HM Treasury
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Latest property news
HM Treasury chief gives buyers glimmer of hope over Stamp Duty deadline
Jesse Norman wouldn't comment on plans to extend or taper the Stamp Duty deadline, but reminded viewers that 'substantial performance' would be test, as well as completion.
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Number of estate agencies using furlough scheme rises again
Latest HM Treasury research shows a 7% jump in property industry companies furloughing staff since November.
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Half of all superprime agents breaking AML law, says shocking new report
Latest National Risk Assessment of AML and terrorist financing says government is taking action against agents involved, who sell £5m+ homes.
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Government Help to Buy spending passes £10 billion milestone
Figures reveal staggering level of money spent by HM Treasury on the housing market stimulus package.
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HM Treasury backs three rental fintech firms with £1.4 million
HM Treasury has today revealed the three fintech services it’s decided to back with £1.4 million to develop their platforms and ultimately help more tenants build up their credit scores and get on to the property ladder. The cash is the final phase of an initiative called the Rent Recognition Challenge, which was in part a political reaction to a e-petition that gathered over 140,000 signatures and called for rental payments to be included in tenants’ credit histories. This e-petition was debated in parliament and soon afterwards HM Treasury announced its ‘challenge’ which has spent a total of £2 million helping fund the growth of six fintech firms. Three of these including the UK’s largest rent recognition platform CreditLadder plus Bud and Rental Step, are the finalists in the challenge. CreditLadder is believed to have received the largest cheque, for £500,000. Scrutiny Today’s announcement follows scrutiny of each firm’s presentations by a panel of leading figures from the Fintech sector including Al Lukies of Motive Partners; Charlotte Crosswell, CEO of Innovate Finance and Paul Smee, Former Director of Mortgages, UK Finance. “Our service was the first in the UK to enable tenants to have their rent recognised by a leading…
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Review and likely overhaul of Rent a Room tax break revealed
An investigation into the effectiveness of the Rent a Room relief and other tax breaks given to private home owners who take in lodgers has begun eight months after it was revealed by the Chancellor in his 2017 Autumn budget speech. The Rent a Room relief enables home owners to earn up to £7,500 in rent tax free and was first introduced in 1992. Then, last year, an additional tax-free allowance of £1,000 was introduced for any other income earned from a home. HMRC and HM Treasury are jointly running the consultation and say they want to understand how many people are using the Rent a Room relief and also the impact it’s having on local private rental property markets. The original reason for introducing the relief was to increase the supply and variety of low-cost housing in the private sector, but the consultation document suggests civil servants are worried that it has instead fuelled a boom in Airbnb short-term booking by holiday makers and business travellers. “The government would like to hear views on whether this is an appropriate use of tax relief, or whether the relief should more explicitly support residential accommodation provided on a longer-term basis, or…
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Rent recognition tech firms to pitch today for rest of HM Treasury’s £2m fund
Six proptech companies are due to pitch today for a further £1.4 million in front of a panel of senior industry and government experts.
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New money laundering watchdog launched
The government has announced that a new watchdog is to be launched early next year to oversee the UK’s Anti Money Laundering (AML) regulations, which are due to become law this June. Called the Office for Professional Body Anti-Money Laundering Supervision (OPBAS), its job will be to tackle potential weaknesses in the supervision of estate agents that criminals may be exploiting. The new anti money laundering watchdog will be paid for by what the HM Treasury calls ‘supervisors’; the big accountancy, law and other trade and regulatory bodies. It will be based at the HQ of the Financial Conduct Authority in London. AML rules The latest version of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds Regulations 2017 is designed to bring the UK in line with international standards and include “robust new standards of supervision”. They introduce new responsibilities for agents covering when and how they must carry out enhanced due diligence on customers, and how they carry out risk assessments to work out if their business is vulnerable to money laundering attempts. The regulation in particular ask agents to look more carefully at transfer of funds, a problem highlighted in January when a criminal gang based in London…
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