Melissa York

Councils hoard millions from ‘extension tax’ as homeowners suffer Families are facing financial ruin over wrongly applied community infrastructure levy charges, while funds raised from it sit idly in local government accounts

Corker of an investigation by @melyorktt.bsky.social into the hundreds of millions of pounds collected by local councils, that they then proceed to do nothing with
www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...

Text: Right-to-buy will be 45 years old in October, and its effects still reverberate through the housing market. A third of England’s public housing was sold off between 1979 and 1990. If asked to nominate Thatcher’s biggest sell-off, most people would mention British Airways, British Telecom or British Gas, but council housing was bigger than any of them. In total more than two million council homes have been sold through right-to-buy, worth £371 billion. This represents the biggest transfer of public property into private ownership in UK history.

Text: The scheme was controversial from the start, with the housing charity Shelter and the Royal Town Planning Institute warning about the long-term impact on the affordability of housing, worsening conditions for low-income tenants, and councils losing control of their housing stock. These homes were sold at an average discount of 44 per cent, representing nearly £194 billion in lost value to taxpayers, a report by the think tank Common Wealth revealed earlier this month. The organisation’s chief economist, Chris Hayes, said local authorities were forced to conduct “fire sales by central diktat” that “denied them a reasonable return on those assets. It was an unrepeatable state handout on an unprecedented scale.”

More than 2mn council homes been sold through right-to-buy, worth £371bn, biggest transfer of public property into private ownership in UK history.
Homes were sold at an average discount of 44%, nearly £194bn in lost value to taxpayers.
(£) www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
By @melyorktt.bsky.social

Did right-to-buy cause Britain’s housing crisis? Forty-five years since council tenants were encouraged to join the ‘property-owning democracy’, has Margaret Thatcher’s flagship scheme backfired? Melissa York meets right-to-buy’s winners and losers

@melyorktt.bsky.social's The Sunday Times article analyses the impact of 45yrs of right-to-buy.

It highlights our UK Housing Review research that shows 50yrs ago 95% of state spending on housing was on building homes & 5% on benefits. By 2022 this reversed to 88% on benefits & 12% on building homes

Heatwaves are hell in my new-build flat Highly insulated modern apartments save their owners a fortune in energy bills but when the temperature rises, the downside becomes clear. Here’s how to cope

This is a v funny piece by colleague @melyorktt.bsky.social, but there is a serious point behind it - a huge number of newbuilds simply aren't built for our changing climate and, pretty soon, may be unlivable.

www.thetimes.com/article/49fb...

Is your council tax about to get more expensive? The black hole in local authority finances will be filled by taxpayers, with some regions set for bigger rises than others. Here’s what you need to know

Another double act with @melyorktt.bsky.social this time in Money. The government’s local government funding proposals, proper reform or a patch-up job on a broken system?

Either way, the days of very cheap council tax for some London boroughs could be over
www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

Will the spending review 2025 mean more new affordable housing? Will Rachel Reeves’s £39 billion plan truly solve Britain’s housing crisis or is it merely a temporary fix? We analyse the chancellor’s pledges

Will Rachel Reeves’ £39bn “biggest social and affordable housing investment for 50 years” result in more housing for low income households? And what about the rest of the market? My analysis for @thetimes.com

www.thetimes.com/article/faf7...

Will the spending review 2025 mean more new affordable housing? Will Rachel Reeves’s £39 billion plan truly solve Britain’s housing crisis or is it merely a temporary fix? We analyse the chancellor’s pledges

An excellent analysis of today's housing policy announcements by my colleague @melyorktt.bsky.social

www.thetimes.com/article/faf7...

London’s luxury empty houses: why are so many not lived in? In Notting Hill a serene garden square reveals a startling trend: most houses stand empty. Is it tax changes, market timing or something more sinister?

London’s luxury empty houses: why are so many not lived in?

I investigate with @davidbyers26.bsky.social and it’s FREE TO READ 🎉

www.thetimes.com/article/163e...

London’s luxury empty houses: why are so many not lived in? In Notting Hill a serene garden square reveals a startling trend: most houses stand empty. Is it tax changes, market timing or something more sinister?

The paywall is down at @thetimes.com - so why not read a new investigation, by @melyorktt.bsky.social and me, on why so many luxury London homes are languishing empty and unloved... from Belgravia to Notting Hill.

www.thetimes.com/article/163e...

Absolutely key: there are 5m leasehold properties in the UK; what plans are there to get them feeling, costing and operating like commonhold?

Free to read this weekend too!

