Tag Archives: british
Home owners and tenants urged to protect their property from winter weather
The Association of British Insurers is reminding home owners to act now to avoid the misery of frozen and burst pipes this winter. An average claim for burst pipe damage is between £6,500 to £7,500, but ABI points out that the risk of expensive, disruptive and distressing damage can easily be reduced by taking a few simple steps now, before the cold weather sets in. It recommends keeping heating on at regular intervals and make sure to set it on a timer if you’re going away and making sure that water pipes and water tanks in the loft are insulated with good quality lagging. Owners and tenants should know where the stopcock that turns of the incoming water supply is, and make sure that it works and also make sure that any dripping taps are repaired quickly to help prevent water from freezing. If pipes freeze householders should turn the water off at the main stopcock straight away and then wait for it to warm up or try and thaw the pipes with a hot water bottle. If a pipe has burst they should switch off the central heating and any other water heating installations and open all taps to drain the system. People should contact their insurance company helpline for help and advice, including arranging for professional repairs to be carried out. ‘Every winter, damage caused by burst pipes is widespread and expensive. Prevention is better than cure and a few simple steps can reduce the risk of facing the trauma of frozen or burst pipes during the winter,’ said Aidan Kerr, ABI’s head of property. ‘Home insurance will pay for the often costly damage caused by burst pipes, but it cannot compensate for the misery and inconvenience that they bring,’ added Kerr. Continue reading
Call for empty UK homes to be used to help young onto the housing ladder
More than three quarters of British adults believe the government should prioritise the issue of empty homes, according to a new poll. Some 36% said that empty homes are a blight on their local area and 74% believe their local authority should place a higher priority on tackling empty homes, according to the research from the Halifax and the Empty Home Agency, a national charity. The research, published to mark national empty homes week, also highlighted that those people surveyed severely underestimated the number of empty homes in England, with 80% of English adults believing there were fewer empty properties in England than there actually are. The survey found people on average thought there were around 377,000 empty homes in England, whereas statistics from the Empty Homes Agency show the figure is over 610,000. Young first time buyers are clearly a concern for the British public, as two thirds of respondents said that empty homes should be used to help young people get on the housing ladder. Just a third of respondents, 34%, believe that turning empty homes into usable homes is not going to help solve the housing crisis. ‘Halifax has adapted its lending policy to allow greater flexibility around uninhabited, mortgaged properties. In order to assist with returning empty homes to a habitable condition, requests for consent to enter into Private Sector Leasing arrangements are now considered once eligibility has been confirmed by the local authority,’ said Craig McKinlay, Halifax mortgages director. ‘With over 610,000 empty properties in England alone there is a real opportunity to introduce a range of incentives for owners to bring these properties back into use. A lot has been achieved over the last few years, but there is a need for all affected parties to continue to work together to address the issue of empty homes,’ he added. Helen Williams, chief executive of the Empty Homes Agency, wants all political parties to pledge that if they form the next government they will adopt a plan to tackle empty homes within their first year as part of a wider approach to tackling housing need. ‘There appears to be widespread recognition amongst political parties of the need to build more homes. However, we now need political parties to catch up with public opinion and also give a priority in the future to bringing empty homes back into use to help young people and others access the housing they need, at a price they can afford,’ she said. Continue reading
New home sales in Australia on the up again, latest HIA data shows
New home sales in Australia experienced a modest rise in October after remaining flat the month before, according to the latest report from the Housing Industry Association (HIA). Total seasonally adjusted new home sales increased by 3% and growth was driven by a growth in the sale of detached houses in Victoria and Western Australia. HIA chief economist Harley Dale pointed out that after a relatively sharp decline of 5.7% in July, driven by both detached houses and multi-units, total new home sales have mounted a modest recovery ‘Sales are still off their cyclical peak reached back in April this year, but the overall volume of new home sales is still at an elevated level. That augurs well for healthy new home construction activity persisting into 2015,’ he explained. ‘Australia is on track to commence a record number of homes this year. While undesirable lags in the availability of Australian Bureau of Statistics data prevent confirmation of this outcome until well into next year, the fact is that 2014 is drawing to a close,’ he said. ‘We now want to be seeing evidence pointing to a healthy prognosis for new home building activity in 2015. In this regard we have positive signals coming from three key leading indicators. HIA new home sales and ABS building approvals are past their peaks but remain at elevated levels. Lending for new housing is still trending higher and doesn’t appear to have peaked yet,’ he added. A breakdown of the figures show that detached house sales increased by 4.7% in Victoria and by 24.8% in Western Australia but fell by 3% in New South Wales and were down by 7.8% in Queensland and 1.7% in South Australia. Over the three months to October 2014 detached house sales increased by 3.7% in New South Wales, by 1.2% in Queensland and by 1.7% in Western Australia. They fell by 13.4% in Victoria and by 6.3% in South Australia. Continue reading
