ROOF Blog archive

90% of couples under 40 with children in London can’t afford to get on the housing ladder. Analysis by the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit found that as an average figure across the capital only 10% of young families could afford to buy a suitable home. The figure drops to 5% in some areas including Camden, Hammersmith and Islington. Only in the wealthier boroughs of Richmond, Redbridge, Merton and Bromley can more than 20% of young families afford to buy a home. The figure of 10% in London compares with 21.4% in the South West and 23.8% for the South East.

Private sector landlords are urging support from MPs to ‘save the future of renting’ to students and young professionals. Nurses, teachers and a generation of young workers could be hit by a government plan to prohibit areas of shared housing for groups of unrelated tenants. The legislation comes into force on 6 April when new powers will allow planning legislation to be used to control the renting of shared properties to people who are not families or related tenants. Alan Ward, chairman of the Residential Landlords Association, said: The government’s change to planning Use Classes Orders is bad not only for landlords but for the whole private rented sector, not to mention the local economies that have traditionally grown around existing areas of shared housing’.

Around 300,000 people who had hoped to pay off their mortgage this year face shortfalls. They are all victims of missselling of 25 year with-profits endowment policies. Almost three million more people will suffer a similar fate in the next few years, according to the Association of British Insurers. At the peak of the 80s housing boom, homebuyers were encouraged to take interest-only mortgages and rely on investment returns from an endowment to repay the loan at the end of the term, usually 25 years. In the 90s, £50 a month policies regularly turned a £15,000 investment into a £100,000 return.  Today, they commonly pay out less than £30,000 for the same 25-year investment.

The Salvation Army is to rebrand its hostels for the homeless as LifeHouses. Maff Potts, Salvation Army’s director of homelessness services said: ‘This is a defining moment for the Salvation Army. The word ‘hostel’ was linked with old-style warehousing of people and didn’t convey that there’s more to our support services than simply housing. LifeHouse clearly demonstrates that we are about providing purpose and relationships - two words which are at the heart of our delivery of support services.’ Around 3,500 people stay at the organisation’s 83 UK and Ireland centres each night. The charity will also expand activities run in the centres, and the training offered to improve the self-esteem, mental health and employment prospects of the people using the centres.

Higher unemployment is forcing more young people into further education, increasing demand for short-term flats and providing a boost for Unite, the student accommodation developer. Demand is expected to accelerate at such a rate that Unite yesterday told investors it would continue to buy properties in student hotspots such as London and would not be reinstating the dividend — last paid in the middle of 2008 — until it had returned to ‘meaningful’ profit, even though the group announced a profit of £600,000 after a loss of £5.8 million in 2008. A lack of job opportunities was partly behind a 23% rise in the number of university applications between February 2009 and the same month this year, Mark Allan, chief executive of Unite, said yesterday.

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.

The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) has announced that Saxon Weald and Eastbourne borough council have been successful in a bid for almost £6.2 million grant funding to develop an extra care scheme in Langney. Derry Court and the land adjacent to it, owned by East Sussex county council, will be developed together to achieve the purpose built scheme.  The development is forecast to provide 62 high-quality self-contained apartments for older people who have an assessed care need and require support with daily living.

A homeowner has won a legal victory overturning a council order demanding he tidy up piles of rubbish from his Surrey garden. Mr Wallace was served a notice under Section 215 of the Town and Country Planning Act by the council in May, Guildford Crown Court heard. He was ordered to remove the plastic bottles, tins, newspapers and other waste, cut back overgrown vegetation and leave the land clear and tidy at his Westcott homes. But he appealed against the decision, at first unsuccessfully at magistrates’ court, and then at the higher court. In allowing the appeal, Recorder Christopher Purchas said the evidence ‘does not go far enough to show Mr Wallace was interfering with the amenity of other people who live in the locality’.

The Big Issue in the North, together with a number of Premier League and Football League clubs, is holding regional open trials to select the England team that will travel to compete in the Rio 2010 Homeless World Cup. The Homeless World Cup is an annual, international football tournament, uniting teams of people who are homeless and excluded. It has triggered and supports grassroots football projects in over 70 nations working with over 30,000 homeless and excluded people throughout the year.

The British housing market is improving at a faster rate than property prices across most of the rest of Europe, a report by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) has found. House prices rose in only five European countries, including Britain, during 2009. But other countries continued to suffer a sharp market correction, with prices diving by up to 53%. RICS warned that countries with vulnerable economies would continue to suffer from price falls and depressed markets during 2010. Norway led the revival, with property prices in the country rising by 12% during 2009, followed by Finland at 8% and Sweden at 7%. Britain was the fourth best performing country, with the average cost of a home ending the year 1% higher than it started it, although house prices had risen by 10% from their lowest point in April.

The Government has set out new plans to make Britain’s homes ‘greener, warmer and cheaper to run’. The strategy is aimed at cutting emissions from the UK’s homes by 29% by 2020. It will help people make smarter use of energy in homes, making it easier to take action and reduce bills. Installing some technologies, such as solid wall insulation, could see energy bills cut by £380 a year. The strategy will be implemented in a three stage plan: to insulate 6 million homes by the end of 2011; to have insulated all practical lofts and cavity walls by 2015; to have offered up to 7 million eco upgrades by 2020.

John Healey has published the Government’s response to the Mayor of London’s plans for affordable housing in the capital. He warns that the housing strategy will not sufficiently address the capital’s needs, and outlines areas of particular concern, including plans to reduce the number of new social rented homes provided by councils and housing associations by an equivalent 2,755 homes a year compared to current plans.

Councils are considering plans to reduce their spending including by cutting up to 170,000 public sector jobs in anticipation of a dramatic downturn in their budgets. Dame Margaret Eaton, chair of the Local Government Association, said that local authorities were being hit by a ‘perfect storm’ in the recession with increased pressure on their services and a squeeze on their budgets. Privately, councils are looking at how to slash their budgets by 15% over the next three years, using projections on the cuts necessary to reduce the £178m public deficit drawn-up by the respected Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The UK industry should develop more products to help builders and property owners make the 5.5 million properties at flood risk in England and Wales more resistant and resilient to flooding, Environment Agency chairman Lord Chris Smith says. Speaking at the National Flood Forum annual conference, Lord Smith also encouraged building merchants and DIY stores to offer advice to builders and members of the public on how to make properties more resilient to floods, so that drying out and cleaning up is faster and cheaper following any flooding. A recent Environment Agency study into the devastating floods of summer 2007 found the average cost per flooded home was between £23,000 and £30,000 and a quarter of homeowners were not fully covered by insurance.

