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A pressure group wants the Labour Party to extend its new policy on buy to let to effectively ban landlords from purchasing existing properties as well as new ones in designated areas.

Last week Labour announced that if it wins next year's general election it will give councils power to ban buy-to-let investors purchasing new-builds in what the party is to designate as 'housing growth areas'.

However Daniel Bentley, director of communications at Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society, says a maximum of one in 10 buy to let loans is for a new property - so if Labour wants to maximise the opportunities for owner-occupiers, it should extend the buy to let ban' to cover all homes, not just new-builds.

Writing on the website of the Labour-leaning New Statesman, Bentley - who has co-authored a book called Finding Shelter: Overseas investment in the UK Housing Market - says: A major part of the drawback with buy-to-let investors, and the reason they have driven up costs rather than funding supply as was once hoped, has been that they tend to buy existing stock rather than funding new developments.

He then goes on to ask: Why not apply this policy to the sale of all homes, new and existing And to the extent that we need further landlord investment at all, it should be nudged towards - not away from - new-build homes.

Labour's hardening attitude to the private rented sector is likely to be a recurring theme in the build up to the general election.

The new policy potentially banning buy to let purchases of new-build homes follows on from four already-announced Labour policies aimed at what it calls 'reforming' the sector - the introduction of rent controls, mandatory longer-term tenancies, restrictions on tenant evictions and a compulsory register of landlords.

Comments

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    "The last time a labour government went down this path of total control on lettings ... People who let properties simply gave up and sold up."

    Well that's me voting Labour! I am sick of spending my (taxed) take home pay on the most unproductive persons in society, whilst having interest rates suppressed to pay for the mess they have made.

    • 24 October 2014 20:38 PM
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    We really need more homes to be built so we can do away with these silly restrictions.

    • 24 October 2014 15:56 PM
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    Their first stab at a 'ban' as a solution wa completely the wrong way around.

    We have a problem of landlords cornering an ever more desperate shortage of homes. What Labour should be doing is allow capital to be borrowed by prospective landlords to build new homes and to ban Landlords from hoovering up the existing supply at the cost of wider society.

    This way surely everyone is happy

    Of course, we should also be levying a land tax but that is for another time.

    • 24 October 2014 14:52 PM
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    This is a free country Huh! This is just one other idea by politicians who think it will help keep them in their jobs.
    Whichever party is in Government we are slowly losing our freedoms and way of life that men and women have died for over the centuries.

    • 20 October 2014 16:06 PM
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    Are Labour looking to become the new Lib Dems ie the 3rd party

    The Lib Dems come out with loony policies in the knowledge that they will never be in government again. It looks like Labour are determined to follow suit!

    • 20 October 2014 10:35 AM
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    For heavens sake! Logic is wonderful but history can be a lot more use. The last time a labour government went down this path of total control on lettings we had a period of thirty years where vast numbers of low paid people had nowhere to live and had to buy houses and then live below the poverty line to afford to live in them. People who let properties simply gave up and sold up.

    I was there and when I was first married and this was an unpleasant game to play but play it we had to. (Would I ever vote labour - no thanks, they are mad!)

    • 20 October 2014 10:16 AM
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    What is needed also is for parish councils to be able to determine how many second and holiday homes can be accommodated in their areas. In North Norfolk, so many villages are virtual ruins in terms of viability thanks to the imbalance.

    • 20 October 2014 10:07 AM
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