ROOF Blog

Young people trying to get on the property ladder were handed a pre-election boost worth up to £2,500 after the chancellor scrapped stamp duty on homes costing £250,000 or less for first-time buyers. The move will be funded by an increase to 5% in the duty on homes costing £1m or more, which will see buyers of these properties having to hand over a minimum of £50,000 in tax. The move was quickly dubbed by some as a ‘Robin Hood’ tax on the rich. The new £250,000 threshold, which took effect at midnight last night and will last for two years, means nine out of 10 people buying their first home will not be liable for the tax.

The lack of mobile phone reception and broadband coverage in rural areas has become the number one issue in dissuading young people from staying on in the countryside, according to the chair of the Commission for Rural Communities. In a report to the prime minister, Stuart Burgess, the government’s rural advocate, said that the long-term future of the countryside is in jeopardy because so many young people are being forced out of rural areas to find homes, jobs and support.

Research from the Office for National Statistics shows that almost one in five graduates in their late twenties now live with their parents.

By contrast, only one in eight university graduates had failed to fly the nest by the same age 20 years ago.

Rising property prices, mounting student debts and the effects of recession on the job market have forced a wave of young people to move back into the family home at an age when they would normally be moving out.

The research suggests that young people in Britain are twice as likely to live with their parents in their late twenties than their counterparts elsewhere in Europe.

According to the latest National Housing Planning and Advice Unit’s survey on housing, attitudes to new housing developments need to change ‘as a matter of urgency’. More than half of current homeowners (51 per cent) would object to new housing being built in their area, despite continuing home affordability issues where as many as 90 per cent of young people cannot afford an average first-time buyer’s house. By comparison less than a third of non-homeowners (31 per cent) would object. Despite the average house price fall of 22 per cent, almost nine out of ten young people cannot afford to buy an averagely priced first-time home.

A Salvation Army report has warned a generation of young people are binge drinking to such an extent they are at risk of social exclusion and homelessness. The report, Seeds of Exclusion 2009, says it is concerned for a new generation of young homeless adults who appear to be self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. Relationship breakdown and lack of supportive relationships are cited as the main reasons for homelessness. However, the research indicated that 59 per cent of those questioned reported an alcohol addiction, rising to 66 per cent among the 18- to 25-year-olds.

The government has announced that financial support to students will be frozen next year because of ‘difficult economic times’. The decision has been described as a ‘kick in the teeth’ for young people who argue the cap in grants and loans represented a real term cut and would increase student debt level.

The number of young people not in employment, education and training (neets) is expected to total one million by September research by the Local Government Association has found. Much earlier intervention is needed to identify young people who are at risk of dropping out and councils should be allowed to fund employment or training projects, the LGA says.

Fewer young people are living independently than ten years ago, and more households in the private rented sector are headed by young people aged 16-24 than in owner occupation and social housing combined, according to a study by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH). Young people say that they are excluded from home ownership and shared ownership because the costs are too high for them to meet.

Planning laws should be relaxed to make it easier for families to add accommodation to their homes for elderly relatives, Relationship Foundation, a social thinktank has said. The organisation says the rising number of pensioners, falling pensions, higher child care costs and a depressed housing market mean that more people are living with relatives than ever. It is also keen to see social housing bodies build more multi-generational homes. Recent research found that 500,000 homes in Britain are occupied by several generations of the one family.

The House of Lords upheld a Court of Appeal decision that a local authority’s children’s service unit had not fulfilled its duty of care to a homeless child, just by referring him to a homeless person’s unit. The claimant had presented himself to Southwark council’s children’s services department asking for urgent assessment under section 17 of the Children Act 1989 and immediate accommodation under section 20(1). The assessment initially concluded that, as he was 17 and not in fulltime education, accommodation provided by the homeless person’s unit was sufficient.