Rent To Buy: Council Tenants Could Be Given Chance To Pay Off Mortgages

Council tenants could be given the chance to get on the housing ladder by paying a mortgage instead of cut-price rent. Southend Council is in talks with the Government about trialling the scheme in the town as part of the Help to Buy programme. The scheme, designed to aid first-time buyers, would be extended to council house tenants, allowing them to effectively buy their properties through their monthly payments. Council leader Ron Woodley said he would only accept the arrangement if the authority could use the money to build new homes. Read more on the Southend Echo.

Why Universal Credit Won’t Be Universal Until At Least 2018

It’s the best of times and worst of times for welfare secretary Iain Duncan Smith. The universal credit – an all in one replacement for welfare benefits – is proving popular with claimants in the places where it’s being trialled. That’s the good news. The bad news is, at the current rate of roll out will take a long time to take effect. The original target was to get a million people onto universal credit by this year. In reality there are just 14,000. DWP has now released a new projection of the roll-out dates: 100,000 people will be getting the new benefit by May 2015, rising to 500,000 by May 2016. Duncan Smith said he hoped everyone would be on the benefit by 2018, though he admitted some difficult groups may not.  Read more on the Channel 4 website.

3,000 Families Affected By Benefit Cap in Four Trial Areas

Nearly 3,000 households have had their incomes slashed as a result of the total benefits cap trialled in four London boroughs.  The government’s £26,000-a-year cap on household benefits, including housing benefit, was implemented early in four boroughs from 15 April.  At the end of June, 2,658 households were affected. A total of 1,621 were experiencing benefit cuts of £50 per week or more, while 1,037 were losing less than £50 per week. The vast majority of those capped, 97.3 per cent, were households with children.

Download a copy of the report from the Govuk website.