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Tips, insights, and advice to help you find, rent, and manage your next home with confidence.
The Social Housing Bill has completed its third reading in the House of Lords, which took place on Tuesday 1 September. No amendments were put forward ahead of third reading, and members instead discussed the progress of the bill at the conclusion of its Lords stages.
For years, councils have been largely spectators in the business of building homes. That changes this week: on 25 August, the Prime Minister and Housing Secretary Angela Rayner announced the first wave of funding from the government's £39 billion Social and Affordable Homes Programme, with nearly £10 billion now allocated.
A garden left to go wild could cost you your home, if Reform UK ever gets the chance to govern. The party's chair, Lee Anderson, announced at a press conference that social housing tenants would be evicted for failing to keep their properties decorated and their gardens maintained, a rule he insists is simply a return to how council housing was once run.
Where someone was born could soon determine how long they wait for a subsidised home in Britain, if Reform UK gets its way. The party is set to unveil a social housing policy at a press conference in London on Monday that would reorder the queue so that people born in the UK take priority over British citizens who were born overseas.
Social housing has been thrust into the centre of the immigration debate in a way few in the sector could have predicted. First Nigel Farage announced that, under a Reform government, all foreign nationals in social homes would have three months to leave or face deportation.
If you own a leasehold flat and have been waiting for the promised revolution in your rights, you are not alone. The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024, with its final parliamentary stages fast-tracked in the wash-up before the general election.
Few things frustrate a homeowner more than watching a neighbouring property slide into disrepair. Peeling paintwork, broken guttering and an overgrown garden are unsightly, can attract pests, and often raise fears that the value of nearby homes is quietly being eroded.
Wales is gearing up for a major overhaul of its private rented sector, and while the legislation itself is not expected until 2027, the groundwork is already being laid. The Welsh Government's legislative programme for the next 18 months includes a Rental Bill that will start with rent data collection and a strengthened enforcement role for Rent Smart Wales, before opening the door to much wider reforms later in the Senedd term.
Ask anyone who inspects housing for a living and you will get a blunt answer: the idea that our homes can no longer be trusted to keep us safe is not a headline, it is the day job. A recent Guardian editorial on 23 July echoed Sam Johnson-Schlee's warning that our confidence in the basic safety of our homes is under threat, but for environmental health officers working in housing, that threat has long been a lived reality.
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