the final quarter of last year and 13 per cent for the whole of 2008. The number of new homes started in the fourth quarter of the year was 48 per cent down on the same quarter in 2007 and overall down 19 per cent from 2007 to 2008. However, there was a big increase in the number of houses for rent or low cost home ownership, with 29 per cent more homes built than in 2007, and the highest level in eight years.

England is receiving a disproportionately high number of immigrants to the UK a cross party group of MPs has found. Between 1991 and 2007, 2.15 million immigrants arrived in England, compared to 105,000 in Scotland, 56,000 for Wales and 27,000 to Northern Ireland. England’s population could increase by nearly 10 million people in the next 20 years, of which seven million will be immigrants.

The developers of a proposed eco-town near Stratford-upon-Avon have misled local residents about its potential benefits the advertising watchdog, Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), has ruled. MP Peter Luff challenged the claims that Middle Quinton would create more than 4,700 new jobs and 6,000 homes and questioned the claim the site would be located on brownfield land. The ASA upheld Mr Luff’s complaint and ruled the two companies, St Mowden and the Bird Group, must not repeat the claims.

Cases against home maintenance traders have topped the list of consumer protection cases in the first year of new consumer legislation, the Office of Fair Trading has revealed. The majority of action has been taken against rogue traders in the home maintenance and improvement sector, followed by cases involving house construction.

The National Association of Estate Agents has accused the government of doing too little to help first-time buyers into the market and undermining the chance of a housing recovery. Research by propertylive.co.uk found that while the cost of mortgage finance has fallen to a record low, lenders are asking for such large deposits that the first rung of the property ladder remains out of reach. Nearly seven out of ten first-time buyers have given up hope of ever owning their own home. Of those who expect to buy a home, only 15 per cent think it will be in the next two years, and 5 per cent think it will be at least five years before they can afford it.

Hundreds of thousands of households have been overcharged in a ‘council tax cover up’ according to the Telegraph. According to leaked minutes, the Treasury has known since at least 2005 that many homes were in the wrong tax bands and that tens of millions of pounds may have been overpaid, but the government kept the details secret to avoid having to pay tax refunds.

Millions of homeowners with mortgages set to expire in the coming year will be forced on to standard variable rates, increasing the risk of a jump in repossessions, analysts warn. The shortage of mortgage funding has meant that many borrowers are being rejected for new deals, and economists are predicting the cost of borrowing will increase as the economy recovers. Melanie Bien of Savills Private Finance called the situation a ‘ticking timebomb’.

Charities including Carers UK, Mencap and Alzheimers Society are among nine charities which have drawn up a carers poverty charter calling for better benefits for carers. The charities estimate that six million carers looks after family members or friends at home, but fewer than 500,000 carers actually get the allowance. They want an increase on the weekly carer’s allowance of £53.10, and greater support.

Research by the Bank of Scotland has found the recent falls in property values has been good for key public sector workers. The survey found that Scotland was one of the most affordable areas in the UK, and workers such as teachers and police officers could now afford to buy in 39 per cent of Scottish towns, up from 15 per cent in 2007.

Just a couple of weeks after credit agency Moody’s downgraded nine UK building societies, Fitch has done the same to five. Fitch cut the default ratings of Chelsea, Newcastle, Principality, West Bromwich and Yorkshire building societies because of ‘signs of strain’ on their mortgages as unemployment rises, and has placed Skipton on ‘negative watch’. A spokesperson from Fitch said its concerns were concentrated on higher-risk lending including buy-to-let and self-certification.

Anthony Weaver is trying to start a private prosecution against the home secretary. He has applied for a summons before a district judge alleging she defrauded the public purse of between £116,000 and £200,000 by claiming her main residence was her sister’s London flat. The judge has adjourned the case and recommended that Mr Weaver contact the metropolitan police to see whether they are prepared to investigate.

Research by the Prince’s Trust show that deprived young people are being hit by the recession worst, and more is to come. Claims for jobseeker’s allowance by 18- to-24-year-olds have risen by more than 80 per cent in the past year, totalling more than 450,000 young people. At the same time, youth charities are facing increasing demand for their services, and a drop in income as the recession hits the value of investments.

