With both reform UK and the Green Party making anticipated gains in this week’s local elections, what difference will their increased presence in local authorities make to landlords?
Reform UK
Although many of Reform’s stated housing policies relate to the private rental sector, almost all have to be implemented at national government level – so power in some councils will probably make little difference to landlords.
We know that at national level their housing policies include:
- Scrapping section 24 of the Housing Act, which will allow landlords to deduct finance costs and mortgage interest from tax on rental income;
- Abolishing some elements of the Renters Rights Act;
- Introduce a rent-to-buy model for young people;
- Scrap stamp duty and its equivalent in Wales and Scotland, replacing it with a local council-controlled property tax;
- Build on the government’s increased protections for leaseholders;
- ‘Putting locals first’ in social housing allocation;
- Create a long term funding model with UK pension funds will be developed to build social housing owned by the local authorities;
- Streamline planning regulations;
- Further emphasis on brownfield development;
- Increased emphasis on so-called Modern Methods of Construction – more modular new homes.
Green Party
Much of the party’s electoral success is down to mobilising younger voters, so perhaps unsurprisingly there is much about the private rental sector in the party’s manifestos for the English local elections and the polls for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
We know that the party’s policies include:
- A tax on multi-millionaires and billionaires to raise £30 billion to £70 billion to help fund improvements to housing and other policy areas;
- 150,000 new social homes a year;
- ending Right To Buy across the UK;
- allowing local politicians to implement local rent controls;
- a mass home insulation to higher EPC standards;
- solar panels and heat pumps in all new-build homes.
