Government Loses £395,000 On Help To Buy Loans

Homes England, the government’s administrator of the Help to Buy programme, has revealed that the government had lost £395,000 across 119 Help to Buy loans redeemed by leaseholders in properties covered in aluminium composite material (ACM). The revelations come despite fears in the immediate aftermath of the Grenfell Tower tragedy that the government could be forced to write off millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money invested in the Help to Buy scheme through leaseholders redeeming their loans on a much-reduced property value due to the presence of ACM on their blocks. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/government-loses-395000-on-help-to-buy-loans-for-flats-in-acm-clad-blocks-69240?utm_source=Housing60&utm_medium=email&utm_content=article_link&utm_campaign=H60

165,000+ Social Rent Homes Lost In Six Years

More than 165,000 of the most affordable rented homes have been lost across England in just six years, according to new analysis from the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH). Based on reports from the MHCLG and Homes England, figures show that 117,828 local authority homes and 47,869 housing association homes for social rent were lost between 2012 and 2018. Despite some social rent new-builds, numbers have continued to fall – because of Right To Buy sales and properties being converted to ‘affordable rent’ or demolished. CIH has further projected a loss reach of 199,000 by 2020. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/over-165000-social-rent-homes-lost-in-six-years-analysis-shows/

Councils Losing £300m A Year Due To Right To Buy

Total Right to Buy discounts have climbed to £1bn a year, leading to a net loss of some £300m for councils, according to new analysis from the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH). Cutting the discounts available could lead to an extra 12,000 homes being built a year, the CIH has calculated. But the organisation says Right to Buy should be suspended altogether to stem the loss of social rented homes. The extent of the cost to the public sector is revealed in the UK Housing Review 2018 Autumn briefing paper. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/councils-losing-300m-a-year-due-to-right-to-buy/

Net Loss Of 133,000 Homes To Let In Coming Year

A trade body says the country faces a net loss of 133,000 homes for private rent over the next year - and only a radical rethink on lettings taxation can avoid it. That’s the view of the Residential Landlords Association, which says that government figures themselves show a loss of 46,000 private rented properties in England alone between March 2016 and March 2017. The RLA says that based on questioning over 2,600 landlords, no fewer than 84 per cent have seen tenant demand increasing or at least remaining stable - and this is despite some years of policies which, the association claims, have been geared to increasing owner occupation. Read more on Letting Agent Today.

https://www.lettingagenttoday.co.uk/breaking-news/2018/7/net-loss-of-133-000-homes-to-let-in-coming-year-trade-body-warns?source=newsticker

Tory Council Spends £90m Buying Back the SAME Flats It Sold Off Under Right to Buy

Westminster City Council was notorious for a huge Right to Buy scandal in the 1980s, when Tory leader Dame Shirley Porter was found to have sold off council homes to likely Tory voters. The cost to the taxpayer at the time was roughly £27 million. Now, to tackle its crisis in affordable housing, the council has set up a charitable company called Westminster Community Homes. The company has spent £90.74 million buying back 295 ex-council homes, at an average cost of £307,593. A Mirror investigation has found that the prices being paid to buy back the homes are up to 22 times more than they were sold for. Read more on the Daily Mirror website.

33,000 Social Homes Lost To Right to Buy Since 2012

The country has lost 33,000 of its social homes to the controversial right to buy (RtB) scheme since the Tory-led coalition ‘reinvigorated’ the policy in 2012. Welcoming the news, a delighted Brandon Lewis said that the figures were a further sign of how the government is “helping people get on and move up the housing ladder”. And the housing minister also announced that not only will RtB discounts increase yet again in April, eligibility for the scheme is about to be extended through a new law before parliament. Read more on 24dash.

Losing Social Homes Means We Are Storing Up Trouble

Our analysis has revealed that England lost almost 35,000 social homes in a year. Although we still only have figures up to March 2013, in that year there was a net loss of nearly 35,000 social-rented homes in England. This is almost certainly the first time in a decade that we’ve actually seen a downturn in numbers of social lettings. How has this come about? Output of new homes was over 32,000 in that year, but of course even in 2012/13 many of these were built to be let at higher Affordable Rents. Right to buy and other losses of council-owned stock amounted to over 7,000 units, and a significant number of housing association properties that fell vacant were converted to Affordable Rents to boost associations’ incomes. Read more on the CIH website.

TPAS Accounts Reveal Pre-Tax Loss of £108k

The Tenant Participation Advisory Service made a pre-tax loss of almost £108,000 in 2013 but expects to be back in the black in 2014. The organisation’s accounts for the year ending 31 March 2013 showed its pre-tax profit of £40,356 in 2012 became a loss of £107,732 a year later. Michelle Reid, the outgoing chief executive of TPAS, said it had budgeted for a £64,000 loss in 2012/13, which it would cover through its reserves because of the costs of a restructure, including redundancies, and moving to a smaller office. The organisation was also hit by a reduction in its consultancy income of about £40,000, she said. Read more on Inside Housing.

Treasury Could Make Millions from Help to Buy

The Treasury has told the banks it will charge them a supposedly "commercial" rate of about 0.9% for insuring up to three-quarters of the first 20% of losses on mortgages for homebuyers who cannot afford to provide a big deposit.  And apparently that 0.9% applies to the whole loan, not just the insured proportion.  The charge is necessary to prevent Brussels ruling the scheme as illegal state aid.  But it implies that Help to Buy ll could be quite a money-spinner for the Treasury. The government could receive annual revenues of just under £12bn a year, if it were to provide guarantees on the maximum £130bn of mortgages it estimates that it could insure. As one banker said: "Unless the mortgages go sour, the Treasury will clean up." Read more on the BBC website.