In Scotland, a housing association has apologised after sending an overdue rent letter to a woman who died nine years earlier, and who had never lived in the property. A hand-delivered letter arrived from the Scottish Borders housing association demanding £300 in rental charged for the house, but the widower of the woman to whom it was addressed said they had never lived in the property.

Latest figures show that the housing market continues to struggle, with the number of new homes built falling to just 18,349 in the first three months of the year and mortgage lending slumping to £10.4 billion. Communities and Local Government said the number of housing starts was up 13 per cent on the previous quarter, but was 44 per cent lower than the March quarter 2008. Starts by registered social landlords rose by 5 per cent compared with the same period last year. 

Meanwhile mortgage lending was 9 per cent down on the previous month, and 60 per cent lower in year on year figures. The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) director general Michael Coogan said that it was still too early to spot a clear pattern of recovery in the housing market. Buy to let lending also fell for the sixth consecutive quarter in the first quarter of the year, accounting for just 6 per cent of gross mortgage lending. This is down 50 per cent from the same time a year earlier. CML said the number of loans in arrears of three of more months was up from 2.30 per cent to 3.09 per cent.

Young people housed by local authorities are entitled to ‘more than a roof over their heads’, a ruling by the House of Lords established. The Law Lords judged that councils have a duty of care to assess the wider needs of 16- and 17-year-olds coming to them following family breakdown or because they are refugees. Their judgment clarified whether young people asking local authorities for accommodation should be dealt with by housing departments, or children’s services, as they finally ruled. Solicitors have called the judgment a ‘huge step forward for children’s rights and required councils to rethink services’.

As many regeneration schemes that rely on private funding stall and become in danger of being scrapped, the British Property Federation has suggested that money from multi-billion pound government programmes for hospitals and schools, could be used to part-fund regeneration projects. The federation has also called for stamp duty to be reduced on purchases of residential property to encourage investment and to make it easier for residential real estate investment trusts to be set up.

Most of England’s social housing could come under the control of housing associations within a few years because of the system for funding council housing, housing experts have warned. They are calling for reform to the housing revenue account (HCA) to allow local authorities to keep their rents and reinvest in existing or new stock and to have the same freedom as housing associations to access grants and borrow privately to build homes. Under the current system they argue that allowances for repairs are 43 per cent too low and management and maintenance allowances are 10 per cent short.

The level of fines levied against individuals for mortgage fraud so far this year has overtaken the number for the whole of 2008. The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said in the last 18 months it had stepped up pressure against fraudulent brokers who operated during the boom, with fines totalling £302,445 in the first quarter of the 2009, and nine order banning individuals and brokers from the mortgage industry being handed out. The most common form of mortgage fraud is inflating the income of the applicant.

Chief executive for the National Debtline warns that millions of households struggling with debt could be unlikely to access independent advice because charities are so overwhelmed they can only answer half the calls received. Joanna Elson speaking at the Building Societies Association conference was trying to drum up support from building societies to help homeowners in difficulty as soon as possible, and estimated that around four million people will need debt advice this year.

People who live in the suburbs are eight times more likely to live in their dream home than those who live in the countryside, a survey from Legal & General has found. Around 34 per cent of people who live in suburbia have their ‘ideal’ property, compared to 4 per cent of those in the country. Despite this figure, 28 per cent of those questioned thought their perfect home would be found in the countryside, and 23 per cent admitted they did not think they would ever find their dream home.

The National Housing Federation says banks are turning away £1 billion of business because of prejudice against low cost housing. The banks are refusing to lend to people on modest incomes – first-time buyers and key workers – because they mistakenly view the shared ownership deals as unsound. The NHF estimates that the banks lack of interest in 2008/09 resulted in 9,000 low cost homes remaining unsold, and has called for the state owned banks to make lending on shared ownership schemes a priority.

