The value of an average UK property has rapidly risen in recent years; this is a symptom of the number of properties being sought after, as demand outweighs supply. However, a breakthrough in the potential recovery of the housing market was announced in July 2013, with the news that the number of houses being built was at its highest in five years. In addition, the UK government’s ‘Help to Buy scheme has enabled more properties to be sold to first-time buyers.
A more serious crisis than the number of those struggling to get onto the property ladder is the increase in the number of UK residents without home at all, or living in dwellings which are not fit for the number of occupants. Research published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and British charity Crisis in 2013 indicates the number of homeless individuals and families in the UK saw an annual increase for the last three consecutive years.
In legal terms, ‘homeless’ has a loose definition and applies to many different scenarios, other than where a person is sleeping on the streets; it can refer to instances where an individual or family’s living situation is not ideal (such as a 4-person family living in a 1-room bedsit), or if they are under threat of eviction. Currently, the most common cause of homelessness in the UK is where a tenancy agreement comes to an end and the landlord refuses to extend it; this is according to recent government figures. The number of people being made homeless under these circumstances has trebled in the last five years; in some cases, this is due to the tenant losing their job during the tenancy and subsequently claiming housing benefits.
With cases of the aforementioned, landlords are proactively protecting their income by evicting the tenant(s) as soon as the current tenancy period expires, regardless of whether or not they have missed rental payments. The perception is that those who are on benefits are more likely to default on their payments, there are studies and statistics to support this, and it would appear that certain landlords are not even giving low-income tenants the benefit of the doubt. This, coupled with rental payments becoming less affordable, means the number of individuals and families unable to rent or buy a home is increasing, therefore resulting in longer waiting lists for social housing.
On a more positive note, the UK government has invested £550 million in the property development industry, as part of their ‘Get Britain Building’ scheme; part of their aims is to fund the building of houses, on sites which have already been granted planning permission, where development has previously halted due to costs. It is expected that this will create up to 25,000 new homes, as well as tens-of-thousands of jobs in the construction industry. Whilst these efforts to stimulate the UK’s economy are certainly promising, we can only hope that bigger steps will be taken over the next 20 years to accommodate an addition of 9.1 million people to the country’s population.
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