With the General Election only two weeks away future policies are among the most discussed issues in recent days.
The main parties running have all published their manifestos and all of them have included housing as key issue to be dealt with in the future. This happens for the first time, as usually housing is not ranking very high on the political agenda.
However, this election is different. The crisis in British housing is growing ever more severe as demand widely outstrips supply, prices rise and affordability diminishes.
Urgent measures are needed and a new government will have to come up with solutions for problems such as: how to build more homes, where to build them, how to make housing more affordable so home ownership does not become an impossible dream, especially for young people looking to get on the property ladder.
Maybe you already know for whom you are going to vote or maybe you are still in the process of making up your mind. Whatever the case, you should know exactly what the parties are promising.
Below you will find a roundup of what the Conservatives, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and UKIP are promising to do to improve the housing situation in their manifestos.
The Conservatives
Housebuilding
*The Conservative party does not name a specific housebuilding target in their manifesto. They pledge to support the building of new homes “that people can afford”
*Right to Build: The party says it aims at least to double the number of custom-built and self-built homes by 2020, and will take forward a new Right to Build, requiring councils to allocate land to local people to build or commission their own home, as you can do in most of Europe.
*They will create a Brownfield Fund to unlock homes on brownfield land
*They will fund Housing Zones to transform brownfield sites into new housing, which will create 95,000 new homes
First-time buyers
The party has a concrete target for new homes here. They pledge to build 200,000 new homes reserved for first-time buyers under 40 0 and sold at 20 per cent below the market price.
*They will support the new Help to Buy ISA, a state-backed savings account designed especially for first-time buyers. A 10 per cent deposit on the average first home costs £15,000, so if you put in up to £12,000, government will put in up to £3,000 more. A 25 per cent top-up is equivalent to saving a deposit from your pre-tax income – making it effectively a tax cut for first-time buyers.
Private tenants
The Conservatives pledge to keep council taxes down and offer 10,000 new homes for rent below market prices.
Affordable housing
*The party plans to extend the existing Help to Buy scheme to cover another 120,000 homes and will continue the Help to Buy mortgage guarantee until the start of 2017, and the Help to Buy equity loan until at least 2020
*They promise to extend the Right to Buy to tenants in Housing Associations to enable more people to buy a home of their own
Planning and the Green Belt
The Conservatives pledge to protect the Green Belt. The say they had already introduced a new Local Green Space planning designation which allows councils and neighbourhood plans to give added protection to valuable local green spaces.
*They will support locally-led garden cities and towns and prioritise brownfield development, making sure new homes are always matched by the necessary infrastructure to support them
Mortgage Rates
The Conservatives promise to continue implementing their long-term economic plan and through making the economy stronger, keep mortgage rates down.
*They also pledge to focus on strengthening local economy. Building on the local retention of business rates introduced in 2012, the party will promote localism by allowing councils to keep a higher proportion of the business rates revenue that is generated in their area. This will provide a strong financial incentive for councils to promote economic growth.
Labour
Housebuilding
The Labour party pledges to build 200,000 new homes a year by 2020.
They promise to give local authorities new ‘use it or lose it’ powers to encourage developers to build.
They plan to increase competition in the housebuilding industry by backing small builders, including through their Help to Build scheme, and by getting the public sector building again.
First-time buyers
Labour will give local authorities the power to give first call to first time buyers on new homes in areas of housing growth.
The party also pledges to unlock a Future Homes Fund by requiring that the billions of pounds saved in Help to Buy ISAs be invested in increasing housing supply.
Private tenants
Labour promises the 11 million people who rent privately new legislation making three-year tenancies the norm
They will introduce a cap on rents and create creating a national register of private landlords
And will ban unfair letting agent fees, which, they say, will save renters over £600
Affordable housing
Labour will give local authorities powers to reduce the number of empty homes, including higher council tax on long term empty properties
The party pledges to work hard on expanding the number of new builds as this is the basis of solving the housing crisis in Britain and create opportunities for more people to be able to afford to own their own home.
They also pledge to fight homelessness and rough sleeping, which have been on the rise in recent years.
Planning and the Green Belt
Labour promises to build a new generation of garden cities if it were to lead the next government.
Mortgage Rates
The party does not make a specific pledge in this regard.