Meanwhile, John Goodfellow, chair of the Building Societies Association, warned building societies were facing intense and unfair competition for deposits from the partly government-owned banks. He said the sector needed to put into place framework agreements such as that governing Northern Rock, which is unable to offer the top rates to savers on competition grounds.

Lloyds is offering a new deal for first-time buyers that allows parents or friends to use their savings as a guarantee against a default. The bank is offering to lend up to 95 per cent of a property’s value for a three-year fixed rate as long as savings worth 20 per cent of the property are deposited into a Lloyds account, which can be used if the borrower defaults.

No eco-town will make the government’s shortlist unless they meet the highest standards, Margaret Beckett has insisted. She said that they still all need work to meet the green standards set by the government. She added she was hopeful that 10 schemes would make the mark but that if they do not they would not be approved.

Tenants First has outlined proposals for a public housing strategy to meet the housing crisis. It calls for the establishment of a £3 billion fund to be used for a ten-year regeneration programme that will include the setting up a board of representatives from government, tenants and those marginalised or excluded from housing. Tenants First said this type of approach guarantees that a proportion of the state resources being handed over to the banking sector will be directed back to social purposes.

Private tenants are routinely being ‘conned’ by letting agents imposing unjustified fees for providing a poor or nonexistent service, a report from the Citizens Advice said today. It said that it was dealing with 6,000 tenants’ complaints a year regarding letting agents, and that the behaviour of some is ‘out of control’. The report has found that 94 per cent of agents imposed up to seven additional charges on tenants, not counting the deposit and rent in advance, costing up to £600, and some agents were caught billing tenant and landlord for the same service. Citizens Advice wants the government to extend the recent regulation to include a ban on additional charges.

Hertfordshire county council and St Albans district council have issued a legal challenge to the government over its regional spatial strategy in the East of England plan. The councils object to designations for 12,000 additional homes in Hemel Hempstead, 10,000 in Welwyn Garden City and Hatfield, and 7,200 in St Albans claiming it will add substantial levels of housing to an already congested areas, that performs a vital green belt function around London.

And in London mayor Boris Johnson has unveiled plans to halve overcrowding in the capital by 2016. In the latest draft of his housing strategy he promised to cut overcrowding in the social housing sector and to deliver more family sized affordable homes, and added that it will make London the first city in Britain to make such a commitment.

The law has been changed so that no more tolerated trespassers can be created and all existing tolerated trespassers will be given a new tenancy. Before the amendments to the Housing and Regeneration Act and the successor landlord order came into force yesterday thousands of council tenants had lost their housing rights, even if they complied with any conditions imposed by the courts. Though they continued living in their property they could not require their landlord to carry out repairs, exercise their right to buy, or ensure a spouse or family member could succeed to the tenancy if they died.

New research from the Business Development Research Consultants has found that private landlords are increasingly renting to housing benefit claimants even though they are concerned about the upkeep of the property and payments. The proportion of private landlords in Britain letting to benefits claimants more than doubled, increasing from 9 per cent in the last quarter of 2008 to 20 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. However, as many as 24 per cent of landlords said they were worried benefit claimants would not look after the property, 15 per cent said they’d had previous bad experiences, and 10 per cent said they were worried about payments.

More people live in poverty in outer London than in inner London, new research has found. The study found that 54 per cent of Londoners with low incomes live in outer London, up from half 10 years ago – and more children were affected by poverty in outer (380,000) than inner London (270,000). Overall, London had the highest proportion of people living below the poverty line, and was found to be the least equal region with more people with an income in either the top or bottom 10 per cent nationally than anywhere else in the country.

The chief executive of Paragon has said the government must extend financial support to specialist buy-to-let lenders or the sector will be ‘crippled’. Nigel Terrington said that the rescue package, such as the credit guarantee scheme, is only available to deposit taking institutions. According to research the number of available loan products has been reduced by 95 per cent in the past two years despite demand for private rented property remaining strong. Paragon has lent £10.7 million in the six months to March, compared with £856 million for the same period last year.

