Property Renovations Ely Ltd

Monthly average figures taken from all the major house price indices clearly show that the market bottomed between April and May this year, according to Assetz.

The data, in fact, shows that prices are growing again, according to the company, with May figures showing very strong annualised growth of 17.3% per annum. The three month rolling average data shows 4% growth currently and the 6 month moving average reflects only a 5% fall, indicating the start of a reversal in the recent downward trend in house prices.

The five major house price indices still show an average of 12.2% falls for the twelve months prior to May 2009 but this hides the sudden reversal in house prices seen in the last few months. The bottom of the growth curve can clearly be seen in February and March this year, with the rate of annual decline slowing in recent months. The average house price in May 2009, taken from the average house price provided by five major UK indices, was £185,276, an increase of £1,978 compared to the previous month’s average value (£183,298). The average house price is almost the same as in January 2009 (£185,408), showing house prices have barely fallen since the start of the year.

Property Renovations Ely Ltd

Citizens Advice Bureaux in England and Wales have seen large and rising increases in debt, employment and benefits related enquiries over the last year, the annual Citizens Advice parliamentary reception will be told today.

Debt remained the biggest volume of enquiries for the service with 1.93 million new debt problems advised on by bureaux, an 11% increase on 2007/8. Total employment related problems saw a 17% increase compared to last year and benefits enquiries were up 13%. Over the year the service enquiries saw:

114% increase relating to redundancy (83,024 new enquiries in 2008/9 compared to 38,745 in 2007/8)

61% increase relating to Job Seekers Allowance (109,407 new enquiries in 2008/9 compared to 68,052 in 2007/8)

49% increase relating to mortgage and secured loan arrears (95,342 new enquiries in 2008/9 compared to 64,053 in 2007/8)

24% increase relating to bankruptcy (137,406 new enquiries in 2008/9 compared to 110,819 in 2007/8)

19% increase relating to fuel debt (82,891 new enquiries in 2008/9 compared to 69,378 in 2007/8)

15% increase relating to Council Tax arrears (137,551 new enquiries in 2008/9 compared to 119,795 in 2007/8)

Enquiry figures showed a sharp spike at the start of 2009, with debt enquiries 21% higher in Jan - Mar 2009 compared to Jan - March 2008 and enquiries about redundancy 179% higher than the same period last year.

A recent profile of CAB clients revealed that CAB debt clients owe an average of £16,971, an amount it would take an average of 93 years to pay off at a rate they can afford. The most common reasons for debt were low income, over-commitment, illness or disability and job loss. But irresponsible lending, poor financial skills and increases in the cost of living had also played a significant part in people’s debt problems.

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Local housing allowance has been controversial for landlords. The general belief is that the housing allowance can only be paid to the landlord if the tenant is either in arrears or the tenant is judged to be vulnerable. This is however not true, the legislation clearly states that the rent can be paid direct to the landlord if the tenant requests it. Landlords and letting agents in the know insist that the all housing allowance tenants request this request this. Below is the extract from the legistration for your information.

Circumstances in which payment may be made to a landlord
96. —(1) Subject to paragraph 8(4) of Schedule A1[179] (treatment of claims for housing benefit by refugees), where regulation 95 (circumstances in which payment is to be made to a landlord) does not apply but subject to paragraph (3) of this regulation, a payment of a rent allowance may nevertheless be made to a person’s landlord where—

(a) the person has requested or consented to such payment;

(b) payment to the landlord is in the interest of the claimant and his family;

(c) the person has ceased to reside in the dwelling in respect of which the allowance was payable and there are outstanding payments of rent but any payment under this sub-paragraph shall be limited to an amount equal to the amount of rent outstanding.

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As expected, the Bank of England has frozen interest rates at 0.5% again.

This comes on the day that the Halifax reported a house price rise of 2.6% in May compared to April, athough activity is still low.