Building Societies Association
Feature
BSA responds to Labour and Conservative Manifesto Consultations
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Date:
26 Feb 2008
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The BSA has responded to two consultations by the Labour and Conservative parties that will influence the contents of their respective manifestos at the next election.
The Labour consultation focuses on what can be done to promote the development of sustainable and affordable housing. In our response, we have stressed the importance of increasing the numbers of properties that are built, and ensuring that new builds are the types of property that are wanted by buyers.
The Association also criticised the use of unique Section 106 agreements by local authorities. Section 106 agreements seek to place conditions on developments to ensure that some properties are “affordable”, but these can often pose significant barriers to lenders being able to lend. The standard Section 106 conditions that have been developed in conjunction with lenders by the Housing Corporation should be used to overcome these barriers to greater lender involvement.
The Conservative consultation looks at how the house buying process can be made more efficient and sped up. Building societies are committed to this, but we have also stressed the importance of ensuring that confidence in the system is maintained. Both building societies and borrowers need to be confident in the integrity of the surveying and legal processes associated with house purchase for the system to function properly and for buyers to be properly protected.
Copies of both submissions can be viewed on the BSA website at the links below