Home Office figures show the number of people claiming asylum in the UK has jumped 27 per cent in the first three months of the year. Between January and March there were 8,380 applications – the highest number since 2004 – while during the same period the number of failed asylum seekers being sent home fell by 7 per cent.

Ahead of today’s debate in the Commons, party leaders have agreed to proposals for interim changes to MPs’ expenses. Mortgage interest and rent claims will be capped at £1,250 a month, claims for furniture, cleaning and stamp duty will be banned, and they will not be allowed to flip the designation of their second home. An independent review of allowances is expected by autumn.

A study into the effects of CCTV indicate that it has little significant impact on crime levels on housing estates, and in fact may increase offences by giving victims a ‘false sense of security’. The review found that the cameras had the best impact in cutting break-ins in car parks which are well lit and have attendants on duty. It also reported on the ‘huge’ cost of installing the cameras, finding CCTV spending accounted for 75 per cent of the Home Office crime prevention budget in the last decade.

HMP Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight has been described as a ‘troubled institute’ by the chief inspector of prisons after a report found a litany of problems. One disabled prisoner was unable to wash property for more than a year because staff refused to take him to the showers, while for another disabled offender it was six months because there was a lack of staff trained to push his wheelchair. The report has also said prisoners were poorly supervised by staff, violence was endemic and there was widespread abuse of prescription drugs.

A disabled pensioner of 73 is sleeping in an armchair because of a lack of suitable housing association homes for disabled people in her area. Mrs Cunningham was moved from one flat after being told it was unsuitable and placed in another property that was deemed unsuitable for a wheelchair user. Torbay council says it has around 200 applications and takes up to 34 weeks to process the available Disabled Facilities Grant to update her accommodation.

The European parliament wants Spanish planning laws to be changed to stop developers being able to acquire private land below market rates and force homeowners from their properties. In some regions planning authorities have been redesignating private land for urban use and rubber-stamping applications from developers, who then offer well below the market rate for the property or threaten to demolish the home. The government ruled the planners’ actions illegal and an EU report called for Spain to protect the rights of homeowners.

Families with disabled children feel alienated from their communities and suffer because of a lack of services, a new report from charity Contact a Family says. More than 65 per cent of those questioned said they believe understanding and acceptance of disability is poor and described feeling stigmatised and shut out. A further 40 per cent said they lacked support services such as access a key worker, or childcare, and 64 per cent said they did not feel valued by society in their role as a carer.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has produced a new guide on housing disabled children. The guide lists ways of adapting a family’s existing home, outlines the role of frontline workers, and has a summary of the relevant law in England.

A group of Gypsies and Travellers living at Dale Farm near Wickford in Essex have lost their battle against eviction after law lords dismissed their appeal to overturn an earlier ruling. The law lords dismissed the Travellers’ appeal saying that Basildon council had acted lawfully, as half the people living at the farm do not have planning permission. A United Nations’ committee is recommending Basildon council grant planning permission where needed or offer alternative land.

The price of home information packs (Hips) is being inflated by up to £150 to cover secret commission payments made to estate agents, Channel 4 News has claimed. Channel 4 said it had obtained documents showing an arrangement between a Hip provider and an estate agent where the price for one of the packs was increased to cover commission to the agent for using the company as its sole Hip provider. The Law Society has called on the government to take action, while the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors is investigating.

Gwyneth Taylor from the National Federation of ALMOs (arms length management organisations) argues that if government funding dries up for ALMOs, which manage council housing on behalf of local authorities, one million council tenants would be affected. The federation has put together a paper providing examples of activities ALMOs can undertake to deliver social housing, including greater tenant involvement and adopting charitable status.

The New Local Government Network (NLGN) has released a report arguing that a dramatic cut in public services could be avoided if local authorities were given new investment powers. The NLGN says this would allow them to retain staff, facilities and programmes; and even offer targeted cuts in council tax.

Two London regeneration projects – Albert Basin and Elephant & Castle – have been named as two of the 16 founding projects of the international climate positive development programme, launched by Bill Clinton at an environmental summit in South Korea today. The project aims to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by having developers and local government work in partnership to come up with innovations for clean energy and waste management.

