Real Estate Lawyers Outline How James Brokenshire Should Tackle Housing Crisis

Real estate lawyers at law firm Irwin Mitchell have come up with the following ten priorities they think the new Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, James Brokenshire, needs to address if we are to try and solve the housing crisis – the shortage of homes for the UK’s growing population.

1. Use the tax system to encourage self-build and off-site construction.

2. Properly review the failure to replace Council houses sold off under the Right to Buy legislation on a one for one basis.

3. Impose a standard three-day response time for local authorities to supply local search results – a primary cause of delays in the conveyancing process.

4. Rethink SDLT. At these levels it has killed off movement, making house owners stay put, not releasing stock back into the market.

5. Crack down on quality – Review the NHBC and other warranty providers. Many do not provide anything like the service they promise.

6. Amend the NPPF to include a positive duty on councils to plan for providing enough retirement living and care home accommodation.

7. Stop taxing house-building with affordable housing levies (if the state wants to provide affordable housing, it should pay for it, allowing state bodies to borrow against future rental streams).

8. Abolish CIL.

9. Bring in a right to a fast track appeals against overly onerous planning obligations, and overly numerous planning conditions; and enable approved planning consultancies to approve applications for the discharge of planning conditions.

10. Continue to explore the advantages of proper leasehold reform – don’t mothball this now – but ensure that the reforms are fair to all stakeholders.

Expert Opinion

“House building has risen since the lows reached during the financial crisis of a decade ago but needs to almost double to hit the government’s target of 300,000 new homes a year by the middle of the next decade. At the moment it looks unlikely we will meet this.

"My additional (11th) priority for James Brokenshire is to stay in the job for long enough to make a difference. There have been 16 Ministers of State for Housing in the last 20 years including Gavin Barwell, Alok Sharma and Dominic Raab, within the last 12 months. Brockenshire needs to bring stability to the team.”

"Unless something is radically done to improve the planning system, to provide more incentives for construction and to re-look at how the tax regime can be better used to encourage development and movement in the market, I don’t think we’ll get very far. Let’s hope Brokenshire stays in place long enough to get his head round these critical issues and has the will and determination to push reform through, together with the backing of a Government that is genuinely committed to making a real and lasting difference to deliver on its commitments in this key issue for our Country.”
Adrian Barlow - Partner