How the main parties are planning to help the housing market

In case it might have passed you by, the country is in the throes of preparing for a General Election which is taking place in less than two weeks on 4 July 2024.

Inevitably there will be a lot of information coming across in written and verbal form, people knocking on your door desperate to seal your vote for their representative of a particular party. There will also be a lot of skewed information, naysaying and counter-suggestions as to what any policy those parties will be backing. 

With all this noise - unfortunately what politics is all about - it's very difficult to understand what each political party is standing for and what they hope to achieve. Once you strip away the rhetoric, things become a bit clearer.

You are thinking of taking out a mortgage to buy a new home, perhaps for the first time. Or you want to downsize or upgrade your current home and buy somewhere new. Maybe you want to look at ways of adopting greener opportunities for your current home. Or maybe you're just interested in where this country might be heading in the housing and mortgage market but can't face wading through the forests of paper that are the manifestos for the main parties at the General Election.

To help understand the position, Homeward Legal provides a helpful summary for each of the main areas of planned policy that might affect your decisions depending on who is voted in (assuming that what is in the manifesto of the winning party becomes reality if they win on the night).

Here we look at the parties and what they promising to try and win your vote where it comes to anything to do with housing. There are the three traditional parties (Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats), but there are three others jostling for prominence in many of the opinion polls, so they are included for balance (Reform (note that the manifesto has been renamed to “Our Contract”), Green Party and Plaid Cymru (for Wales only)). 

The details provided here are driven from an excellent summary written as a blog by The Conveyancing Association.

Conservatives 

1. Abolish legacy EU “nutrient neutrality” rules to allow more housebuilding.
2. Fast-track planning system to deliver record number of houses each year on brownfield land in urban areas.
3. New urban regeneration schemes.
4. Requiring local authorities to set land aside to support of local and smaller builders.
5. Ensure use of Infrastructure Levy by local authorities to deliver the infrastructure (including doctors, dentists, etc.) to support new building.
6. Renewing the Affordable Homes Programme and regenerate and improve existing housing estates.
7. Retain a cast-iron commitment to the Green Belt and its protection from being built on.
8. Ensure majority of first-time buyers don't pay Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) by increasing the lowest threshold to £300,000.
9. Launch a new Help to Buy scheme, providing first-time buyers with access to an equity loan of up to 20% of the cost of buying a new-build home.
10. Legislation of Local Connection and UK Connection tests for social housing to ensure fair allocation.
11. Ability for landlords to evict tenants with disruptive behaviour affecting other tenants in social housing.
12. Introduction of a two-year temporary Capital Gains Tax relief for landlords who sell a property to the tenants.
13. Complete the Leasehold Reform Bill and its contents, capping ground rents and reducing them.
14. Make it easier for leaseholders to take up commonhold provisions (ownership and management of common areas in a development).
15. Deliver a Renters Reform Bill to deliver fairness for landlords and renters.
16. Continue support for leaseholders affected by historic building safety problems (in the light of the Grenfell Tower disaster).
17. Give councils the authority to manage uncontrolled growth of holiday lets.
18. Support for those wishing to self-build or commission their own home.

You can read the Conservatives' full housing policy here (pages 51-54).

Labour

1. Build 1.5 million new homes for the period of Parliament.
2. Update the National Policy Planning Framework and restoring mandatory housing targets.
3. Reform and strengthen the presumption of planning in favour of sustainable development.
4. Increase the rate of stamp duty surcharge paid by non-UK residents.
5. Local communities to have a say in shaping housebuilding in their area.
6. Take a brownfield first approach to prioritise development on previously-used land.
7. Preserve the Green Belt and take a strategic approach to green belt land designation and build more homes in ‘grey belt' areas as the priority.
8. Build a generation of new towns, alongside urban extensions and regeneration projects.
9. Reform compulsory purchase compensation rules to improve land assembly and speed up delivery.
10. Increase social and affordable housing by strengthening planning obligations.
11. Take steps to improve the quality, design and sustainability of homes that are built.
12. Implement solutions to unlock building of homes affected by nutrient neutrality (without impacting environmental protections).
13. Give first-time buyers the chance to buy homes by implementing a mortgage guarantee scheme to support them with lower mortgage costs and saving towards a deposit.
14. Increase stamp duty by 1% on purchases of residential property by non-UK residents.

You can read Labour's full housing manifesto here(section: Get Britain building again).