A garden created by homeless and disadvantaged people and prisoners has won silver at the Chelsea Flower Show. The garden is a collaboration between the Eden Project, Homes and Communities Agency and Homeless Link, and around 200 volunteers, most of whom are currently using homelessness services or in prison.

Thousands of developers’ surplus new-build homes are being rejected by housing associations because they aren’t of a high enough standard. The government set up a national clearing house to help housing associations buy some of the estimated 100,000 unsold new-build homes in the UK to take pressure of the 4.5 million people on council housing waiting lists. However, Gavin Smart of the National Housing Federation said that many of the homes they were being offered to purchase did not meet the high environmental standards and size specifications expected for social housing.

The government has underestimated the cost of installing smart meters for gas and electricity nationally by £6 billion, according to Ernst & Young. Last week ministers agreed to roll out 47 million new smart meters across the country, for an estimated cost of between £7 and £9 billion – an average of £269 to £346 per household. Ernst & Young estimates the true cost would be at least 49 per cent higher and could cost each household up to £515.

The government is considering widening the choice-based lettings scheme. The government wants all local authorities to set up choice-based letting schemes by 2010, but a spokesperson for the department for Communities and Local Government said it was interested in hearing if any areas had obstacles in the way of the scheme being extended.

Meanwhile a report has found that poor quality housing is holding back the economic potential of the North. The report says that northern towns and cities have a poor range of housing, in particular a lack of high quality residential homes which is limiting the potential of the region. Greater diversity of stock is needed to attract key workers to industries in the knowledge economies – a ‘vital area of growth for the North’. The report calls for the Homes and Communities Agency to switch its funding from the decent homes programme to a more broadly focused decent neighbourhood programme.

Section 106 agreements may need scrapping, an inquiry into regeneration has been told. Michael Parkinson, director of the European Institute for Urban Affairs, has warned that developers are unwilling to pay for infrastructure and said the community infrastructure levy needs to be revised to find new ways of ‘doing regeneration’.

A council has come to the aid of people threatened with homelessness after Shelter Cymru was forced to withdraw some of its advice services because of a funding shortfall.  Caerphilly council has increased its funding for frontline services saying it believed the funding boost was a wise move that would save the council money in the longer term. Shelter Cymru helped 265 households at risk of homelessness in the area last year, of which 73 per cent were able to stay in the homes, with a further 8 per cent being helped to find alternatives.

A financial thinktank, the Financial Inclusion Centre (FIC), has warned that predictions of a fall in the number of repossessions are unfounded as official figures do not take into account sub-prime lenders details. FIC said it expected an increase in the number of repossessions, particularly in middle and lower-income groups who ‘mortgaged themselves to the hilt’, to be driven by rising unemployment. Research showed that sub-prime lenders had a higher proportion of customers likely to lose their jobs and default on their homes, and were also more likely to press for repossession. The warning comes after the Council of Mortgage Lenders said it expected to revise down its prediction of 75,000 homes being repossessed this year.

Asking prices for properties in England and Wales have risen for the fourth month in a row to a six-year high, according to property website Rightmove. The average price has increased by 2.4 per cent, or £5,000, which Rightmove has put down to sellers pricing their homes at a higher level to try to recoup lost equity, and also a halving in the number of new sellers. However, more than 59,000 sellers had slashed their asking price by more than 2 per cent in the past four weeks with the average homeowner reducing prices by 6.8 per cent.

Figures from the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) show the number of people who lost their homes has soared by more than 50 per cent during the first quarter of the year. A total of 12,800 properties were repossessed by first-charge lenders during the three months to the end of March, up from 8,500 a year earlier (a 50 per cent increase) and up 10,400, or 23 per cent, from the previous quarter. Despite these figures, CML said its forecast of 75,000 repossessions during 2009 now looked pessimistic and say they may revise the figure downwards.