Local authorities should not adopt a ‘one size fits all’ approach when granting planning permission for housing, and should move away from the approach to planning policy that led to large-scale construction of high-density flats on urban brownfield land, according to a report from the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU), a quango set up to advise government on housing policy. The NHPAU looked at the development of housing in a variety of densities and locations and concluded that while high-density housing was sometimes the most valuable, it often was not.

Labour’s record on tackling asylum faces a fresh onslaught today over figures that show a new backlog of 30,000 cases and a warning by the government’s immigration watchdog that its targets are currently ‘unachievable’. John Vine also makes clear that a special five-year exercise which began in 2006 to clear the legacy of 450,000 unresolved asylum cases is now unlikely to meet its July 2011 target completion date. The setbacks mean that despite progress the Labour government will go into the general election campaign unable to claim that the asylum system has been fixed after John Reid famously declared the Home Office’s immigration directorate ‘unfit for purpose’ in May 2006.

Fears of a double-dip recession and a sterling crisis in the run-up to the election were raised last night amid news of collapsing investment in British industry and a warning from one of the world’s leading financiers that the pound could plummet within weeks. The pound fell sharply on the foreign exchange markets after a day of grim economic news which saw an admission from RBS that it had missed government targets for business lending, a downgrading of the UK growth prospects by the European commission and a warning from the CBI that consumer spending was likely to remain weak ahead of polling day.

Shelter has won an historic legal case at the European Court of Justice on behalf of a homeless woman with four small children. The case was wholly funded by the Government’s legal aid services. Shelter represented Nimco Hassan Ibrahim, a mother of four children, after her housing application was turned down by Harrow Council. The case, which lasted three years, finally went before the European Court of Justice who ruled in favour of Mrs Ibrahim. Shelter chief executive Campbell Robb said: ‘Shelter did not fund this case, as claimed in a daily newspaper, and none of our funding or donations from the public or corporate sponsors has been used. The case was wholly funded by legal aid through the Legal Services Commission.’

Two of the biggest bellwethers of the housing market yesterday provided mixed messages on the recovery of the UK property sector. While the housebuilder Barratt Developments boasted an improved trading performance and an uplift in selling prices over the six months to 31 December, Travis Perkins, the owner of the DIY retail chain Wickes, reported a slump in annual sales at its eponymous builders’ merchants, and warned that it was unable to predict when the group will return to growth. Barratt Developments’ buoyant update came against the backdrop of stark warnings on the economy and housing market by Kate Barker, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee, on Monday, that the rally over the last 12 months cannot continue.

Britain’s oldest building society is to be taken over by the much larger Skipton Building Society. The Chesham, which was founded in 1845, said that it had been badly squeezed by economic and interest rate conditions and was loss-making at the operating level last year. The society boasts 20,000 members and three branches in the Buckinghamshire commuter towns of Chesham, Aylesbury and Little Chalfont. Skipton has promised to keep the three branches and an agency in Tring open for at least 12 months. There will be no compulsory redundancies among branch staff, but some head office employees will lose their jobs. The deal will require approval from both Chesham members and the Financial Services Authority.

The average cost of Band D council tax bills in England for 2010/11 is set to increase by the lowest percentage since the tax was introduced in 1993. The Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and local authorities predict rises of below 2%. A CIPFA survey suggests the average bill will be about £1,438.72.  CIPFA head of policy Ian Carruthers said although politicians had listened to calls to ‘avoid large increases’, financial pressures meant councils might still have to cut certain services.

The end of stamp duty relief at the start of the year has helped cause a substantial dip in mortgage lending during January, with just £8.02 billion lent during the month, the lowest level since March 2001. This compares with an average monthly amount of about £18 billion during 2007. The data, released by the British Bankers’ association, are the latest figures to suggest the economy will endure a slow recovery, after signs of optimism at the end of last year. A leading member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee warned today that the housing market could be ‘weak’ during 2010.

Housing minister John Healey has announced a boost to house building in England, by confirming nearly £500million funding to build around 8,000 affordable homes across the country. This takes total government funding for house building to £3.5 billion since June. Over 3,000 of these new homes are expected to be available through the government’s HomeBuy schemes, offering first time buyers a helping hand onto the property ladder. And nearly 5,000 homes will be available for affordable rent through housing associations.

With a growing number of Americans facing negative equity and becoming ever more pessimistic about the prospects of house prices recovering to make up that difference, they are surrendering to foreclosure even though they can still meet the repayments, according to reports. The trend is clear in recent rates of non-payment, or delinquency, on mortgages. In January, delinquencies on outstanding ‘jumbo’ mortgages - big loans granted to people with good credit histories - rose to 9.6 per cent, according to Fitch Ratings. Many of these problem loans, which have gone unserviced for 60 days or more, were taken out after 2005. And nonpayment is increasing not just in hard-hit states such as California: in New York, Florida, Virginia and New Jersey they are all on the rise too.

The Conservative party has finally published its long awaited planning green paper which includes proposing the scrapping of centrally-set housing targets and replacing them with a system of financial incentives for local councils to build. As expected, the green paper also includes introducing a presumption in favour of sustainable development at the base of the system, whilst giving neighbours the right to force the council to review a planning application. However the Tories said they will limit the right of residents or developers to appeal planning decisions once the decision has been taken, and will replace the planned introduction of the Community Infrastructure Levy with a ‘tariff’.

Ministers are to crack down on excessive housing benefit payments in a series of reforms designed to curb the increasing £17 billion annual rental bill. Yvette Cooper, the work and pensions secretary, plans to cap the highest rates paid to private landlords — as much as £1,800 a week — to stop families on benefit living in palatial homes at the taxpayers’ expense. The reforms are expected to save hundreds of millions of pounds a year, but could result in hundreds of families being evicted from expensive accommodation with six months’ notice. The housing benefit bill, which covers rents in the private and social sector, has jumped from £11 billion in 1998 to £17.4 billion in 2008-09 and goes to 4.5 million claimants. The Treasury has forecast that this will rise to £20 billion by 2011 because of the recession, rising private rents and a critical shortage of social housing. The average rent in social housing is only £72 a week against £108 in the private sector.

