Recent News

Buy-to-let landlords are handing over more money to the taxman.

HMRC’s take from landlords in income tax on their rental income in 2010/11 was up 13% on the previous tax year. 

Housing groups and charities have been left ‘deeply disappointed’ after the High Court dismissed a legal challenge to the government’s bedroom tax.

David Orr, chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said the policy is unworkable, while Campbell Robb, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, said the ruling was ‘devastating news’. 

Half of Universal Credit claimants in some areas could struggle to use the government’s online system because they lack IT skills and have limited internet access, local government pilots have found.

The findings come in a report by the Department for Work and Pensions about 12 local authority pilots of the new benefits system. It has been published as the Universal Credit system is rolled out to job centres in Oldham and Warrington, having been started in Wigan and Ashton-Under-Lyne earlier this year. 

Tenants on benefits are showing increasing signs of desperation as they search for private landlords who will accept them.  

There are the first signs of a possible tipping point in the rental market, with LSL today reporting that the number of tenants is dropping as first-time buyer numbers rise. 

Greater powers for local councils to crack down on bad landlords, a legal requirement to include landlords’ contact details in all tenancy agreements, faster evictions, and a cultural shift towards longer tenancies have been recommended in this morning’s major report into the private rented sector.

The Communities and Local Government select committee makes no fewer than 47 recommendations covering a wide range of issues from Houses in Multiple Occupation to selective licensing schemes. 

A Communities and Local Government select committee report out today on the private rented sector said moving people out of London was the only way councils could mitigate the impact of benefit caps.

Cuts to benefits had left local authorities with too few properties in their boroughs where they could afford to house claimants, the MPs found. 

Chancellor George Osborne is considering lowering the benefits cap by a further £6,000, one of his aides confirmed today.

The Treasury will base a decision on whether to make the further cut depending on the effectiveness of the current benefit cap, which began its national roll-out on Monday, in reducing the welfare bill. 

Hounslow Council has launched a new incentive for landlords to help local families at risk of becoming homeless.

The scheme includes offering up to £1,000 for landlords to house tenants needing a home, and grants of up to £15,000 for improvement works. 

The government's total weekly benefit cap has begun rolling out across Britain.

Single parents and couples aged 16 to 24 will now only be able to claim a total of £500 a week in benefits, whilst people living alone will be capped at £350. 

The “national roll-out” of Universal Credit will now only see the new system running at a handful of JobCentres across the UK this year, ministers confirmed.

Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, insisted that Universal Credit remains on track and will fully operational by 2017. A more gradual timetable means the reform will be delivered “safely,” he said. 

Private landlords will be breaking the law if they let to illegal immigrants without first doing checks.

Penalties would be £1,000 per tenant for a first offence, and £3,000 for a repeat offence. Landlords with HMOs could lose their licences. The penalties would also apply to letting agents. 

Nearly 100,000 private tenants are now more than two months behind on their rent, according to figures published today.

During the second quarter of 2013, the number of tenants in severe arrears rose by 3.3% (to 98,000) on the previous three months, LSL Property Services reports. 

Census figures newly released show that the number of private tenants has doubled, while the proportion who own a home has fallen sharply.

The figures from the Office of National Statistics show that one in five families in England – equivalent to 1.2 million households – was renting from a private landlord in 2011, a number that has doubled since 2001. 

The minimum cost of living has soared by a quarter since the start of the economic downturn creating an "unprecedented erosion of household living standards", according to research published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

The research finds rising inflation and flat-lining wages are two of the key reasons for the additional pressure on families along with increasing childcare, food and housing costs.