An election tends to leave the country in flux, waiting to see if there will be a radical change with people not wanting to make life-changing decisions.

 

Yet for the housing market, it’s a time when we can all see what each party’s plans are as it’s something that they know will have a big say in how people vote.

 

Every party has included a number of promises about housing, and we’ve pulled it together for you here.

 

Conservatives

Let’s start with the current Government and what they are promising…

 

Help to Buy

The standout statement from the Conservatives was the resurrection of the Help to Buy scheme, which is where first-time buyers would be able to get an equity loan of up to 20% of the new home price. First-time buyers will also be able to purchase a house with a 5% deposit on affordable interest rates.

 

New Stamp Duty Threshold

They have said it’s new, but it’s really making the current £425,000 threshold for first-time buyers permanent in England and Northern Ireland.

 

1.6 million new homes

In their words, they aren’t just building 1.6 million homes. They are building 1.6 million “well-designed­” homes in places that need them. They say they will do this by abolishing the “nutrient neutrality” rules, allowing homes to be built on brownfield land in urban areas, renewing the Affordable Homes Programme and setting land aside for local and smaller builders.

 

Major changes to the rental market

There are some standout promises for the rental market as well, mainly that there will be a two-year tax relief for landlords that sell to their tenants, a cap on ground rent of £250 and removing Section 21 through a Renters Reform Bill and Court Reforms. Landlords will also have more ‘grounds’ to evict tenants who are guilty of anti-social behaviour, with a “three strikes and you’re out” rule coming in.

 

The Renters Reform Bill is designed to ban landlords from evicting tenants without a reason, make tenants commit to a minimum 6-month rental period and give landlords the power to evict students to ensure tenants move out at the end of their academic year.

 

Labour

 

Labour has also made some very strong promises when it comes to housing…

 

Building 1.5 million new homes

The headline figure is lower than the Conservatives, but Labour are actually promising to build more. They are doing this by saying that they will build the new houses over 5 years. The last time there was this level of housebuilding in England was in the 1960s, which shows the scale of what they are proposing.

 

Labour says they will achieve this by giving local authorities funding for additional planning officers, which is where they think the bottleneck is.

 

They promise a brownfield-first approach, so much so that they will fast-track approval for housing on urban brownfield sites.

 

Labour are also saying that they won’t be building houses just anywhere, they, like the Conservatives, say that they will only build in the right places.

 

A new Mortgage Guarantee scheme

This is a big change. There will be a new, permanent, comprehensive mortgage guarantee scheme which helps first-time buyers who can’t get a big deposit together – to have lower mortgage costs. They haven’t provided the figures here, but this would potentially help a lot of first-time buyers get onto the housing ladder.

 

Compulsory Purchase Compensation Reform

This is a tricky one to quantify, but Labour’s aim here is to make sure that landowners are given fair compensation rather than inflated prices which come in when there is the prospect of planning permission. This, in their view, should help speed up site delivery and deliver the housing they have promised.

 

Changes to Affordable Housing Programme

Labour will strengthen planning obligations to make sure that every new development has more affordable housing, which would in theory deliver a massive increase in social and affordable housing.

 

They will make other changes to the programme to use the current funding to deliver even more homes and provide more support to councils and housing associations to build their own developments that would contribute a lot to the affordable housing market.

 

Changes to the Right to Buy Discounts

This is a promise to review with the aim of protecting existing social rented homes and increase the protection in place for new social housing. They don’t go into details as to what those protections are just yet.

 

Big Changes to the Rental Market

Labour will overhaul the rental market. They will immediately abolish the Section 21 no-fault evictions, give more power to renters to push back against unreasonable rent increases, increase the standards by extending ‘Awaab’s Law’ to include the private sector, and stop renters being exploited and discriminated against.

 

Changes for Leaseholders

Say goodbye to the Feudal Leasehold system… Labour will remove it as soon as possible and ban all new leasehold flats with commonholds being the norm. They will also be targeting unregulated ground rent charges that come with leaseholds, making sure that they remain fair and affordable for all.

