It is time we become a true Home Owning Democracy. A nation where the vast majority of our people own their own homes. I believe that the people of these Isles must own a piece of our Isles to truly feel a part of our society. Owning a home, where you can raise your family and tell yourself "this is mine" is absolutely vital. Only around 65% of people currently own the property they live in and this number is dropping due to mass purchases by vulture capitalists and the extraordinary costs involved with buying.

I do not believe the free market can achieve the Home Owning Democracy. As a result, major intervention is required by a Britain's New Dawn government to achieve this.

Mortgages and Deposits

  • The largest barrier to home ownership is a combination of both the initial deposit and affordability checks.
    • Banks will be forced to recognise consecutive, on time and in full rental payments as proof that the byer can repay their mortgage payments.
    • Help To Buy and Lifetime ISA’s will be continued and improved to ensure our people have the funds to buy.
  • Interest rates charged on mortgages will be abolished. If banks fail to continue to provide mortgages then government backed lenders will replace them.
  • Stamp Duty will be abolished on residential homes to get those in smaller "first time homes" to move to larger/more expensive homes to free up housing stock.

Leasehold

  • Leasehold will be abolished for all residential houses.

Landlords and Housing Associations 

  • The age of landlordism is over. All benefits provided to landlords, including tax incentives, will be scrapped and a cap of five properties per person/entity will be implemented; there will be no loopholes
  • The government will work with those with more than five properties to sell them as soon as possible to residential buyers. To ease this process on the landlord, Capital Gains Tax will not be charged on their gains as a one off incentive.

Home Building

  • We need a home building revolution
    • There are enough brownfield sites across England alone to build over 1.5 homes, when you include the rest of our Isles we have the capacity to meet our housing demands. House builders will be tasked with achieving this in the next Five Years. If they cannot/will not achieve this, then we will.
    • 3 and 4 bed homes, with good sized gardens, will be the priority for our families; not the current 1 and 2 bed currently being built.
    • All of these homes will be built for first time buyers and they will be sold at least 10% below market value for the area they are built in. They cannot be sold for at least 10 years, otherwise the 10% will be charged as tax on the sale.
    • The building of flats will only be permitted in the centre of major cities.

Council Homes

  • The sale of Council Houses will be banned. This stock of around 4 million will be maintained for those who require them
  • We will not build any additional Council Houses.

Empty Homes

  • There are over 1 million empty houses/flats in our Isles, this number continues to rise. The reason for empty houses/flats ranges from investment property, purposely left empty, to second homes and uninhabitable homes. The reasons are irrelevant. 
    • Empty homes will be heavily taxed and they will not benefit from the abolishing of Council Tax.
    • We will work with empty home owners to get their homes back in full use
    • Homes that remain empty, despite the tax increases and government help, will be seized and sold; the money will go to the original owner.