Improve tax breaks to encourage lettings
Shelter has called for tax breaks for people who want to rent out rooms.
The charity says that the amount a person can receive in income before paying tax is so low it is putting people off offering a room to potential renters.
The threshold of £4,250 has not changed since it was set in 1997 although rents have gone up by more than 110 per cent, Shelter said.
Kay Boycott, director of policy and campaigns, said: ‘In the current economic climate, many homeowners are battling to meet their mortgage payments and many are looking for options to maximise their income.
‘If the rent-a-room threshold was higher and the scheme better publicised, it could prove a real incentive for people to take in a lodger, and the take up of rent-a-room opportunities could increase.’
The charity is calling for the threshold to be raised to £9,000 a year, which it estimates would cost the Treasury around £5 million per year.
Meanwhile the Scottish arm of the charity has called for drastic action to stop people losing their home in the country, after figures from sheriff courts showed a 20 per cent rise in mortgage actions between 2008 and 2009.
It wants lenders to get behind the Scottish Government’s proposals to help struggling homeowners, contained in the Home Owners and Debtor Protection Bill.
Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, said: ‘Radical action is needed at a time when more families than ever are losing their homes. Without that repossessions are set to soar.
‘As first-time buyer numbers plummet protections for homeowners must be matched by protections for tenants.
‘Unless we get a better balance in the housing market we are already sowing the seeds of the next boom and bust cycle.’
He added that the government’s measures should be scrutinised, but ‘the industry must not let that drift into carping about unnecessary regulation’.
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