May Acts To Tackle Housing Crisis By Imposing Levy On Foreign Buyers

Foreign buyers of properties in the UK will have to pay a new levy, in a renewed attempt by Theresa May to tackle the housing crisis. With concern growing among senior Tories that the party has allowed Brexit to drown out a compelling domestic agenda, plans unveiled on Saturday night will see foreign buyers pay extra stamp duty to fund a drive to tackle rough sleeping. Read more on the Observer website.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/29/theresa-may-slaps-new-property-tax-on-foreign-buyers

Analysis Shows Foreign Buyers Do Push Up Prices

Foreign property investors have contributed to the increase in house prices in the UK over the last 15 years, sending values soaring by around 20%, according to a new piece of academic research. While foreign buyers have mostly affected price growth in London and the South East, other major cities such as Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester have also seen the effect, says the research from the School of Management and Business at King’s College London. Using figures recorded by the Land Registry, the analysis shows that the average price is around £215,000 but would have been about £174,000 without the investment from overseas. Read more on Property Wire.

https://www.propertywire.com/news/uk/analysis-shows-foreign-buyers-push-prices-not-just-london/

Affordable Housing Disputes Are ‘Costing London Homes’

A new report on home building in London says the number of housing starts has “gone backwards” under Sadiq Khan – citing evidence that an increasing proportion of those homes that are being built end up in the hands of foreign buyers.  The report also features new research setting out the historic under-supply of homes in the UK across regions, and makes the economic and social case for home ownership. With the average first time buyer having to save for 10 years to put together a deposit and home ownership rates falling among the young, the report – Homes for Everyone –  sets out detailed proposals for how to push housebuilding up towards the Government’s target of 300,000 a year. Download the report from the Centre for Policy Studies website.

The Majority Of Homeless People In London Are Foreign Nationals

Almost 60 per cent of recorded people sleeping rough in London are foreign nationals, a new government report shows. The report from the CLG used data from local agencies including volunteers, the police, outreach workers and housing authorities, as well as members of the public, to collect statistical information about the people sleeping rough in single-night snapshots in local authority areas. The city of London has one of the highest rates of homelessness in England, and that rate continues to increase year on year, with a 30 per cent rise in rough sleepers from last year's figure. The second-highest majority after British nationals with 1,388 people this year is Romanians, closely followed by Poles and Lithuanians. Read more on the Independent website.

Right to Buy Scheme – Parliamentary Written Answer

Tristram Hunt: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what the residence requirements are for (a) existing right-to-buy entitlements and (b) the proposed extension of right-to-buy to housing association tenants for (i) non-EU foreign nationals, (ii) EU foreign nationals and (iii) UK citizens.

Brandon Lewis: Before 2006 all applicants for Government supported home ownership had to have indefinite leave to remain in the UK. The last Labour Government changed these rules in 2006. Subject to EU Treaty negotiation, we will introduce a residency test for social housing, requiring European Economic Area nationals to have lived in the UK for 4 years. This means that European Economic Area nationals would not be eligible for Right to Buy until they had lived in this country for a minimum of seven years. A tenant must have had a public sector tenancy within the UK for three years before qualifying for Right to Buy.

Councils Not Recording Tenants' Nationalities

Over half of the new council housing lets in London do not record the nationality of the tenant, new research has revealed. The campaign group Migrationwatch UK found that one fifth of all social housing in London is occupied by foreign nationals, and that one third of the capital's new council lets are not even recorded in the Continuous Recording of Sales and Lettings (CORE) data.  Migrationwatch says that local authorities are failing in their legal duty to provide information on the nationality of the tenant, and that four London councils - owners of a quarter of the capital's council-owned stock - provided no information at all to central government.

MP Calls for End to Foreign Nationals Allocations 'Scandal'

A Labour MP has called on the Government to review who gets priority for social housing as new research reveals nearly half of new tenants in parts of the capital were foreign nationals. Birkenhead MP Frank Field, who led a review on poverty for the Coalition, said a new bill would ensure that those citizens who have made the most contribution to society would get priority for social housing. He called the new figures a “scandal”.  A new research paper, by campaign group Migration Watch UK, reveals that at least 11% of social housing lets in London were given to foreign nationals. In some boroughs, such as Ealing and Haringey, the number of new tenants from another country nears 50%.  Download a copy of the paper from the Migration Watch website.