Home buyers who need mortgage help may be forced repay state

renting

By Ian Cowie Your Money Last updated: December 7th, 2011 Home buyers who lose their job and need state help with mortgage interest may have to repay this or give up some or all of the proceeds of their property’s sale in future, if new rules being considered by the Government pass into law. As unemployment rises and the house prices fall, is this another attack on the squeezed middle or an overdue reform to cut spending and improve public finances? Lord Freud, the Minister for Welfare Reform, said “The current system of Support for Mortgage Interest (SMI) payments does not … [Read more...]

Buy-to-let boom winners and losers. Hello ‘generation rent’: goodbye social mobility

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Just 15 years after the first ‘buy-to-let’ mortgage was marketed in Britain, the number of people in privately-rented accommodation is now greater than those in council and housing association properties combined. This is the first time that has been the case since the 1960s and the long term trends which led to this state of affairs are unlikely to be reversed any time soon. Young people who feel frozen out of home ownership by high house prices and condemned to pay their landlords’ mortgages on privately-let accommodation had better get used to being part of‘generation … [Read more...]

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