They will also be bringing in new building safety regulations to remove any cladding that is similar to that which covered Grenfell Tower.

 

Liberal Democrats

 

The Lib Dems have kept things really simple…

 

A massive new build promise

The stand-out figure here is 380,000 new homes built every year, which includes 150,000 social homes. Given that Labour’s plans were going to create the biggest housebuilding exercise since the ’60s, the Lib Dems have taken it one step further. Across a 5 year period, they are promising to build a staggering 1.9 million new homes… They will do this by creating ten new garden cities and developing current cities and towns.

A big part of hitting these figures will be building on existing brownfield sites, with financial incentives given to make sure that social housing is included in these developments.

 

Removing Right to Buy… sort of

They want to end Right to Buy, but they will be giving the power to do this to the local authorities and National Park Authorities. They don’t say if the local authorities will have to end them or if it’s their choice.

 

Leaseholds will be changing

The Lib Dems go further than Labour by not just abolishing residential leaseholds, they will also cap ground rents to a nominal fee.

 

No more empty development sites

Developers will no longer be able to buy land and wait for the right moment to build to get the biggest profit. They will be issued ‘use it or lose it’ planning permission which will mean developers have a short window to start building.

 

No more cladding

They will remove all dangerous cladding from every building in England, but the big thing here is that leaseholders won’t have to pay for this to happen.

 

Rent to Own

This is a big one. People who can’t save up a massive deposit to buy their own home will get a stake in the social housing they live in through rent payments. After 30 years, they will own their house outright.

 

Reform UK

Simple promises from Reform UK as well…

 

Changes to the Planning System

No big numbers from Reform, just a promise to fast-track the development of brownfield sites and add some tax incentives in. They will add pre-approval guidelines and developer requirements to speed up housing developments.

 

Social Housing laws will change

Social Housing will be made available to local residents who have paid into “the system” in the first instance, with foreign nationals not being considered for social housing until all other residents have received housing.

 

Section 24 will be gone

Section 24 got rid of a landlord’s right to deduct the majority of their finance costs from their rental income, before then calculating the tax they have to pay. Reform will get rid of this in the hope that more people will want to become landlords.

 

So will the Renters’ Reform Bill

Reform states that the existing legislation isn’t fit for purpose, so a reform bill won’t solve it. So, they will scrap both and create legislation that addresses the bad practices.

 

More protection for Leaseholders

Charges for leasehold or freehold residents have to be explicitly stated, and, most importantly, consented to. They will also make it cheaper and easier to extend leases to 990 years and buy freeholds.

 

Green Party

 

The Green Party have made four key promises when it comes to housing…

 

A Strong Focus on Affordable Housing

 

The Greens have set out their stall with their Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price charter.

This charter would require local authorities to spread small developments across the areas they control, make all new developments have the right level of investment in local infrastructure, and make all new homes meet Passivhaus (or equivalent) standards as well as including solar panels and heat pumps in new homes.

Ultimately, they are looking to protect green space for communities, reduce emissions from building developments, tackle fuel poverty and give people access to genuinely affordable housing, rather than a traditional definition of “affordable housing.”

 

A big insulation project

This will be a street-by-street retrofit to insulate every home in England, provide a way to create clean heat and adapt all homes to more extreme climate conditions.

 

New Social Homes

They are promising 150,000 new social homes each year, as well as removing the individual right to buy and replacing it with a community right to buy for local authorities. The idea here is to keep social homes for local communities.

 

Changes to the Rental Market

There are some big ideas here… The biggest one is the introduction of rent controls, which will be led by the local authorities if the rental market is unaffordable for local people. In addition, they will also end no-fault evictions, create a new stable rental tenancy and give renters the right to demand energy efficiency improvements.

Finally, they will create private residential tenancy boards to help resolve issues and disputes before they reach a tribunal.

 

What does all this mean?

 

Well, every party has a different idea on what to do to address the housing market, but surprisingly, they do agree on certain aspects that we’ve been saying aren’t fit for purpose for a long time, which is a welcome change.

Whichever party wins the General Election, it’s clear that there will be some major changes coming in for us all.