In related figures, the Ministry of Justice saw a big drop in the number of lenders getting court permissions for the early stages of repossession. There were 17,054 repossession orders granted in the courts in the first three month of the year, which was 39 per cent lower than in the same period a year earlier and 43 per cent lower than in the last three months of 2008. The ministry said the mortgage pre-action protocol coincided with a fall of around 50 per cent in the number of new mortgage repossession claims being issued, but whether the protocol resulted in claims being delayed rather than abandoned was ‘unclear’.

A coalition of charities, including Shelter, which pushed for better government measures to help vulnerable people stay in their homes, has warned that while mainstream lenders have improved their treatment of homeowners, those with sub-prime and second charge loans were not getting the same treatment. Research has found that 51 per cent of advisers had seen an improvement in the procedures from mainstream lenders, but only one in five have seen any improvement in arrears collection for the sub-prime and remortgaged homeowner. 

In the buy-to-let world, new lending fell for the sixth consecutive quarter, accounting for 6 per cent of all gross mortgage lending in the first quarter of 2009, down from 12 per cent in year on year figures. There were 1,700 buy-to-let repossessions in the first quarter of the year (0.15 per cent of all buy-to-let mortgages), up from 1,300 during the previous three months (or 0.11 per cent of the market). A receiver of rent was appointed in 2,400 properties – enabling tenants to stay in their home by paying rent to their lender rather than the landlord.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is writing to 200,000 pensioners who receive pension credit to encourage them to contact their local council to check if they are entitled to help with the council tax or housing costs. Pensions minister Rosie Winterton said the government wanted everyone to receive the help they are entitled to, and some people on pension credit may not be aware that they can also receive help with their rent and council tax.

Park and mobile home residents will receive better protection from site owners and easier access to justice if they have a dispute under new proposals unveiled by housing minister Iain Wright. The proposals aim to ensure all reputable sites and owners are licensed and can be challenged on issues such as excessive pitch fees without having to go through the courts system. There are currently around 200,000 park home residents across the country.

The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) has published guidance on how social landlords can bid for part of the additional £84 million funding package to cover cavity wall insulation. The scheme aims to cover the properties which would not normally have been filled under the decent homes programme because they were hard to treat, and expects to deliver on 130,000 homes across the country during the next two years.

There are growing calls for an investigation into some of the MPs’ expenses claims. The Taxpayers’ Alliance and Daily Mail newspaper are said to have joined forces to raise money to fund a private criminal prosecution if police do not act into the alleged misuse of parliamentary funds. Scotland Yard has said they have received and are ‘currently considering’ a number of complaints in relation to the expenses.

The north Yorkshire town of Scarborough has beaten Valencia in Spain, Helsinki, Finland’s capital and 350 other towns to be named the most enterprising place in Europe. Scarborough’s work to encourage people to start up and grow businesses and create jobs, including stamping out seasonal unemployment, diversifying to new industry sectors and attracting more than £200 million in private investment was recognised in a ceremony in Prague on Wednesday.

Research has suggested that the tough policies designed to push asylum seekers out of the country by removing their support is simply forcing them to live on the streets, surviving on handouts. Last October, the Asylum Support Partnership counted almost 1,200 failed asylum seekers with no support or secure housing across the country day, from a group of 2,000 people found to be destitute with no housing or access to benefits or support. Half of these people came from Iraq, Iran, Eritrea and Zimbabwe.

The Tenant Services Authority (TSA) said that housing associations have made a promising start clearing the backlog of unsold low cost homes. During the past quarter (January - March 2009) the number of unsold properties fell 16 per cent, and the number of homes unsold for more than six months dropped 19 per cent. TSA chief executive Peter Marsh said that housing associations had sold more homes than they converted to rented social housing in the last quarter, indicating that associations were adapting to the changing market.

The government has finally responded to the Rugg review into private lettings and announced plans for tighter regulation of landlords. The government plans to create a register of all private landlords in England, including an improved complaints system that could remove rogue landlords from it, and will ensure that policing is done through the creation of an independent regulator. Meanwhile tenants will receive two months’ notice if their landlord is being repossessed.