Gross mortgage lending in January fell to the lowest level in 10 years as buyers were deterred by the end of the stamp duty holiday, figures showed this week – but experts have warned that lending could decline further as banks lose government funding support. According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), gross mortgages totalled just £9.1bn in January, down 32 per cent from the £13.4bn in December. This is the lowest monthly total since February 2000, when gross lending was £7.9bn. While a seasonal fall is usual between December and January, the CML said the drop was ‘larger than average’ due to higher purchase activity in December, as borrowers rushed to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday on properties valued less than £175,000.

Estate agents are to be given a clean bill of health and escape a regulatory crackdown when a year-long investigation by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) reports its findings later today. Despite repeated calls over a number of years by consumer bodies and even some agents’ groups, the OFT will conclude that the industry is generally working in consumers’ best interests and that a regulatory regime is not required. Over the last 12 months, the OFT has been investigating all aspects of the process of buying and selling homes in the UK, including price competition, quality of service, and whether the industry needs to be regulated. Peter Bolton King, chief executive of the National Association of Estate Agents, said: ‘Buying a home is often the largest single transaction of a person’s life and it is disappointing that the OFT has not thought it appropriate to acknowledge that a robust and appropriate level of consumer protection is needed.’

Councils will struggle to cope with the financial challenge posed by England’s ageing population and may miss opportunities to innovate and save, says a new report from the Audit Commission. ‘Under Pressure’ says most councils do not know enough about the costs of their ageing population. They may also miss the savings that could flow from preventive services and better work with other organisations. Michael O’Higgins, Chairman of the Audit Commission, said: ‘Most older people live at home, not in care homes. And the longer they do, the happier they are and the less they cost the taxpayer. Innovative, personalised services mean older people stay independent longer, saving public money.’

Housing statistics for the final quarter of 2008 show a record low for the number of new homes being built. Housing starts (the number of private new homes under construction) were down 58 per cent from Q4 of 2007. Private enterprise housing starts were 64 per cent lower than the December quarter of 2007, with annual housing starts figures for England continuing to decline, totaling 105,000 in 2008, down some 37 per cent compared with 2007 and 43 per cent below their 2005-06 peak. Chairman of the Local Government Association housing board, Cllr Paul Bettison, said: ‘The slowdown in private sector house building will eventually affect the amount of affordable housing that is being built. This will mean fewer new social homes at a time when there will be more demand for them.’

The Conservative Treasury team are holding talks on handing responsibility to local councils for setting and distributing benefits such as the jobseeker’s allowance. Speaking at a conference organised by the New Local Government Network in London, the shadow chief secretary, Philip Hammond, disclosed that he was holding talks on the issue with Conservative councils, including Kent. Under the proposal benefits would be lower where it was easier to find work. Councils would also be given incentives to help people find jobs. The plan has not yet appeared in any formal document. At the same conference John Denham, the communities secretary, put his faith in Total Place, a scheme that aims to drive out duplication and increase partnership working. ‘Local people will rightly be intolerant if they are told that frontline services will be cut when their council hasn’t taken tough decisions to introduce shared services, sharing senior staff with other local authorities, PCTs or other bidders, or through making the best use of public buildings,’ he said.

The Financial Services Authority, the City watchdog, is proposing a clampdown on the charges that lenders levy on customers who are in arrears, as well as stressing that they must only consider repossessing a home as a last resort. The latest round of proposals comes after problems with the way specialist lenders and third party administrators were handling people who fell behind with repayments. Lenders have also come in for heavy criticism over the fees they levy on homeowners who are in arrears, with some groups charging £150 to people for a visit by a debt counsellor, or £300 for instructing a solicitor. Borrowers can also be charged£60 a month in fees even once they have come to an arrangement with their lender about repaying the arrears. Under Tuesday’s proposals, firms will no longer be allowed to apply monthly arrears charges to consumers when they have agreed a repayment plan

A detailed and startling analysis of how unequal Britain has become offers a snapshot of an increasingly divided nation where the richest 10 per cent of the population are more than 100 times as wealthy as the poorest 10 per cent of society. The report, An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK, scrutinises the degree to which the country has become more unequal over the past 30 years. Much of it will make uncomfortable reading for the Labour government, although the paper indicates that considerable responsibility lies with the Tories, who presided over the dramatic divisions of the 1980s and early 1990s. The new findings show that the household wealth of the top 10 per cent of the population stands at £853,000 and more – over 100 times higher than the wealth of the poorest 10 per cent, which is £8,800 or below (a sum including cars and other possessions).

John Healey has extended the government’s campaign to help struggling homeowners get a grip on their finances and avoid repossession. Over 330,000 households have had help and advice with their mortgages over the past year. But with the pressure on families likely to remain high throughout 2010, starting this week the government is working with CAB to run a string of local help events in 56 repossession ‘hotspots’, so that struggling homeowners can get impartial face-to-face help and advice to keep their home. New radio and local press advertising in all 56 areas will also promote the free telephone advice line and special website to help homeowners struggling with their mortgage payments.

Applications to build houses across the UK rose in the last quarter of 2009, according to the NHBC. It said applications to build new homes between October and December 2009 rose 64 per cent from 15,879 to 26,078 compared with the same period in 2008. This was driven by the private sector, where applications surged 113 per cent, from 8,646 in the last quarter of 2008, to 18,393 in 2009. Public sector demand saw a six per cent rise, from 7,233 to 7,685. Imtiaz Farookhi, chief executive of the NHBC, said: ‘Our house building colleagues across the industry have shown cautious optimism as they reveal their predictions for 2010. Now the nation’s housebuilders need support from the government as they see their way out of this downturn and try to meet the need for new homes.’

Nearly one in ten over-70s are still paying to support their children, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said yesterday. Hundreds of thousands of elderly people are bearing the financial burden of a family despite having had to retire in their sixties. The findings reflect the rising ‘boomerang generation’ of twentysomethings returning to the family home to rely on their parents after leaving university, as well as the increasing age at which many couples are having children. On top of this, a quarter of grandparents are paying towards the upbringing of their children’s children, other figures have shown.

The government will struggle to build even half of its target of a million affordable homes by 2020 if the housing budget is not exempted from public spending cuts, a housing campaign group says. If the cuts to the house-building budget suggested by November’s pre-budget report go ahead, the number of affordable homes built by 2020 will be 444,000, says the National Housing Federation. The NHF is calling on Gordon Brown to make the house building budget ‘untouchable’ and give it the same status as hospitals, schooling and policing, areas the government said in November it would ringfence while it cut back spending in other areas.