Liberal Democrats

1. Expand Neighbourhood Planning across the country.
2. Build 10 new garden cities.
3. Allow councils to buy land to be used for housing based on current value.
4. Funding local planning departments properly to improve planning decisions.
5. Encourage use of rural exception sites for building houses in rural areas.
6. Trial Community Land Auctions to the benefit of those local communities.
7. Encourage development of brownfield sites.
8. Introduce planning permissions that expire if unused to prevent developers who refuse to build.
9. Put construction industry on a sound sustainable footing.
10. Ensure all development has sound infrastructure, services and amenities in place, as part of the planning process.
11. Introduce a ten-year programme to make homes warmer and cheaper to heat with new homes being zero carbon.
12. Remove dangerous cladding from all buildings, without leaseholders having to pay for the removal.
13. Introduce a Rent to Own model for social housing for those who can't afford a deposit to own their own homes after a thirty-year period.
14. End rough sleeping in the next Parliament.
15. Provide local authorities with powers to control second homes and short-term lets.
16. Protect the rights of social renters by enforcing clear standards for homes and recognising tenant panels.
17. Introduce a stamp duty surcharge on overseas residents buying second homes.
18. Allow local councils to increase the council tax rate by up to 500% on second homes.

You can read the Liberal Democrats' full housing manifesto here (section 14).

Reform UK

1. Fast-track planning and tax incentives to develop brownfield sites to build houses.
2. Implement a ‘loose-fit planning' policy for large residential developments with pre-approved guidelines.
3. Reform social housing law that prioritise local people who have paid into the system.
4. Scrap Section 24 for landlords.
5. Abolish the Renters' (Reform) Bill.
1. Protection for leaseholders with all potential charges clearly stated and adhered to.
2. Enforce Section 106 agreements.
3. Ensure it is easier and cheaper to extend leases and to buy freeholds.
6. Incentivise the use of new construction technology to speed up building.
7. Cut Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) to 0% for houses priced at under £750,000, then rated at 2% between £750,000 and £1.5m, and 4% over £1.5m.

You can read Reform UK's full housing manifestohere (page 15).

Green Party

1. Introduce the Green Party Right Homes, Right Place, Right Price Charter:
1. Require local authorities to spread small developments across the location under their control.
2. Require all new developments to come with clear planning for the extra investment in infrastructure, transport, amenities and other local services.
3. Ensure all new homes meet the required standards.
4. Housebuilders to include solar panels and heat pumps where appropriate.
2. Invest funds to insulate homes to EPC B standards or above, to insulate other buildings to a high standard, and to install low-carbon heating systems.
3. Build 150,000 new social homes for each year of the next Parliament, including refurbishment of existing and older housing stock.
4. Introduce a community right-to-buy scheme for several property categories.
5. End the current “right to buy” schemes, ensuring social housing “in perpetuity”.
6. Introduce rent controls for local authorities to control rents if rental market forces make them too expensive to afford.
7. Introduce a new stable rental tenancy to provide security for tenants.
8. End ‘no-fault' evictions.
9. Set up private residential tenancy boards to resolve disputes quickly and cheaply.

You can read The Green Party's full housing manifesto here (direct link). 

Plaid Cymru (Wales only)

1. Support the Welsh construction industry to create centres of excellence in new construction technology and retrofitting existing housing stock.
2. Work with housing associations and local authorities to develop supply chains and skilled labour locally.
3. Identify appropriate land for building, aligning it with community needs, including transport, services and other necessary amenities.
4. Instil strategic planning at national, regional and local levels to ensure required delivery.
5. Increase housing stock to prevent homelessness by meeting the community's housing needs.
6. Tackle the challenge of second homes and holiday homes within communities with local authority powers to require registration of change of use and introducing a cap on the number of these homes in any community.
7. Close loopholes that allow second homes to be registered as legitimate lettings businesses, protecting genuine self-catering businesses.
8. Introduce a system of fair rents and rent control to make rental homes are affordable to local people on local incomes.
9. Legislate the Right to Adequate Housing Bill in Wales to introduce rent controls and other market interventions.
10. Reform the planning system to be consistent with local needs.
11. Apply new funding to local authorities for robust enforcement of planning decisions.

You can read Plaid Cymru's full housing manifesto here (pages 30-33)

Whichever party is in control of the future of housing after 4 July, there is one certainty: you can rely on Homeward Legal to help with affordable but quality conveyancing services! 

They will start work on your planned purchase (and/or sale) as soon as you agree to the quotation and appoint them to represent you. 

Homeward Legal will also provide a quote that will not change - what you are quoted is what you pay for standard conveyancing process.

There are some unforeseen items that might arise during the purchase and/or sale, but the solicitor discusses these and their cost as they come up. 

In addition, to protect the homebuyer further, Homeward Legal operates a ‘no completion, no fee' promise, which ensures that, should the purchase or sale not go through as planned to completion status, no payment is required.

Call  to get your conveyancing quote started, or to discuss your concerns with your plans to move.

Or you can get a quick quote, using Homeward Legal's easy-to-use quote generator.