The average buy-to-let investor in England and Wales earned a total return of £12,129 in the year to September, and that figure could double over the next 12 months.
According to the latest buy-to-let index from LSL Property Services, the average BTL investor enjoyed a total annual return of 7.4% in September, up sharply from 6.1% in August.
The average financial loss faced by social housing tenants as a result of the government's controversial bedroom tax could heat a family home for almost a week, a North West-based housing association has warned.
According to the Regenda Group, the average £14 a week cut in housing benefits which tenants are facing is equivalent to the cost of six days heating every week.
Housing is a human right. That isn’t just my opinion, but also that of the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 25 of the declaration, concerning the right to an adequate standard of living, is clear on the matter:
‘Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.’ (emphasis on housing is my own).Homelessness projects are closing down, levels of staff are reducing and bed spaces are being lost as housing budgets are squeezed, research published today reveals.
Homeless Link, an umbrella body, said 133 homelessness projects had closed and 4,000 beds in hostels and second stage accommodation had been lost since 2010.
A Birmingham MP has been called ‘misguided’ over his ‘idiotic’ suggestion that social housing tenants should get a lodger to avoid paying the bedroom tax.
Lib Dem MP for Yardley John Hemming suggested that with few one-bedroom properties available in the city, tenants would do better to take someone in.Labour MPs from across Wales have rounded on the Government to attack the so-called bedroom tax and changes to housing benefits.
Shadow Welsh Secretary Owen Smith used Welsh Questions to attack the policy that Ed Miliband last month pledged to repeal if Labour wins the 2015 general election.
David Cameron may be forced to rethink his plan to deny under-25s an automatic right to state benefits because many of the people losing out would be single parents.
Nick Clegg is worried that parents could be affected by proposals to restrict housing benefit for the more than one million “Neets” – young people not in education, employment or training – under a strategy announced by the Prime Minister at last week’s Conservative Party Conference.
Domestic violence affects one in four women in their lives. Two women a week are killed by a partner or former partner and three quarters of a million children in the UK witness domestic violence every year.
The introduction of the bedroom tax is having an unacceptable and dangerous impact on women who have experienced domestic violence, and councils must take action.
Figures released today showed the number of private tenants in severe arrears – two months or more behind on their rent – has fallen sharply to the lowest level in two years.
The latest Tenant Arrears Tracker figures, by LSL Property Services, are the lowest since the third quarter of 2011 when the number last stood below 70,000.
The Conservative Party will look at axing housing support for under-25s as part of its manifesto for the next election, the prime minister confirmed this week.
Setting a clear direction of travel, David Cameron told delegates at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Wednesday that he wanted to see ‘bold action’ in ending welfare dependency among young people.
The National Empty Homes Loan Fund (NEHLF) has received enquiries for funding worth over £1 million in its first month.
The scheme, which is aimed at bringing some of England’s 710,000 empty homes back into affordable use, has been inundated with enquiries as property owners apply for funds to renovate their houses.
A WOMAN who cannot share a bedroom with her partner because of disability has won a landmark ruling that reducing her welfare benefits under the bedroom tax is a breach of her human rights.
The woman, who has multiple sclerosis, won her appeal against Glasgow City Council’s decision to apply the 14 per cent deduction for her “spare” bedroom at a tribunal hearing.
Adults and children with disabilities who are challenging the government’s bedroom tax have been granted permission to take their fight to the Court of Appeal after losing a High Court challenge earlier this year.
Giving his reasons for granting an appeal hearing, the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Aikens said that the cases "raise issues of public importance concerning the amended housing benefit scheme and the needs of disabled/ young people and so should be considered by the Court of Appeal. Further, the points raised in the grounds of appeal and the proposed ‘skeleton’ argument have a reasonable prospect of success.”
‘Bizarre’ government guidelines place onus on landlords not local authorities to define a bedroom
Government guidance issued to local authorities this week on how to classify a bedroom for the purposes of the bedroom tax has been panned as ‘bizarre’ and ‘wrong’ by experts.
A London local authority will pay up to half a million pounds to families it housed in bed and breakfasts for more than six weeks following an official inquiry.
A report by the Local Government Ombudsman published today found the local authority’s actions were unjust after it housed homeless families in B&Bs beyond six-weeks.
Rents have hit an 11-year high with 17 per cent more tenancies being granted this year than last, a report has shown.
Sequence, a chain of estate agents with 290 branches nationwide has published their most recent report, which shows rents rose 4 per cent in August and 11 per cent annually to £779 a month.
More than 50,000 people affected by the so-called bedroom tax have fallen behind on rent and face eviction.
The statistics reveal the scale of debt created by the Government’s under-occupancy charge, as one council house tenant in three has been pushed into rent arrears since it was introduced in April.
More than half of families hit by the government's controversial bedroom tax have been pushed into debt, new research has revealed.
A survey of 51 English housing associations by the National Housing Federation (NHF), found that 51% (32,432) of residents affected by the widely condemned under-occupancy policy have been unable to pay their rent between April and June.
Delegates at the Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow will today hear the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations' (SFHA) demand for a repeal of the bedroom tax.
The SFHA believes that the government's controversial under-occupancy policy is "deeply flawed" and that it is causing widespread disruption to Scotland's social housing sector.
A new campaign has kicked off with a letter to the UK's political party leaders urging them to reject misleading stereotypes of benefit claimants and instead focus on the needs of ordinary families on welfare.
Launched today by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), the 'People Like Us' campaign claims that the current debate about social security is failing ordinary families.