Leaseholders ‘ripped off by secret commissions on insurance’ As the government proposes banning the sale of new leasehold flats, a class action lawsuit suggests owners may be owed millions in compensation

As the government proposes banning the sale of new leasehold flats, a class action lawsuit suggests owners may be owed millions in compensation. Very well done by my @thetimes.com colleague James Hurley on the business desk www.thetimes.com/business-mon...

What will a ban on leasehold flats mean for buyers? A move towards commonhold would give residents more control

Here's everything we know following yesterday's commonhold white paper. It'll be great to see a reinvigorated legal framework for commonhold but there is still a question mark over where this leaves existing leaseholders
www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...

Home counties property boom is over as prices drop 9% Houses valued at more than £1m are taking longer to sell and when they do it is for £150,000 less than the asking price — a far cry from pandemic highs

Exc: Houses valued at more than £1m in the Home Counties are taking longer to sell and when they do it is for £150,000 less than the asking price — a far cry from pandemic highs, according to new @investecgroup.bsky.social report
www.thetimes.com/uk/society/a...

From what I’ve heard about people’s service charges (I spoke to LH who was paying £8k a year today) that’s got to affect affordability and reduce the number of buyers too

Leaseholders - new data shows it take the average flat owner 20 years to see the same increase in property value as a house owner would see in 10 years. Has anyone else seen little value growth when they sell a leasehold flat - and would be happy to talk about it?

The £6,000-a-month rental opportunity with bite A four-bedroom house — with a 25ft fibreglass shark on the roof — is up for rent in Oxford, but it needs a tenant who appreciates its story

Ever heard of the Headington Shark, a 25 ft fibreglass sculpture that sticks out of the roof a house in Oxford? Oxford City Council has banned its owner, Magnus, from letting it out on Airbnb. I spoke to him about planning battles and artistic expression www.thetimes.com/article/c0b8...

Generation rent…

From the new Private Eye, in shops now.

‘I faced a £1,350-a-month mortgage hike because of Land Registry delays’ Homeowners are waiting months or even years for property records to be updated — putting purchases and mortgage deals at risk

I investigated delays at the Land Registry. Nearly half of 'complex' applications such as lease extensions are taking 18 months to register, and new build owners are waiting years to be registered as the legal owner of their property www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...

Took my dog for a walk and he stopped and made this face 😟. I said “oh, don’t be silly, come - it’s a hairless cat on a lead in dungarees”

"There is no denial from the regulator that there are serious delays in the process. As to why this is happening, Ian Fletcher, director of policy at the British Property Federation, understands this is mainly due to understaffing and lack of resources."

The bottleneck stopping thousands of new homes being delivered Safety checks introduced after Grenfell are causing delays on high-rise buildings, with developers having to wait for approval

From @manumidolo.bsky.social: The Building Safety Regulator is often taking more than twice the time to make safety check decisions. In June out of 62 applications for checks; only four of them were completed within the legally mandated 12 week period www.thetimes.com/article/25e2...

Will Labour’s new towns be built near you? Check our map Keir Starmer has promised a ‘golden era of building’, but the question of ‘where?’ went unanswered — until now

Could building on the green belt solve our housing crisis?
@centreforcities.bsky.social report they've been working on all year that shows where we could build 5m within commutable distance of 15 cities and 2/3rds of it lies within the green belt www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...

Will Labour’s new towns be built near you? Check our map Keir Starmer has promised a ‘golden era of building’, but the question of ‘where?’ went unanswered — until now

Now I couldn't say that this is where the new towns *will* be built, but thanks very much to @melyorktt.bsky.social for a great write up of the @centreforcities.bsky.social approach: build on existing urban economies and around public transport nodes www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...

And comment here! Comment below articles - not all bad!

Monks, vicars and airmen: the history of a Queen Anne house in Cheshire Does Manor House, in the footballers’ belt, harbour a monks’ cell in its basement? We dig into the past of this characterful property

In a new regular series of articles called House Histories I started a couple of weeks ago, we ask readers to volunteer their homes and we delve into the history of them to see what we can find. Great comment from a former owner below this week's!
www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...

Thanks! Lovely to see you here

What the budget means for the housing market From sticky mortgages to rising stamp duty, here are the key takeaways for homeowners, buyers, sellers and landlords

And keep readers up to date on changes in the housing market, whether you're renting, buying, letting or selling www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...

Inside John Lewis’s rental revolution: ‘We’re not going to be flashy’ The retailer has ambitious plans to build 10,000 flats in the next decade. So how could the department store go from high street to high rise?

Exclusive interviews with big brands and names in the housing industry or entering it www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...

Changes to watch out for in the Renters’ Rights Bill Everything you need to know about the radical shake-up of the private rental sector

Keep you up to date with housing legislation www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...