Most Britons believe that house prices will rise this year as the country awaits official confirmation that the worst peacetime recession is finally over. A survey by Rightmove found that 53 per cent of those in the UK believe house prices will rise over the next 12 months, compared with just 10 per cent at the beginning of last year. The sharp upswing in confidence about one of the worst affected sectors during the recession comes prior to the publication of figures tomorrow that are expected to show the economy started growing again in the last quarter of 2009. Economists are predicting that the Office for National Statistics will say that gross domestic product increased by 0.4 per cent, which would mark the official end of the recession following six quarters of contraction.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has expressed concerns over the strength of the information collected on Decent Homes progress. It is estimated that over a million social homes have been improved by CLG’s Decent Homes Programme. The original target was that all social sector homes would be decent by 2010, but by November 2009, CLG was estimating that approximately 92 per cent of social housing would meet the standard by 2010, leaving 305,000 properties ‘non-decent’. 100 per cent decency would not be achieved until 2018-19.

Hundreds of thousands of homeowners could be in line to collect hefty refunds for unfair mortgage charges as lenders face being forced to hand back millions of pounds in fees imposed on customers who missed their monthly loan payments. One firm has been fined £2.8million and made to return £7.7million to borrowers when it was found to have acted unfairly. The crackdown by the Financial Services Authority is likely to lead to claims by hundreds of thousands of home owners who believe they have been harshly penalised.

The Electoral Commission is reminding people living in temporary accommodation that they don’t need a permanent address to have a say at the next general election. The independent elections watchdog has produced a poster encouraging residents in shelters, hostels and bed and breakfasts to discuss how to register to vote with their accommodation managers. The project is being supported by Homeless Link, whose chief executive Jenny Edwards commented: ‘Homeless Link believes it is crucial that those who are experiencing homelessness use their political voice to influence the environment in which they live and the services they use. We welcome the recognition of the importance of homeless people’s votes and are working to increase awareness of voter registration procedures.’

Today 96 charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises will receive over £2.27 million in Government grants to improve vital facilities they provide for their communities. The grants, worth up to £30,000 each, are part of the Capital Investment Programme delivered by Capacitybuilders. They support small scale improvements to resource centres which result in improved availability, or quality and accessibility of accommodation or shared facilities for local third sector organisations.

Both the CML and the Bank of England agreed that mortgage lending edged up again in the last months of the year, against the usual seasonal downturn. The CML reported that gross mortgage lending reached an estimated £13.7bn in December, up 14 per cent on November. A rush of sales before the end of the stamp duty holiday and the prospective hike in VAT accounted for much of the improvement.

A new website - data.gov.uk - allows people to access 2,500 sets of official data, some of it never released before, from across Government departments. They include everything from crime rates, house prices and tidal predictions, to the numbers of people issued with antisocial behaviour orders living in people’s areas. Its creator Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who is credited with founding the internet 20 years ago, admitted the scale of the information available, which will eventually be searchable by postcode, will mean that social inequalities between different areas will quickly become apparent. There was a risk that some areas would seem like ‘ghettoes’ compared to others, he said, although this was not necessarily a bad thing as it would create pressure on politicians to spend money on improving the worse-off areas.

Deloitte, Britain’s second-biggest professional services group, is to seize a foothold in the £2 billion commercial property consulting market by acquiring one of Britain’s oldest real estate firms. The ‘big four’ accountant will merge its real estate practice with Drivers Jonas, the UK’s eighth-biggest commercial property adviser. The new unit will have revenue of £110 million and 700 staff, but John Connolly, Deloitte’s chief executive, who forged the deal, said that fee income is expected to more than double to £250 million within three years. Mr Connolly said that Deloitte identified Drivers Jonas as the most attractive target in the commercial property market because of its size, profitability and reputation.

Millions of older people could be spared traumatic hospital stays and costly long term care if they were given more help to live independently in their own homes, according to the National Housing Federation. The Federation warned older people were often denied the support they needed to continue to live at home – increasing the risk that they will end up in hospital or in a care home in the long run. Federation chief executive David Orr said ‘By investing more widely in simple preventative measures which help older people live safely at home for as long as possible, the number of hospital admissions and care home places could be cut significantly as a result.’

Cordea Savills, the funds arm of property services firm Savills, has launched the UK Income and Growth Fund to acquire prime assets in Britain’s recovering commercial property market. The fund is aiming to raise a total of 1 billion pounds over the next few years, and plans to deliver distributions to investors of over 5 per cent. ‘Despite uncertain prospects in the short term, we believe that UK prime commercial property is fairly priced and will perform well again once the occupational markets return to strength,’ fund director George Tindley said.

More tenants across the country will have a greater say over where they want to live and what housing options are available to them after John Healey announced over half a million pounds of extra funding to create more choice based lettings schemes across the country and expand several others already in place. The schemes offer tenants greater mobility, choice and flexibility when looking at their housing options enabling them to move across different local authority areas, for example if they were looking to move for a job opportunity. Since the programme began in 2005 more than £6.5m has been given to councils to work with housing associations to provide increased choice and mobility for thousands of new and existing social housing tenants

Tessa Jowell, Minister for the Cabinet Office, discussed with housing co-operative tenants and staff whether the mutual model – tenant and staff owned enterprises – could play a bigger role in the UK housing market, in a visit to New Cut Housing Co-operative in Lambeth. She asked tenants about the benefits of living in a housing co-operative and discussed with staff the barriers stopping increases in the co-operative housing market. Last month, the Minister gave a speech outlining her views that mutuals should have a major role in public service delivery and reform. She announced plans to create an independent Commission on Ownership, chaired by Will Hutton, to investigate the issue. She also announced she was to meet ministers responsible for housing, social care and Sure Start, to investigate a larger role for mutualism. Read all about the benefits of cooperative and mutual housing in the most recent issue of ROOF magazine.

At least 5,500 properties owned by London’s authorities are unoccupied, more than 3,000 of which have been vacant for three months or more. This is despite 353,000 people across the city waiting to be housed. The figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, created fury among campaigners. Duncan Shrubsole, of homelessness charity Crisis, said: ‘It’s scandalous to have so many properties empty and we would urge all local authorities to make sure they are using their council housing to maximum capacity.’ Councils today defended their position saying many of the houses were uninhabitable. Lambeth Living, which manages social housing for Lambeth council, has 1,090 properties empty, 848 for more than three months, and 18,000 households on its housing waiting list — 8,000 of those families of two or more. A spokeswoman said empty properties were usually awaiting repair, redecoration or re-letting.