The Liberal Democrats
Housebuilding
The Liberal Democrats have set a very ambitious goal for housebuilding, putting the main focus on expanding the number new homes to tackle the crisis in housing.
They promise 300,000 new homes each year and say they will present a long-term plan on how this high target will be achieved within the first year of the next parliament.
The party pledges to:
*Build up to five major new settlements along a Garden Cities Railway between Oxford and Cambridge.
*Develop on unwanted public sector sites through the Homes and Communities Agency, with local authorities given new powers to ensure development happens on any unused site in which the public sector has an interest.
* Set up a new government-backed Housing Investment Bank to provide long-term capital for major new settlements and help attract finance for major house building projects.
First-time buyers
As a continuation of the Help to Buy scheme, the Liberal Democrats pledge to launch a new Rent to Own programme where the monthly payments steadily buy renters a stake in the property
Private tenants
The party promises to make sure private tenants and leaseholders are protected from rogue landlords.
They are also supporting the idea of multi-year tenancy with an agreed inflation-linked annual rent increase built in. They do not say how many years that tenancy should be.
In terms of tenants protection the Liberal Democrats pledge to:
*Establish a voluntary register of rented property where either the landlord or the tenant can register the property, to improve enforcement and tax transparency.
*Ban letting agent fees to tenants if the introduced transparency requirements are not successful in bringing fees down to an affordable level by the end of 2016.
*Extend the use of Rent Repayment Orders to rent refunds in cases when the property has been found unfit for living or in cases of landlord negligence.
*Introduce a new Help to Rent scheme to provide government-backed tenancy deposit loans for all first-time renters under 30.
Affordable housing
The Liberal Democrats are promising to give more powers to local authorities tackle affordable housing issues as well as encourage affordable housing providers to find innovative ways to offer new homes.
They also pledge to introduce a new Intermediate Housing Fund for financing intermediate housing products, including:
*Affordable Rent homes, at up to 80% of local market rent.
*Shared Ownership homes, where customers buy a proportion of the home and pay an affordable rent for the rest.
*A new Rent to Own model where monthly payments steadily accrue the tenant a percentage stake in the property, owning it outright after 30 years.
*New build shared accommodation at the local LHA Shared Accommodation Rate.
Planning and the Green Belt
The Liberal Democrats target the development of at least ten new Garden Cities in England, in areas where there is local support. They promise to encourage rural local authorities to follow these principles on a smaller scale, too, developing new garden villages or suburbs as part of their plans for growth.
Mortgage Rates
The party manifesto does not contain a specific goal on that.
UKIP
Housebuilding
- Click on the image to read full manifesto
UKIP pledges to tackle the supply shortage on the housing market by incentivising brownfield development.
It would be possible to build up to 2.5 million houses on brownfield sites, if developers were less reluctant to take advantage of this rich source of potential housing land, the party states in its manifesto.
UKIP promises to take steps to remove the barriers to brownfield builds with the aim of building one million homes on brownfield sites by 2025.
First-time buyers
While it supports schemes such as Right to Buy and Help to Buy and pledges to extend them, UKIP wants to limit those schemes to British citizens only. Non-British nationals are not to be allowed to access those schemes if they have not served in the British Armed Forces.
Private tenants
UKIP makes a strong case of bringing empty properties back to use as a way to ensure immediate increase in supply on the housing market.
The says it will charge those whose homes are empty for more than two years 50 per cent more than the applicable rate of council tax, with exceptions for owners who are in the Armed Forces.
Affordable housing
UKIP pledges to increase the supply of affordable housing by:
*Identifying long-term dormant land held by central and local government so it can be released for affordable developments
*Relaxing planning regulations for the conversion of off-high road commercial and office space and other existing buildings to affordable residential use.
Planning and the Green Belt
The party promises to protect the Green Belt by concentrating on brownfield development. It also says it aims to support local authorities by giving them the chance to have a greater say in what happens in their locality.
Mortgage Rates
While it does not make a note on mortgage rates specifically, UKIP states it wants to support homeowners by changing the law to allow mortgages to become inheritable, as they are in other countries. This will allow lenders to resume lending to older borrowers.
The party also pledges not to introduce any form of Mansion Tax.