Housing charities including Shelter have welcomed yesterday’s announcement that the law is to be changed to protect private tenants who suddenly face homelessness when their landlord is repossessed. The government’s announcement has come after alarm from campaigners over the growing number of tenants, who through no fault of their own and often with little warning are evicted from their house. More than 100 MPs had signed an early day motion calling for changed to the law.

Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) research shows a sharp rise in the number of mortgages in March. Around 31,000 mortgages were granted, up 29 per cent n February, although down 33 per cent compared with year on year figures. CML said that the cost of paying interest on home loans was at its lowest level since 2004, encouraging some 12,500 first-time buyers to take out a mortgage in March – or 40 per cent of all loans – the highest number since April 2005.  Low interest rates and house prices means that interest repayments equal 15.1 per cent of first timers’ income.

Six out of 10 people looking to buy a home think prices will not fall any further in the coming 12 months. The survey from Rightmove.com found that only 35 per cent of those questioned said they thought the property market correction had further to go – down from 69 per cent three months ago. Young people are the most optimistic, with 41 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds expecting property prices to rise this year. People still think it is a buyer’s market – with 71 per cent believing it is a good time to buy, compared with 2 per cent who think it is a good time to sell.

Meanwhile Abbey National, the country’s second-largest mortgage lender, has announced that it will relax lending criteria on its most popular loans tomorrow. It is lowering the minimum deposit required for its best fixed rate deal from 40 to 30 per cent. The move comes as the Bank of England said that recovery in the economy would be slow and protracted, with low interest rates around for at least another year according to analysts.

The Olympic village in London will be publically owned after the government put in an extra £324 million in public funds when no private investors were found. Originally the £1 billion village, to include 2,800 flats, was to be entirely privately funded, but Olympics minister Tessa Jowell said private finding had been rejected as it was ‘not a good deal’ for the taxp

A consultation into the Town and Country Planning Act concerning homes in multiple occupancy (HMOs) was launched yesterday. The department for Communities and Local Government wants to identify ways of improving the problems occurring in areas with a high density of HMOs, such as antisocial behaviour and litter. The prospect of tighter legislation has not been well received.

The level or arrears and repossession should be lower than the early 1990s, the head of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said yesterday, as the short-term financial position of many borrowers had been improved by low interest rates. Lord Turner added he is still considering regulating the size of mortgages being made available – limiting their amounts to the value of the property or the borrower’s income. He also warned that early indications suggested the buy-to-let market may produce ‘significantly higher arrears and defaults than owner occupiers’.

Moody’s the ratings agency backed Lord Turner’s comments, reporting that tens of thousands of buy-to-let landlords are struggling to meet their mortgage repayments. In the first quarter of the year 3.55 per cent of landlords were at least three months behind with their payments, compared with 0.95 per cent for the same period a year ago. Repossessions have also increased in the buy-to-let market, up from 0.13 to 0.18 per cent in the first quarter.

The chief executive of Barratt Developments, Mark Clare has called for banks to increase their lending to help stimulate the depressed housing market. He said it was too early to say whether the government’s efforts to get lenders financing housing deals would feed through into the housing market in the next three to six months, but in a trading update today Barratt said it had noticed improved sentiment in the market, with visitors and reservation rates up in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Redrow has returned to work at building sites stalled by the credit crisis. In an interim statement the company said it was encouraged by sales activity since the start of the year and that the market had become more stable as developers reduced unsold stock, and although the market ‘remains challenging’ it was reviewing the types of homes it builds to reduce the number of flats and multi story houses in favour or more family friendly homes.

Half of all developers are predicting that house prices will stabilise by the end of the year, according to a survey by Smartnewhomes.com. The majority thought the downturn would not last beyond 2010, but a quarter of respondents predicted a further fall of 50 per cent in the number of new developments to be started this year would occur. The vast majority – more than 70 per cent – rated the government’s efforts to boost the industry as entirely ineffective, and they highlighted the lack of mortgage finance as a major barrier.

The Audit Commission has warned that pathfinder renewal schemes in the north and midlands may struggle to recover from the credit crisis. It said the downturn could not have come at a worse time for the schemes, and it expects the house price gap between pathfinder areas and other parts of the country will widen again. The commission called on the Homes and Communities Agency to monitor the pathfinders more closely and to establish a ‘broad vision’ for the programme.

