Post by @ChrisMayLA6@mastodon.me.uk

@ChrisMayLA6@mastodon.me.uk 22 hours ago

While the Competition & Markets Authority halted its investigation into market collusion by seven UK house builders, (in return for a bung into the affordable housing scheme budget of £100m), class action lawyers have spotted the potential for a much larger class action case based on the unfair manipulation of markets via the sharing of commercially sensitive information between firms...

Things may be about to get interesting!

#housing

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/08/uk-housebuilders-too-much-power-45bn-lawsuit

the Guardian

UK housebuilders have far too much power. Now a £4.5bn lawsuit could change that for good | Peter Apps

A legal case on behalf of some 700,000 people against the country’s biggest housebuilders could be a catalyst for much-needed industry reform, says Inside Housing’s Peter Apps

#housing

GeofCox

@GeofCox@climatejustice.social 9 hours ago

@ChrisMayLA6

UK housebuilders' lobbying is also responsible for the almost universal mainstream media and political propagation of the myth that outrageous UK housing costs are simply down to supply and demand, so can only be solved - surprise, surprise - by... building more houses, regardless of the environmental costs.

But the fact is that the UK has more rooms per capita now than it has ever had - they're just distributed less and less fairly. In fact they're so unequally distributed now that the UK is literally back to Victorian levels of inequality in this respect.

Moreover, in the UK the proportion of homes bought as “additional dwellings” (second homes, holiday lets, buy to lets, and so on) rose from around 15% of the total in 2016 to 45% by 2023 - it's probably about half now - that's half of the market taken by house purchases by people that are not going to live in them.

It would be good to see some creative eco-council-house-building on brownfield sites - but I think the main answers to the UK's 'housing crisis' (which is really an inequality crisis) lie in regulating lending and reforming tax so that it doesn't incentivise home hoarding by the wealthy.

Paul Lockett

@plock@mas.to 5 hours ago

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6

"that's half of the market taken by house purchases by people that are not going to live in them"

It shows the nonsense of the "home owning democracy" shtick. UK owner occupation is at 65.2%. In Cuba it's 90%!

The Penguin of Evil

@etchedpixels@mastodon.social 7 hours ago

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 A chunk also relies IMHO about making house prices go down. Once a house becomes a thing you live in and only makes sense in that form there's no reason to own several as an investment. Tax additional homes hard until everyone has somewhere to live will also be needed.
Room count is also weaponised by landlords to argue correctly that landlords get more people per house and imho incorrectly that this is a good thing. But the exit of landlords does increase pressure too

Imbrium Photo

@imbrium_photography@mastodon.social 8 hours ago

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 Suggesting that living that pensioners living alone in a large house should be forced to downsize, is probably not a vote winning manifesto promise !
Being able to get a house for 'free' if you have a bit of capital for a deposit, and getting tenants to pay all your mortgage

Roberto von Archimboldi

@RobertoArchimboldi@kolektiva.social 7 hours ago

@imbrium_photography @GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 I often wonder about the feasibility of a private right to buy scheme.

The idea would be that pure rent results in a charge against the property. The landlord would get a multiplier for work done on the house. Any repair or upgrade would result in a reduction in the tenants charge by, say, 3 times the cost of the work. The landlords only profit would be on the work done.

You would probably have to ban trusts from being landlords and require that any corporate entity, other than a co-op, pay the tenant their accrued charge on demand. Corporate entities would not have to transfer ownership of their assets so often as private individuals.

The idea is that the only profit a landlord can make is for the work she does providing a home. That is what a capitalist ought to want

GeofCox

@GeofCox@climatejustice.social 5 hours ago

@RobertoArchimboldi

There are similar proposals worked out in some detail, in the UK for instance using the Partnership legal form to replace 'adversarial' rental agreements - the idea being that the Partnership owns the house, and to start with the 'landlord' owns 100% of the Partnership - but by agreement the 'tenant' can put in either work or money to improve the property, and the agreed value of this input reflected in a share of the Partnership being transferred to them.

The idea is, of course, to make the legal form reflect the reality that both landlords and tenants contribute value. The beauty of the Partnership form - and this includes LLPs - is that the shares are infinitely divisible. I also came across similar ideas for reflecting the value of time contributions to software projects.

I'll see if I can find some of the old legal work on this.

@imbrium_photography @ChrisMayLA6

2legged

@2legged@mastodon.ie 9 hours ago

@GeofCox I agree about the disastrous proliferation of house purchases by non-owner-occuppiers.

But not about the rooms-to-people ratio. That is in part a proxy for household size.

Households are getting smaller, so we need more rooms.

A couple with 3 kids in a 3-bed semi-D has a habitable rooms-to-people ratio of 0.8.

A single person in a 2-bed has a 3.0 ratio.

We need much more rooms per person.

@ChrisMayLA6

John_Loader

@John_Loader@ohai.social 3 hours ago

@2legged @GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 My wife and I are in our 70s and comfortable in a multi bedroom house. It is over 200 years old and we spend thousands each year keeping it OK. Could a family of 4 or 5 afford that? And no way do I want the stress of another move. Don't worry critics, we'll be dead soon and it'll be our heirs problem.

GeofCox

@GeofCox@climatejustice.social 3 hours ago

@John_Loader

Where you live is your choice John - as it is for a family of 4 or 5. That's not at issue.

What is at issue is whether unearned income should be taxed LESS than earned, whether council tax should be proportionally LESS on big expensive houses, whether it should be easier for older people to borrow for buy-to-lets than for young people to buy their first home, etc, etc...

There are always, inevitably, winners and losers in any changes to fiscal and monetary policies - the point is to make people currently paying more than their fair share the winners - and in the process make UK housing more affordable.

@2legged @ChrisMayLA6

1 more replies

GeofCox

@GeofCox@climatejustice.social 8 hours ago

@2legged

It's true of course that such social changes are in play - the main one being that more people living longer means longer periods after children have left the family home - but it's still an issue of home-hoarding by the relatively wealthy - an aspect of the inter-generational inequality that is also driven by unfair taxation.

@ChrisMayLA6

The Penguin of Evil

@etchedpixels@mastodon.social 7 hours ago

@GeofCox @2legged @ChrisMayLA6 Many older people stay in their home because retirement complexes are a racket and would split them from friends, there are tax benefits from staying put, but most often because that's their community, their friends, mostly unofficial carers etc, and for any with early dementia or Alzheimer's the medical guidance is not to move them anyway.
Possibly there should be a bedroom tax, on rich people only - excess rooms in high band property, but there are consequences!

1+ more replies

2legged

@2legged@mastodon.ie 7 hours ago

@GeofCox Stay-at-homes are a big factor, but shrinking family sizes long predate that.

Couples have far fewer children, and adults are far less likely to live as couples. If a couple with children splits, their need for rooms doubles.

As to "home-hoarding" that's a very pejorative way of dismissing older people. Life expectancies have grown a long way, and it's cruel to shove fit and active people off into wrinkly ghettoes.

Society has changed. More houses are needed.

@ChrisMayLA6

Emeritus Prof. Christopher May

@ChrisMayLA6@mastodon.me.uk 9 hours ago

@GeofCox

Completely agree; and boosted!