Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
Our main email newsletter, Tenant News is sent once every two months. You can subscribe or update your subscription preferences for any of our email newsletters here.
See notes about the Digest and a list of other contributors here. Many thanks to those contributors for sharing links with us.
We love sharing the news and hope you find it informative! We're very happy to deliver it for free, but if you find it valuable, can you help cover the extra costs incurred by making a donation?
Archive
‘It’s not sneaky’: Geelong caravan park offers new homes
Benjamin Preiss The Age (Paywall)Dennis More admits he got carried away when he began widening a canal with an excavator without first obtaining a council permit on his Geelong property in 2005. The property developer said he wanted to create a marina on the 43-hectare site on the shores of Corio Bay, that would eventually form part of a low-scale residential village. ... Now, Mr More is putting new homes up for sale on the site. But don’t call it a residential development. It is officially a caravan park. Because the site is zoned for farming, which permits caravan parks, Mr More is prohibited from subdividing. Instead, he is allowing buyers to purchase dwellings that will have up to three bedrooms and they will then lease the land on which the homes sit. He insists this caravan park arrangement is an innovative use of the land that provides affordable homes, but critics say it’s a blatant attempt to exploit planning law loopholes.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/it-s-not-sneaky-geel…
# Australia, Land lease communities, Planning and development.Strata reform talks ask: Should bodies corporate be able to issue fines for bad behaviour?
Tara Cassidy ABC (No paywall)From Queensland ... A strata reform roundtable is discussing whether bodies corporate should have the power to issue fines to people breaching by-laws in buildings.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-17/strata-reform-looks-into-…
# Australia, Strata.Nursing home residents are paying $800 a week for services they are barely getting
Anna Howe The Conversation (No paywall)Nursing home residents confined to their rooms during COVID are like hypothetical tenants locked in their bedrooms by landlords – unable to take showers, able only to make only sandwiches for meals and cut off from visitors and socialising with fellow residents. If it happened to tenants they would be entitled to stop paying rent, go to an appeals tribunal, or move out. But aged care residents have to keep paying. The Commonwealth has instigated an investigation focusing on death among residents during COVID, but this narrow focus ignores the broader impacts of the pandemic on residents’ quality of life.
https://theconversation.com/nursing-home-residents-are-paying-80…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Federal Government, Housing market, Older people.Wave of expiring fixed-rate loans to inflict homeowner pain
Clancy Yeates The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Large numbers of bank customers who locked in ultra-cheap fixed-interest rate mortgages during the pandemic could face a hefty increase in their repayments next year. The Commonwealth Bank last week provided a rare insight into the bulge of fixed-rate loans that will expire in years ahead, after a bonanza in this type of lending during the past two years.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/borrowing/wave-of-expiring-fixed-ra…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Home affairs department paid $16,000 to rent senior official’s ACT home through Airbnb
PaulKarp The Guardian (No paywall)The home affairs department paid $16,000 to a senior official to rent his house through Airbnb for staff who needed to quarantine after returning from overseas. The deal was part of a $522,000 program to accommodate returning staff and comply with Australian Capital Territory Covid quarantine requirements.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/feb/14/home-affa…
# Australia, Coronavirus COVID-19, Short-term holiday letting.London council risked plunging homeless family into debt by moving them 160 miles away, court finds
Lucie Heath Inside Housing (Paywall)A London council risked plunging a mother and her young family into debt by moving them from temporary accommodation to a private rented property 160 miles away, a judge has found. In a newly published Court of Appeal ruling, a judge said that Waltham Forest Council failed to properly assess the affordability of a private tenancy in Stoke-On-Trent when moving Lisa Paley and her family from temporary accommodation in the borough. The judge said the decision was “inevitably going to plunge [the mother] even further into debt” and would “put her and her children at risk of once again being rendered homeless”. This was because the council “omitted” the cost of “reasonable” expenses, such as public transport, when drawing up a theoretical weekly budget for the family, the judgment added.
https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/news/london-council-risked-…
# International, Homelessness, Local Government.Is it too late to fix your home loan before interest rates rise?
Elizabeth Redman Domain (No paywall)Mortgage rates are rising faster than homeowners and potential home buyers can lock in better deals. Brokers say borrowers are nervous about the prospect of higher interest rates, but by the time they try to fix at an attractive rate, banks have already lifted their pricing.
https://www.smh.com.au/property/news/is-it-too-late-to-fix-your-…
# Australia, Home ownership, Housing market.Housing Futures: The vital role of home in young people’s futures
(No paywall)Supporting people to have a home and the chance to live well has been Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing's purpose since we were founded in the 1950s to give members of the Windrush generation a safe, secure, and affordable place to call home. We knew then as we know now, that having a home can be the catalyst for so many things in life – starting a family, doing well at school, putting down roots and contributing to your community. Yet, as we have heard from young MTVH residents and other young people from across the country, there is real concern that the homes and futures they aspire to feel out of reach.
# International, Affordable housing, Health, Home, Young people.