The latest UK property news headlines include warnings of Council Tax increases, identifies house price hotspots, forecasts forthcoming rent rises and raise concerns about delays to leasehold reforms.
With a wide range of topics covered within these headlines, let’s take a closer look at some of the more important stories for homeowners and landlords.
Council warns of huge tax rises hitting additional home owners across parts of Wales
Local councils in some areas of Wales are warning of steep Council Tax penalties for owners of holiday homes and properties that remain unoccupied for long periods of time, according to a story in Landlord Today recently.
The penalties – a Premium on top of the full standard rate of Council Tax – are designed to help bring underused and long-standing empty homes back into use so that more affordable housing can be released onto the market.
Map reveals house price hotspots where values have risen the most this year
Whereas average house prices have been more or less stagnant across wide swathes of the UK this past year, in some hotspots values have shot up by almost 10%, reported the Scottish Sun on the 23rd of November.
North East Derbyshire – where prices have risen by 9.7% in the last 12 months – has seen the fastest rate of growth. That has added some £21,220 to the price of the average home that now costs £239,560 (although that is still far short of the national average of £293,999).
Prices have also recorded impressive percentage increases in other parts of the East Midlands.
Other parts of the UK have seen significant increases in the value of the average home. In Winchester, for example, prices rose by a seemingly more modest 7.7% – yet this has added £35,720 to the price of a home in and around the historic city, were a house costs an average of £500,120.
In Cherwell, North Oxfordshire, prices rose by £28,300 as 8.4% increases brought the cost of the average home to £363,950.
Rents to rise 18% in next five years – and maybe more
The chronic imbalance between supply and demand in the private rented sector could see rent increases of around 18% in the coming 5-year period, according to Letting Agent Today on the 20th of November.
If there is a further steady exodus of landlords from the market, the imbalance could worsen – driving rents even further upwards.
The only damper on rents climbing further still is the question of affordability – if tenants simply cannot afford the rent, landlords will be unable to ask more.
Market analysts see little hope for a rebalancing of supply and demand. Demand remains high and increases in supply are constrained by disincentives for landlords to invest. The Stamp Duty surcharge on the purchase of second homes is set to increase while tougher Energy Performance standards are likely to discourage landlords from expanding their property portfolios and may lead some to quit the market entirely.
Ofgem announces increase to energy price cap from January
Following its latest quarterly review, Ofgem has announced an increase in the energy price cap from its present £1,717 to £1,738 – an increase of 1.2% or £21 for the first three months of 2025.
Reporting the increase on 22nd of November, the online listings website Rightmove explained that the energy price cap is the average energy bill paid by a typical household of 2 to 3 people living in a 2 or 3 bedroom house. The actual cost, of course, will be determined by the actual size of your home, its energy efficiency rating, the amount of energy consumed, how the energy bill is paid, and the part of the country in which you live.
Leasehold reforms set out amid concerns over delays
The long-awaited reforms of leasehold property tenure will be completed by the end of the present Parliament, the government has promised. But many leaseholders are concerned about delays in implementing the reforms since current arrangements leave them liable to pay escalating ground rents.
Speaking to the BBC recently, the Housing Minister explained that, in future, the standard form of tenure will be a “commonhold” in which homeowners are granted a non-expiring lease.
In the meantime, from this coming January, current leaseholders will become free to extend their lease or to buy the freehold even within the first 24 months of ownership. By the spring, leaseholders in mixed-use developments will be free to assume the management of their building, and within a year from now, the government will propose a ban on the issue of new leaseholds.