Tenants, MPs, local councillors and trade unionists from across Britain will come together on March 19 at the Defend Council Housing (DCH) national conference to defend the future of council housing and demand that politicians listen to council tenants in the run up to the general election. DCH campaigns against ‘privatisation’ and for direct investment to provide decent, affordable, secure and accountable housing. The conference will discuss proposals for the future funding of council housing and hear from local campaigns fighting to insist Government meets its commitment to bring all housing up to a decent standard with no strings attached.

Windsor and Maidenhead council will announce today a four per cent cut in the charge from April. This will bring the average council tax for a band D property to £996 2010/11, down by £41 from 2009/10. The Local Government Association said that Windsor and Maidenhead’s tax cut was the biggest ever. Most councils are set to increase the charge by between 2.5 per cent and 3 per cent from April. The RPI measure of inflation is currently 2.4 per cent. The local authority has cut more than £1million off the local authority’s budget between 2009/10 and 2010/11 - and handed the saving directly onto council tax payers. Windsor and Maidenhead councillors said they were hoping that the radical overhaul of its finances could form a blueprint for other councils across the UK to cut council tax. David Burbage, the council’s leader, said: ‘We are showing that council tax can go down as well as up. For too long council tax bills have inexorably risen, and there is no correlation between high council tax and good services.’

Tens of thousands of borrowers face a shock jump in mortgage payments after Skipton Building Society confirmed plans to raise its standard variable rate from 3.5 per cent to 4.95 per cent. The move, to take effect from 1 March, will raise mortgage repayments by up to 40 per cent for some borrowers, adding almost £200 a month to repayments on a £150,000 interest-only loan. Skipton, Britain’s fifth-largest building society, with 100,000 borrowers, previously had guaranteed that its variable rate would not rise while Bank of England base rate stayed at 0.5 per cent, but it has cited a clause in its loans’ small print allowing it to ignore the promise in ‘exceptional circumstances’. Skipton has blamed its decision on ‘unprecedented’ competition in the savings market from National Savings & Investments (NS&I), the Treasury-backed savings provider, and state- controlled banks. Experts say that other building societies are likely to follow suit and raise interest rates for homeowners on an SVR, the ‘revert’ rate that borrowers switch to when a mortgage deal ends.

Fifty years ago, the average home cost £2,507 and one in seven had the loo outside. A half century on, the average home costs £162,085 but spare a thought for the two in every 1,000 households that still rely on an outside loo, according to research published by Halifax. The decade-by-decade data paints a picture of Britain today more divided than ever by regional house price differences. Halifax found that the region with the lowest prices in 1960 – Yorkshire and Humberside – remains the lowest, but said that every region in Britain has fallen further and further behind London. It said the difference was down to the rise in real earnings, which have increased more in Greater London than in any other region. However, incomes have failed to keep pace with rampant property prices everywhere. Halifax found that prices rose by 273 per cent in real terms between 1959 and 2009. Over the same period, the growth in real earnings was 169 per cent.

Housing and planning minister John Healey has published research claiming that inappropriate building on back gardens is not a widespread, national problem and is often linked to councils’ failure to have local policies in place. He told the small minority of councils who reported issues in ‘hot spot’ areas that the power to act is already in their own hands if they establish clear, local policies. The intensive, countrywide review by Kingston University was commissioned last year to assess the nature and extent of the issue across the country and how it could be tackled. Garden grabbing can affect the character of an area if very different properties are built alongside family homes. The research concluded that although the issue is not a widespread national problem, a minority of councils in London, the South East and West Midlands had reported an impact in their areas.

Roof-mounted wind turbines and solar panels are ‘eco-bling’ that allow their owners to flaunt their green credentials but contribute very little towards meeting Britain’s carbon reduction targets, according to the Royal Academy of Engineering. Developers will waste millions of pounds installing such micro-generation devices unless the Government revises its building regulations on carbon-neutral homes and offices. Doug King, professor of building engineering at the University of Bath and the author of a report on low carbon buildings, said that far greater savings could be made by installing better insulation and methods of trapping the sun’s rays. He proposed that the government target for all new homes to be carbon-neutral by 2016 should be relaxed in return for developers making equivalent contributions to wind farms and other large-scale renewable energy projects.

Grant Shapps, the shadow housing minister, says a Conservative government would promote home ownership – without returning to Thatcher-era council house sell-offs. Labour, he claims, is sidelining home ownership and re-emphasising the importance of social housing. ‘Labour has given up on aspiration in their rush to shore up their core voting areas,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t disagree more with them.’

Buy-to-let investors are back in favour with mortgage lenders for the first time in two years, raising renewed concerns that first-time buyers could once more be squeezed out of the market for one and two-bedroom properties by landlords. Brokers said that a number of lenders have started to focus on attracting landlords with more favourable interest rates, after a long period of freezing them out. Despite the credit-fuelled boom and subsequent collapse of the buy-to-let market, which left many city centre flats empty and landlords unable to complete purchases, the lenders that are now re-entering the market perceive their customers as less risky than first-time buyers.

Almost 8000 homes for Armed Forces families are standing empty despite the Ministry of Defence spending £17m a year renting substitute properties. Figures showed there are currently 7889 unoccupied homes for service families in the UK, including 2077 that have been empty for more than a year. But the MoD has spent more than £88m since 2004 on renting homes where no suitable properties are available, with the bill for 2009 topping £17m. Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, Willie Rennie, who uncovered the figures, said: ‘It is scandalous that the Government is spending millions renting forces homes despite already having thousands of houses standing empty.’

Britain is unlikely to return quickly to the peak rate of housebuilding during the boom of the past decade, the chief executive of Taylor Wimpey has said. Despite reporting a rise in demand for new homes that was better than expected - running at nearly a third higher than the dark days at the end of 2008 - Peter Redfern said that planning requirements would hold back a wholesale recovery in building volumes. Mr Redfern said: ‘At the peak, the industry in the UK was building 170,000 units. That has halved and last year the industry completed around 85,000 to 90,000 units. It will be a very long time before we get back to those high volumes because of the constraints on land availability and the planning system.’

The problem of homeless people sleeping on Britain’s streets may have been transferred to hospitals, according to a new study. Although the government claims that the number of people sleeping rough has fallen by three-quarters since 1988, figures obtained from 173 hospital trusts under the Freedom of Information Act reveal mounting pressure on the NHS from the homeless. In England, a homeless person is admitted to hospital for problems related to drugs or alcohol every three hours. A total of 13,872 people with ‘no fixed abode’ were admitted to hospital over the last five years for drug or alcohol misuse. Total drug and alcohol related admissions of homeless people have risen by 117 per cent since 2004.