Communities secretary Hazel Blears launched a strategy to improve design standards in new public buildings. She said that badly designed estates and low quality neighbourhoods ‘encourage crime, undermine communities, deter investment, spoil the environment and cost a fortune in the long term’. She added that good design was not a luxury that can be dropped during economic difficulties, and the government urged councils, social housing providers and developers to put good planning, local character and high quality design at the heart of development.

The government has been warned that its plans to cut fuel poverty and improve energy efficiency were underfunded, untargeted and underprepared in a report from Consumer Focus. The group says the government needs to spend £3 billion a year for seven years to meet its target of ending fuel poverty in 2016, and faced a total bill of £200 billion to improve energy efficiency. The report warns that if consumers bear the brunt of funding through increased energy bills, 1.7 million more households could be plunged into fuel poverty.

All MPs’ receipts for expenses from the previous four years must be independently scrutinised the prime minister said. He said ‘extreme’ action was needed to help MPs show they were ‘worthy of public trust’ and said that if necessary it would mean repayments being made and disciplinary action being taken against some MPs.

A report out today warns that one in eight tenants in sheltered housing in England is at risk of malnutrition. The study from the Group on Nutrition and Sheltered Housing found malnutrition to be present in 14 per cent of residents, and was more common in older residents, women and those who had lived in sheltered accommodation for longer.

Despite falling house prices research from Circle Anglia has found that a third of Britons believe that home ownership is still out of reach to them. People living in the South West are the most pessimistic with 46 per cent saying they will not be able to own a house and 42 per cent in Wales feeling the same way. London had the lowest figure with only one in five worrying they will never be able to afford their own place.

The government has reaffirmed its commitment to regeneration by announcing a new framework that will focus on ‘people as well as places’, and be driven by local needs and opportunities. In her speech yesterday to the British Urban Regeneration Association, Hazel Blears announced the aim of regeneration was to reverse economic, social and physical decline where market forces will not do this without support from the government. Regeneration must be focused on improving economic outcomes and tackling worklessness, she added.

The planning system must not become a ‘tool for promoting economic development’, the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) said, setting out its vision for the future of the English countryside. The CPRE describes the countryside it wants to see by 2026, its centenary year, as where urban regeneration contributes to green space, affordable housing, vibrant neighbourhoods and people-friendly transport. It expects more than two million ‘high quality homes’ will have been built and energy efficient buildings and low carbon communities would be commonplace. It also wants more planning decisions to be taken locally.

The Prince of Wales is expected to tell Britain’s leading architects that communities should be integral to their work, and the needs of locals should be put forward, as he speaks at this year’s Royal Institute of British Architects lecture tonight. He will suggest three principles that should be followed to achieve the goal – a grounding in precedent, better understanding of developments in the local community and incorporating the best of modern technology. A number of architects have called on the industry to boycott the lecture, after Prince Charles intervened in the Chelsea Barracks development in London.

Figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) have given hope to some that the house market may be improving. RICS found that 41 per cent more chartered surveyors reported new buyer enquiries rising rather than falling in April, up from 32 per cent in March, and the highest reading since August 1999. The pace of house price decline slowed with 59.9 per cent more estate agents reporting price falls rather than increases last month, down from 72.1 per cent in March. Agents sold on average 10.6 properties between February and April, up from 9.7 in the previous quarter. A spokesperson from RICS said however, that the market was ‘unlikely to see significant improvement while money remains in short supply…’

The property Ombudsman has said that the number of disputes it decided on had fallen by 38 per cent in the first three months of the year, compared with the previous quarter. The Ombudsman opened 102 new cases this year in regards to sales, down from 162 the previous quarter. However the number of complaints about lettings was up slightly following a 200 per cent increase during the whole of 2008. Estate agents now have to be a member of a free Ombudsman service, which ensures customer complaints are dealt with, but letting agents are not yet required to join a redress scheme.