ROOF Blog

A £13 million manor house looking out across one of Paris’ most exclusive squares has become France’s most desirable squat. The vast 17th-century property boasts listed rooms with period painted wooden beams and panelling and a spectacular view over the Place des Vosges. It has not been lived in for more than 40 years. The squatters broke into the property to draw attention to the plight of low-paid workers unable to afford housing while countless properties are left vacant. They belong to a group called ‘Black Thursday’, created by four students appalled at the sky-high rents they were required to pay for even the smallest properties. They want more social housing, which has a waiting list of 1.2 million people, and have the support of local Green and Left-wing politicians.

The number of families forced to hand back the deeds to their home in the recession has been understated, according to the Conservatives, because the official figures exclude ‘sale and rentbacks’. There were 48,000 repossessions in 2009, compared with 75,000 in 1991 at the peak of the last recession. Labour said the figure, which was lower than some earlier predictions, was proof that its measures had worked. But Grant Shapps, shadow housing minister, has claimed that the true number of people losing their homes is far higher. The total cited by Labour, he said, did not include those homeowners who sold their home to a landlord and rented it back in an attempt to remain in the property.

Housing and Planning Minister John Healey has proposed a more consumer-friendly green rating for homes that will promote energy efficient properties and reduce future utility bills by up to £1500 a year in the most energy efficient homes. The Code for Sustainable Homes was ratified in April 2007 as a standard to measure improvement in the overall sustainability of new homes. Mr Healey is proposing changes in the Code to make it easier for consumers, whether they are developers or individuals simply wanting to grade and track the sustainability of their properties. Mr Healey said: ‘Our homes account for a quarter of UK carbon emissions, so it’s clear they are a vital part of our efforts to tackle climate change. The Code has proved its worth but now is the time to make it a more user-friendly standard for consumers. In the future, this will help drive uptake so people will save more money on bills and reduce the carbon footprint of new homes.’

The seemingly inexhaustible demand for property meant that house prices continued to rise last month, despite a fresh supply of stock coming on to the housing market.

The proportion of estate agents reporting an increase rather than a decrease in house prices was at its highest for three years, according to figures from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).

The figures show that 35 per cent of surveyors reported rising rather than falling prices in the past three months, up from 34 per cent in October and the highest quarterly reading since November 2006.

Three weeks after last month’s devastating Cumbria floods, the Environment Agency is urging owners of damaged properties to insist that insurers repair their homes and businesses to be more flood-resilient.

Properties affected by flooding are often simply returned to their previous state, meaning that similar damage is likely if flooding occurs in future.

Repairing a property that has been flooded offers a chance to minimise the damage and disruption that could be caused by any future flood.

Average household wealth in the south-east of England is almost twice that in Scotland, according to the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) first ‘Wealth in Great Britain’ report, which also found that London was not as wealthy as you might think.

The ONS painted a detailed picture of affluence and borrowing habits after collecting evidence from 31,000 households across Britain and estimating the value of their housing, pension investments and other possessions.

For many of the respondents to the survey, accumulating a healthy portfolio of assets was a distant dream: the least wealthy 10 per cent of households had negative total net wealth – owing more on their mortgages or other loans than their properties and other goods are worth.

A total of 55,300 mortgages for house purchases were granted by lenders in October, the highest number since December 2007, the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) said today.

Activity in the housing market has increased markedly since reaching a trough in January when just 23,000 home loans were advanced during the month.

The bulk of the market is made up of home movers, with 35,600 of October’s loans going to borrowers who already own a property, a 49 per cent increase on the same period last year.

However, first-time buyer numbers have also recovered since the start of the year, more than doubling from 8,900 in January to 19,700.

First-time buyers were dealt a blow in the pre-budget report when the chancellor announced that the current stamp duty holiday would not be extended beyond the end of the year.

Alistair Darling also scrapped plans to raise the threshold for inheritance tax from £325,000 to £350,000. Currently, anyone buying a property for £175,000 or less avoids paying one per cent stamp duty.

This threshold has been in place since September 2008 when the chancellor increased it from £125,000.

Since the stamp duty holiday was introduced, about 132,500 house-purchase mortgage transactions have escaped the tax, according to research by the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

This accounts for more than a quarter of the 486,400 house purchase loans in the period.

The monthly Halifax house price index shows that house prices jumped by a bigger than expected 1.4 per cent in November, spurred on by higher demand and a shortage of properties for sale.

The increase was the fifth successive monthly rise with prices more than four per cent higher over the first 11 months of the year. The average cost of a house in the UK is now £167,664.

However, that is still 1.6 per cent cheaper than this time last year, and the recovery in house prices that we’ve seen in the past six months is unlikely to be sustained next year, analysts warned.

Seema Shah, a property economist at Capital Economics, said: ‘With the economic recovery likely to be lacklustre, unemployment set to rise and household incomes likely to be under downward pressure from pay freezes, house price falls remain the most likely outcome next year.’

As many as 95,200 homeowners over the last two years decided they could no longer remain in their properties because of fights with neighbours, according to a survey.

However, the most common reasons for moving home saw one in three households move to climb up the property ladder and one in five moving because they needed more room, based on a total of 680,000 home owners moving since 2007.

Other popular reasons for moving home included relocating to a new job and moving into a better school catchment area.

Homeowners who are selling their properties are required by law to declare any arguments they have had with their neighbours.