Shocking new research released by Shelter shows that people are being forced to delay having children because of the lack of affordable housing. The research reveals that 18 per cent of 18–44 year olds, equivalent to 2.4 million people nationwide, are actively putting off having children because of high housing costs. This rises to 24 per cent among 18-34 year olds. The figures come from a survey commissioned by Shelter to discover the impact of the lack of affordable housing across all areas of people’s lives. In particular, the research examines the impact on relationships and family life.

Thousands of people have begun relying on food handouts to free up money to spend on heating during the recent spell of freezing conditions. The Trussell Trust, a Christian charity that runs a network of food banks across the UK said the cold has led to an unprecedented demand for its parcels, which contain enough donated items to keep a family fed for six days. And research by Age Concern has shown that, despite government relief, one in five older people skip meals to save money for heating. The charity has urged ministers to do more to ease pressure forcing elderly people into the ‘cruel choice’ between food or warmth.

Housing associations are preparing for a funding crisis that will result in a shortfall of newly built social homes from next year. The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) has warned of the risk that the needs of the poorest will not be met from 2011 as public money dries up, leaving housing associations less able to finance the social rented sector. The Tenant Services Authority (TSA) said that it expected the number of homes built by housing associations to fall from 50,000 a year last year to 40,000 a year after 2011. Even at current funding levels, housing associations — the main providers of UK social housing — said that, to stay afloat, they had been forced to switch away from provision of social rented homes and towards more lucrative home ownership schemes geared towards renters on higher incomes.

Thousands of households have taken out loans with interest rates averaging 825% during ‘the worst Christmas in a generation’ for illegal doorstep lending, according to a new report. ‘The Real Cost of Christmas’, commissioned by affordable housing provider Circle Anglia and written by the Financial Inclusion Centre, found that more than 100,000 of the UK’s poorest families will spend 2010 crippled with a combined debt of around £82m after borrowing money from loan sharks to pay for Christmas. The value of the loans is an estimated £29m, but average interest rates of 825% will mean that people end up paying nearly three times the initial amount they borrowed.

The Tenant Services Authority (TSA) has set out how it plans to promote equality and good relations for social housing landlords and tenants in England with the launch of its first ever ‘Single equalities scheme’ and supporting action plan. The consultation document includes how the TSA will work with tenants, providers and other stakeholders to ensure that the needs of different tenants across the six diversity groups of ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, age, gender, and religion/belief are identified and taken into account. Everyone with an interest in social housing is invited to comment on the consultation document.

The UK’s largest privately owned housebuilder said the availability of loans to homebuyers would be a crucial ingredient in a return to a stable housing market. Delivering an upbeat trading statement for the year to December 31, Miller Group, the Edinburgh based building, construction and property company, said it was seeing a gradual improvement in the housebuilding market in spite of a demanding economic environment. ‘Volumes are low but the demand has fallen a long way as the money to buy is not as readily available and the balance with supply is now much more in line,’ said Keith Miller, chief executive. ‘However, if we are to see any degree of long-term stability, it is crucial that the housing market gets a continuing supply of mortgages,’ he added.

A major study on the impact of devolution on the most disadvantaged people and places has shown that despite falling poverty and improving employment levels in the devolved countries, most significant progress has been down to reserved (UK) powers. The research, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), explore trends in social and economic disadvantage and policy developments in four key areas: housing and homelessness; employment; neighbourhood regeneration and long-term care for older people.

The government risks repeating the mistakes of the postwar housing boom by wasting hundreds of millions of pounds on funding ‘grotty’ new homes, say MPs. The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA), which has an annual investment budget of more than £5bn, has admitted that 27 of the private-sector projects it has bailed out scored five or less out of 20 on the industry’s Building for Life benchmark, with two scoring just 1.5. Homes failed on a range of basic measures, including poor space standards and over-reliance on single-aspect dwellings; inflexibility; low sustainability standards; and poor compatibility with neighbouring properties.

The recession may have severely dented the property market, but new figures show it has also prompted a surge in official complaints against those who make their living from it – estate agents, lettings companies, developers and even surveyors show big rises. The Property Ombudsman Scheme (POS) – the best-known redress system for buyers, sellers and tenants – received well over 10,000 complaints last year, with those in the lettings sector of the market alone surging by 79 per cent since late 2008.

The importance of social housing’s ‘heartlanders’ and their activism has been revealed in a report that says the most prominent group of social housing tenants are highly active in their neighbourhoods and play a crucial role in bonding communities. David Eastgate, Hyde Group chief executive, said: ‘Heartlanders are the glue of local communities and in many instances play a more active role than homeowners. They take on the responsibility to deliver regeneration and ensure sustainability.’ The report makes a number of policy recommendations to unlock the potential of those living in social housing.

With the largest council housebuilding programme for nearly two decades already underway, housing minister John Healey has doubled government cash for new council homes. Mr Healey announced 73 councils covering every region of England will share an extra £122.6m. Councils will match this second round government grant bringing investment in this round to £246m, and total public investment in the programme as a whole to over £500m to build more than 4,000 new council homes for 8,000 people. In a clear break with council houses of the past, Mr Healey also confirmed that many will be new family homes, whilst all will be highly energy efficient and add to the mixed make-up of local neighbourhoods.

An elderly couple were allowed to die in their freezing home after neighbours’ pleas to authorities for help were ignored, it has been claimed. Jean and Derek Randall were found dead in their home in Northampton by police as Britain was gripped by the coldest winter in 30 years. Sally Keeble, the pensioners’ MP, has now called for an inquiry claiming ‘major failures’ led to the couple being neglected by care workers. Mr Randall, 76, had been trying to get his wife, 79, into a care home after realising that his own flagging health left him incapable of caring for her. Neighbours claimed they repeatedly contacted the county council, NHS staff and charities for over a month about the couple’s plight, but their warnings were allegedly never acted on. Northamptonshire County Council said it was investigating.

There is growing evidence and emerging consensus across the political spectrum that mutual ownership solutions not only work, but also should be actively encouraged by government, according to the Commission on Mutual and Co-operative Housing. Their recent report, ‘Bringing Democracy Home’, found that residents in co-operatives are more satisfied than other social housing tenants. They are happier with key services, such as repairs, and crucially tend to feel a strong community spirit, also reflected in high levels of civic engagement in roles such as school governorship.

