Housing quallies cut to 11 years
Thursday 14th May 2009, 2:58PM BST.
Housing Minister Terry Le Main
THE qualifying period to be able to buy a house has been cut to 11 years.
States Members agreed a one-year decrease yesterday as part of a strategy to reduce the time limit to ten years by the end of 2010.
When the period has been reduced previously, around 350 people have instantly become eligible to access A-H housing, both to buy and rent, and can leave the frequently expensive and cramped non-qualified sector.
The States also agreed a change to 1(1)k – rich resident – rules that will allow the Housing Minister to veto incoming residents who might meet the stipulated economic or social tests but who he thinks should not be allowed to move here ‘in the best interests of the community’.
The qualifying reduction was passed by 44 votes to five, and the rich resident change by 36 votes to 14. The five voting against the qualifying reduction were Senators Stuart Syvret and Sarah Ferguson, the Constable of St John and Deputies Carolyn Labey and Jeremy Maçon.
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Now all we need is the opportunity to be able to obtain a mortgage at a realistic cost!!!
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Cheers for that Terry.
That just about blows all chances I have on getting on the so called property ladder. All this will serve to do is keep the current property prices at the totally over inflated level they are at now.
Once again thanks for killing any chances that the average family have of being able to afford a modest home in this Island.
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The housing minister doesn’t care about locals. This has been done so that non locals can get houses sooner bumping up house prices for our younger islanders who are already leaving at quite a rate.
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Brilliant – yet more qualified people trying to find rental accommodation at a reasonable price, even though it’s virtually impossible now!
Where have all the affordable one bedroom flats gone? By that, I mean monthly rents from around £650 per month, as all I ever seem to see advertised these days are luxury flats from over £1,000 per month! It’s becoming impossible to find anywhere cheaper and it is forcing a lot of people to leave Jersey, who have lived here a lot longer than 11 years!
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One step closer to civilisation – as for the cost of housing Mogit. You have chosen to live somewhere that is a great place to live and everyone else agrees, hence the cost of housing.
It’s market driven, there’s lots of people in the UK that can’t afford a house in their home town, this is not unique to Jersey.
I’m sure the locals would be the first to point out that many of them can’t afford a house either.
Get a better job, improve your education or skill set and earn more money. I did exactly that, oh and save every penny for 5 years, take no holidays and drive a 19 year old car.
I don’t think anyone who has bought a house in Jersey had it easy, unless they were rich, they made sacrifices.
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Sneaky… Just when it seems that the increase in house prices are starting to ‘slow down’ (well if you read between the lines of the recent JEP article) the States increase demand by allowing people on the waiting list in the 11-12 year bracket to buy… I wonder how many States members this has a beneficial effect upon their own house value?
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“#
Kipper
Posted May 14, 2009 at 5:04 pm
One step closer to civilisation – as for the cost of housing Mogit. You have chosen to live somewhere that is a great place to live and everyone else agrees, hence the cost of housing.”
Sorry Kipper,that’s not an accurate picture.
House prices are high in Jersey because of the artificially high average wage pushed up to the stratosphere by the finance industry.
If the finance industry left tommorrow and thousands of houses became available overnight at current market prices, they would not be filled by a rush of people flooding into the island because “its a great place to live”. The bulk of the properties would most likely remain empty, the rest would drop drastically in price.
Angela.
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Terry,used to be a working man, long ago now…you are simply wrong but you won’t admit it as you are in the gang now, I for one, who used to support you now regret it and would be glad to see you retired, isn’t it about time…?
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Too right Mogit, the problem is not ‘quallies’ is that the linkage to affordability is illusionary. If we were to cut ‘quallies’ to zero, there would not be a wave of immigrants look for cheap housing.
Our housing laws are 60 years old and a failure. We need fresh blood and a total rethink.
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Angela the average salary paid in the finance industry is almost exactly that paid to states workers in the public sector (c £39k).
It was interesting to note in the quarterly statistics that 86% of people in the Island apparently have residential qualifications yet only just over 50% of properties are owner occupied. The best way to address that and so allow more people living and working here to won a home would be to reduce the attractiveness of Jersey property to speculators and so return to a situation where its primary value is as a home. All that would require would be to tax capital gains on all properties other than your principal dwelling. Currently you not only get a substantial income stream from the exorbitant rent that can be charged in Jersey, often for sub-standard accommodation, but you take all the capital gains tax free. It is the property speculators / buy-to-let landlords who own almost half the property in Jersey that have pushed prices out of reach of most people working for a living here and to levels that bear no relationship whatsoever to salaries.
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Comment 10 – just to clarify, the average salary of finance workers may well be 39K but due to the way averages are calculated this doen not mean that most people earn this sum.
Most will earn around 20K give or take with the high earners lifting the average once calculated.
Interesting to read that 86% have quallies, I would have thought it less though I don’t argue with the figure. Capital gains tax would help significantly but can you imagine those who own the properties ( many of whom are politicians ) voting for it? it would be like getting turkeys to vote for Christmas.
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Al, I totally agree, too many properties sold to investors, many through the Share Transfer loophole. Make all aprtments Flying Freehold and you instantly remove all of the foreign investors, introduce capital gains on 2nd, 3rd etc properties and you will lose many local investors.
We look at properties as homes, these people look at them as income generators, how about a 8% stamp duty on all invetment homes (ie not principal residence) that should help
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Al (10) spot on. If we reduced ‘quallies’ to zero there wouldn’t be a rush of immigrants and maybe a fall in house prices. Is Housing Minister Terry Le Main the man to repeal the 1948 Housing law?
Al I am with you but fear the Council of Ministers is not.
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Al #10, totally agree.
The issue of income generating only homes needs seriously looked at all across the UK and Jersey.
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If you’re concerned by the cost of housing, then you should petition your elected representative to introduce a law(s):
- banning foreign ownership of property
- banning vacant ownership
- applying capital gains taxes to property sales (non-principal residence)
- introducing minimum standards for rental accommodation
That shuld free up some 10% (or more) of Jersey properties for resale, increase the number of properties available, lower prices, and increase the quality of the housing stock.
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Put quallies back up to 20 years close the share transfer loophole and bring back work permits for all non local born residents,
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SteveC very good points. However a reduction in costs of everything over here would be achieved by having less rich people pushing up prices. When you get too many in one place they skew the market.
Also a reduced finance base would make a massive difference as regards prices and too many people over here. Migrants tend to follow the money, make it less plentiful and they will go elsewhere, leaving you with those interested in the long term and not just short term profit at the expense of everything else.
CGT is a brillant way to tap into the big business profits generated from banging up cheap housing over here. It would also enable the state to help get first time buyers on the proerty market as they could be given subsidies from these massive profits as I see it. I believe in a bit less for those with too much money and a bit more help for those in need of it would go a long way to redressing the imbalances over here.
Obviously those making money loads of money will shout the loudest against this. However they aren’t the only living in this island and need to realise that living in a decent society entails a reasonable sacrife on their behalf. We need to get rid of the “greed is good” culture before it destroys us. A bit more thought for others wouldn’t go amiss and might actually make everyone’s life better.
Another simple solution is to take the cap off of social security contributions but those in charge nearly had a fit when I last brought it up with them, prefering the more laborious route of GST. Why make things difficult when they can be easy? Some would say it is because of vested interests.
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