Cost Of Moving Home Rises As UK Removals Firms Put Up Prices

 The cost of moving home is on the rise as removals firms are forced to put up prices following difficulties in hiring drivers. Some removals firms have raised prices by up to 25%, according to operators, in line with wage increases levied to retain and attract workers amid heavy competition for those with a specialist lorry licence. Prices across the industry have risen by 10-15% as strong demand for removals vans continued beyond a peak in June before the end of the stamp duty tax break. Demand was up 200% in June and interest in moving home has not tailed off as much as expected since then. Read more on the Observer website.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/aug/01/cost-of-moving-home-rises-as-uk-removals-firms-put-up-prices

Cost Of Moving House Reaches £11,000

Rising house prices have pushed up estate agency fees, conveyancing costs and stamp duty too - putting the typical cost of moving at £10,996, up nine per cent on this time last year. The report, by Lloyds bank, also found that buyers in the south-east have been hardest-hit, with moving costs in London now standing at more than £31,000. The increase reflects how moving costs have risen faster than wages have over the past 10 years, shooting up by 25 per cent compared to a 17 per cent rise in full-time earnings. It means the total cost of moving now eats up 41.5 per cent of the UK's average salary of £26,500. Read more on the ITV website.

London Exodus Surges As Welfare and Housing Pressures Take Toll

The number of families given council help to leave London rose sharply last year as welfare cuts and the housing crisis forced hundreds of households to move out of the capital. The data from 15 London boroughs points to a 76% rise in the number of families given financial assistance to leave the city between 2012-13 and 2013-14, from 119 to 210.The number of areas to which people moved also increased, reaching 80 - up from 37 in 2012-13. London residents were helped to move as far afield as Newcastle, Cornwall and Scotland. The findings came in response to Freedom of Information Act requests from LGC, which found councils had helped residents to move by paying for removal fees, rent payments and rental deposits. Read more on the LGC website.

Housing Benefit: Social Rented Housing – Parliamentary Written Answer

Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if he will estimate the average cost of moving house for people who move as a consequence of the under-occupancy penalty; and if he will make it his policy to provide a subsidy for such costs. 

Kris Hopkins: The Department does not hold this information.

The removal of the spare room subsidy is estimated to save £490 million of taxpayers' money in Great Britain in 2013-14 by reducing the benefit bill, helping pay off the budget deficit left by the last Administration. The measure also encourages the more effective use of social housing, by addressing the under-occupation of family homes.

Chris Ruane: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government if he will make an assessment of the effect of the under-occupancy penalty on social cohesion in neighbourhoods in which a high proportion of tenants are affected by that policy. 

Kris Hopkins: I refer the hon. Member to my answer to him of 22 November 2013, Official Report, columns 1072-1073W.

Bedroom Tax Residents Given £900 to Downsize

Residents affected by the bedroom tax are set to receive up to £900 in return for downsizing.  Whitefriars, a housing association which took over the former council housing in Coventry, and the city council will gift tenants £300 per spare bedroom in a bid to free up much-needed larger properties.  The cash will then be spent on removal costs or on decoration and flooring for their new homes.  Whitefriars has pinpointed 150 homes which could be freed up under the scheme. It comes after the government cut benefits to any housing association tenants with spare bedrooms.  Around 3,000 residents have been affected in Coventry alone.  Read more on the Coventry Observer website.