House prices fell in the North and the West Midlands in December as market activity dampened, exposing those regions where the recovery has been weakest. According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), last month’s figures showed five per cent more surveyors in the West Midlands reporting prices falling rather than rising, and seven per cent more in the North. The industry body added the East Midlands and Northern Ireland to its list of areas at risk of further immediate falls. Simon Rubinsohn, chief economist at RICS, said: ‘These regions have been among the weakest for months. The best we can say is that they have stabilised lately.’

More than 1 million householders have used credit cards to pay their mortgage or rent in the last 12 months, a new survey by ROOF reveals today. Despite restrictions on credit and reports of many people paying off personal debt, an exclusive YouGov poll for ROOF magazine reveals a disturbing picture of over a million people taking desperate measures with credit cards to keep a roof over their head. The highest proportion of those who pay their rent or mortgage through credit card were from working class professions (8% of those in the C2DE social grouping), but the poll also showed that middle/upper class (ABC1 category) are falling victim, with 4% of respondents saying they use credit cards in this way.

Hundreds of England’s village churches could be revived and up to 10,000 affordable homes built for local families – if churches sold land and buildings to housing associations, according to research by the National Housing Federation. The Federation believes that with the Church of England owning an average of eight acres of land per Anglican village church, in addition to parsonages and church halls, every rural place of worship could deliver an average of one new affordable home. Federation chief executive David Orr said: ‘By making land available for housing, rural churches would increase their chances of survival and also help meet local housing need.’

A Conservative government would curb immigration to stop the population of the United Kingdom reaching the forecast 70 million, David Cameron said yesterday. He said net migration to the UK each year should be limited to ‘tens of thousands’ rather than ‘hundreds of thousands’, adding: ‘I’m in favour of immigration, we’ve benefited from immigration, but I think the pressures, particularly on our public services, have been very great.’ The number of people migrating to the UK minus those emigrating was 237,000 in 2007 and 163,000 in 2008.

Plans for a national register of social housing tower blocks in England are being outlined by the Tenant Services Authority (TSA). The social housing regulator’s national register will hold details on ownership, the number of properties and the age of the tower block. It will also list the date of the last fire risk assessment and the date of the next assessment. The TSA will begin collecting data from housing associations in February 2010. Phil Morgan, Executive Director, Tenant Services said, ‘The register will be a valuable tool, allowing us to build up a comprehensive picture of tower blocks in England. It will allow us to work with landlords to ensure that they are fully complying with their responsibilities to carry out risk assessments and taking appropriate action so that tenants are properly protected from the risk of fire.’

The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee on Thursday voted to keep rates unchanged at 0.5 per cent and to continue with its £200bn quantitative easing programme as further signs of stabilisation emerged across the economy. The decision was widely expected, with the Bank having signalled it intends to make big decisions on monetary policy only when the forecasts in its quarterly inflation report are available. February, therefore, could see the first change in the Bank’s monetary stance since its November decision to increase the scale of quantitative easing –- which has taken the form of purchases mostly of government debt, funded by the creation of money – from £175bn to £200bn. With about £7bn left of that left, most economists expect the Bank to halt the programme, having already slowed the pace from £75bn every three months to £50bn earlier last year to £25bn in November.

Frontline services such as social work, meals on wheels and road maintenance may have to be cut to cover the cost of controversial plans for elderly care at home, local authority leaders have warned. The £670 million required to provide free care for those most in need in their own homes — a key government policy — will add pressure to councils already trying to find multimillion-pound savings. A rise in council tax of between 1 and 2 per cent will be needed to meet the cost, while cuts in adult and childrens’ social care services are an ‘unwanted but very real possibility’, council chiefs have said. The draft Bill, set out in the Queen’s Speech in November, was described by Labour peers as an ‘exocet’ on social-care reform and ‘a demolition job’ on budgets, while MPs and care providers have also criticised it for being ill-conceived and uncosted.

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.

House prices defied the economic downturn last year to rise 1.1 per cent, boosted by a second-half surge in demand from homebuyers. The annual increase was the first rise over 12 months that Halifax, the mortgage lender, has recorded since March 2008. The latest rebound continued in December, with prices rising by 1 per cent over the month, the sixth monthly rise in a row, taking house prices to an average of £169,042 — 9.4 per cent higher than in April last year, when the market bottomed out. Despite the apparent buoyancy of the market, Halifax, now part of Lloyds Banking Group, gave a cautious outlook for the year ahead, warning that it expected house prices to remain flat during 2010.

Shelter has launched new research showing how the lack of affordable homes in Britain is forcing couples who have split to remain living together. In our survey, nearly a quarter of people – the equivalent of 9.9 million adults - said they or someone they know have had to stay living with their partner because they cannot afford to live on their own. The figures come from new research undertaken by the charity to examine the way unaffordable housing is changing the way we live. Kay Boycott, director of policy and campaigns at Shelter said: ‘As a nation we have accepted the way housing costs have risen hugely over the last few years, but are we ready to accept the human cost this brings?’

Crisis has warned that despite the budget deficit, 75% of the British public want the Government to address the growing gap between rich and poor. A YouGov poll commissioned by Crisis also shows that the majority of people in UK (60% of those with an opinion) say that the recession has made them more worried about the gap between rich and poor and the same proportion want to see the poorest protected from budget cuts as they can least afford to pay. Leslie Morphy, Crisis chief executive said: ‘With the election looming, politicians vying for votes must recognise people’s desire for a fairer society. They must not forget those who are poorest, amongst whom homeless people are some of the most vulnerable. They must pledge to protect them.’

With demand for gas rising sharply, Britain’s gas reserves are running low, meaning the country is more reliant on imported gas bought on the international market. Imported energy is more expensive, and rising demand across Europe this week caused natural gas prices to jump to their highest level in 10 months. That triggered warnings from energy analysts that power companies may use the cold snap as justification for another increase in domestic bills. Tom Foulkes, director general of the Institution of Civil Engineers said: ‘To avoid energy crises and price hikes in the future the UK energy sector must urgently build extra gas storage capacity into the network. We simply cannot continue to rely on unpredictable overseas supplies’.

