Flexible Tenure: Breakthrough at last
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation today welcomed the DETR announcement that the long-running efforts to facilitate arrangements for Mixed and Flexible Tenure have been rewarded. New financial and administrative arrangements will redirect resources for low-cost home-ownership towardschemes that will encourage mixed and flexible tenure and away from harmful schemes such as the Tenant Incentive Scheme, which have contributed to the marginalisation of some social housing estates by encouraging better-off tenants to purchase homes elsewhere.
The extension of Homebuy to England is also beneficial. Research for the Foundation suggests that this has been cost-effective and popular with residents, landlords and lenders in Wales.
For nearly a decade, the JRF has been championing the concept of Flexible Tenure: shared ownership that, as well as allowing people to increase the share of the property they own, also permits 'staircasing down'. Staircasing down enables people to reduce the proportion of their home that they own if they get into financial difficulty and even become full tenants if appropriate.
"We have introduced this system of Flexible Tenure for all our shared owners, but have had to provide grant-aid from our own resources because bureaucratic rules have prevented us using receipts from 'staircasing up' for this purpose", said Richard Best, Director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Now that the Government has agreed to act, Housing Associations across the country will be able to use re-cycled Social Housing Grant to buy back from shared owners facing repossession some or all of the equity of their property.
"The risks of shared owners becoming homeless - with all the misery and public expense involved - should become much rarer", continued Richard Best. "Equally important will be reducing the segregation and isolation of poorer households on social housing estates by making it the norm for all developments to have shared owners 'pepper-potted' amongst tenants."
"Our housing arm, the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust, has, for several years, offered all residents the opportunity to become owners, through Flexible Tenure arrangements and has built over 400 homes on Mixed and Flexible Tenure estates. Lenders have been happy to provide mortgages on these developments. Their status is above that which would be likely if the estates were known to be exclusively for those on the lowest incomes. The possibility of stigma being attached to those living in social housing is thus considerably reduced".
"This Government announcement is a real breakthrough and we hope that Homebuy and Flexible Tenure arrangements will be expanded even further in the near future so that they are widely available in all areas."