Construction activity fell in December for the 22nd month in a row as a surge in housing was offset by a sharp decline in commercial building. The construction purchasing managers’ index, where any level below 50 signals a drop in business activity, rose slightly to 47.1 from 47 last month. ‘December was another disappointing month for the UK construction sector. Unlike other parts of the economy, it seems unable to escape the shackles of the recession,’ said David Noble, chief executive of the Chartered Institute for Purchasing and Supply. ‘Purchasing managers painted a bleak picture as firms suffered from reduced client demand and falls in new business.’

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.

Britain’s leading economists are almost unanimous in their view that house prices are still too high. Of the 70 who answered the question, 13 believed residential property prices were now fairly valued, while 55 said they were not and two did not express a view. The judgment that the housing market remains overinflated sits uncomfortably alongside extensive evidence that prices are rising rapidly. But the general view is that the recent surge in prices reflects low interest rates and low levels of supply - a situation that cannot last for long. House prices are also likely to be hit by weak income growth and still weak bank lending, economists argue.

The number of first-time buyers has dropped to its lowest point in a decade despite a significant rise in the number of affordable homes over the past year, according to figures released by the Halifax. Tighter mortgage lending criteria, recent price rises in some areas and lack of money for a deposit meant that an estimated 185,000 first-time buyers entered the market in 2009, four per cent fewer than in 2008 and just over a third of the 532,000 who bought when prices were soaring in 2002. These combined obstacles have pushed up the average age of a first-time buyer from 29 to 30, while the typical age of those buying without financial help from family or friends has risen to 36 from 33 in late 2007.

Thousands of homeowners in municipal tower blocks are facing potentially huge bills, as councils rush to improve fire safety precautions in the wake of a blaze in London earlier this year which killed six people. Leaseholders in one high-rise building have already been asked to pay up to £15,000 each, after an emergency fire brigade inspection found a series of potential dangers and ordered immediate work including re-wiring the building and replacing fire doors. Experts on tower block fire safety believe that a significant proportion of high-rise blocks remain unsafe, in part due to a lack of maintenance of features such as fire doors, but also because of botched renovation work over decades.

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.’

New research has highlighted that only half of households facing repossession orders actually attend their court hearings. There is also an indication that repossessions are not being considered the option of last resort by the courts. The research, undertaken by CIH’s consultancy arm, ConsultCIH, looked at hundreds of repossession orders made in 2008. The research found that many households are in denial about losing their homes. Conversely, others believe the loss of their home is a foregone conclusion by the time their case gets to court.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have successfully prosecuted a housing society and a plumber following a boiler explosion that killed a tenant. Prosecution proceedings were started after tenant Christine Goodall, 65, was killed at her home in Gloucestershire in 2007 when an incorrectly decommissioned boiler exploded. The fatal incident occurred when Mrs Goodall lit a fire for the first time since the back boiler had been decommissioned in 1999.

Mortgage lending fell by 10 per cent during November as the market suffered its traditional seasonal slowdown, figures showed today. A total of £12bn was advanced during the month, down from £13.3bn in October and 14 per cent less than in November last year, according to the Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML). The group said a modest decline was typically seen between October and November, although the 10 per cent fall was ‘a little larger’ than normal. But it added that market conditions were holding steady and it did not expect much change during the coming months. The CML’s economist, Paul Samter, said: ‘There could be a modest decline in underlying house buying activity in early 2010 due to the stamp duty holiday ending, with activity ‘bunching’ over the last few months of 2009.’

The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) has shortlisted 265 bids totalling nearly £550m in round two of its Kickstart housing delivery programme.

Shortlisted bidders include a mix of RSLs along with national and local developers aiming to unlock up to 22,000 homes across the country.

Bidding opened in September with the criteria that eligible schemes should be housing-led with a minimum of 50 homes (fewer in rural areas or if the scheme delivers to Code for Sustainable Homes Level 5 or 6) and that sites should have detailed planning consent in place or the ability to achieve this by the end of March 2010.

Sir Bob Kerslake, HCA chief executive, said: ‘Kickstart continues to be a crucial component in maintaining momentum in the house building industry.’

A due diligence process will now follow, which will look in detail at value for money, design, financial viability and risk, as well as an assessment of quick delivery.

Bargain-hunters returned to the house building sector yesterday after a leading broker anticipated healthy gains for investors over the next year.

Citigroup laid the foundations for a recovery after turning buyer of Redrow, up 8½p to 131p, Barratt Developments, 6½p higher at 116p and Taylor Wimpey, 1¾p better at 35½p.

The sector has lost a fifth of its value over the past quarter over consumer spending fears for next year, but house prices, mortgage applications and housing transactions data indicate a more positive story, according to Citigroup, which reckoned shares could rebound at least 30 per cent.

Anyone who starts work after six months on benefit will be at least £40 a week better off, under a guarantee yesterday by Yvette Cooper, the work and pensions secretary.

Other proposed changes to housing benefit aim to cut some of the highest rents the state pays for out-of-work people, and to reduce the immediate impact on rent payments for people moving into work.

In an employment white paper and housing benefit review, Ms Cooper confirmed a government promise of a job, training or work experience after six months’ unemployment for anyone aged 18 to 24.

Some 100,000 posts will be made available, including police community support officers, work in the NHS and probation service, and constructing a national cycle network.

The number of repossessions orders taken out by mortgage lenders rose by three per cent during the third quarter of the year to 13,987, figures from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) have shown.

Despite the increase, the FSA said the number was ‘much in line’ with the average for the year as a whole and six per cent below the figure for the first quarter of the year.

The drop is likely to have been driven by interest rate cuts at the start of the year, which made mortgages more affordable, and increased government help for struggling borrowers.

The FSA said the number of borrowers who had fallen into mortgage arrears of more than 1.5 per cent of their outstanding loan had fallen for the third successive quarter, and at 46,000 was down 10 per cent on the three months between April and June and 30 per cent below the peak in the last three months of 2008.

Mortgage lenders are failing to follow rules designed to help people avoid repossession, according to a damning report published today.

The joint report by AdviceUK, Citizens Advice and Shelter found that in a third of recorded cases mortgage lenders had failed to comply with new rules – known as the ‘pre-action protocol’ – requiring them to take court action as a last resort only.

Before starting legal action, lenders should offer borrowers other options for dealing with their arrears – however, judges only verified they had done so in a handful of cases.

Published on the same day as new repossession figures are expected from the Financial Services Authority (FSA), the ‘Turning the Tide?’ report is based on research into hundreds of cases seen by advisers who give last-minute advice to people at court on the day of their repossession hearings.