This is Home Front with Vicky Spratt, a subscriber-only newsletter from i. If you’d like to get this direct to your inbox, every single week, you can sign up here.
Good afternoon and welcome to this week’s Home Front. Life is expensive if you live alone. Trust me, I know.
And that’s why rumours that the Government are considering scrapping the single person council tax discount are, understandably, causing a great deal of anxiety across the country.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has made it clear that her October Budget won’t be pretty but if the axe falls on benefits that currently benefit single people, the impact could be devastating for some.
As we’ve reported here at i, in some parts of the country this cut would cost some people £600 a year. That’s the difference between being able to go on holiday, and not taking a break. Between buying your kids new toys, and not. Between being able to put extra cash aside for emergencies, or not having a buffer.
It’s not hyperbole to say that living alone, particularly if you are a single parent (which I am not), puts you at a financial disadvantage.
Living with friends, housemates or a romantic partner makes financial sense. It’s cheaper per person to split bills and rent or mortgage repayments. If your household has more than one income, you won’t be completely protected from the cost of living shocks but you will be more easily able to absorb them and share the pain.
Women, as ever, are at the sharp end of this. As the Women’s Budget Group have discovered by analysing women’s average wages in relation to typical rents and house prices, there is not a single place in England where it is currently affordable for a woman on her own to buy or rent a home. Worse still, housing affordability for women on their own has been declining every year for some time now.
The ways in which couples are financially better off don’t stop there, though. Holidays are cheaper for couples. You don’t need me to tell you this if you’ve ever booked a solo-occupancy room which is often the same price as a double but, somehow, not as nice? Train tickets are cheaper for couples because of the two-together rail card. Restaurants are also more expensive for solo diners because portions can be large but you can’t share and split the bill.
My outgoings doubled overnight when I separated from my long-term partner in 2019 but my income did not. How many other people have been in that situation? To keep my home and avoid moving back into a house share in my thirties, I had to find a way to make it work.
When I found out that I could call my local council and request the single person council tax discount, it was an enormous relief. My council tax went down from around £130 a month to £99 per month. That was a saving of more than £350 annually. It created space in my budget for the fact that I suddenly had to pay more for everything else – from my mortgage to my internet.
Instead of cutting this assistance, the Government should be looking at ways they can give single people more support, not less.
Why is the single person’s council tax discount only 25 per cent and not 50 per cent, for instance? I’ve never been able to make sense of that. Half of a couple is one person.
Studies have also confirmed that single people have been harder hit by higher living costs than couples.
Even before inflation took hold, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that people living on their own aged between 25 and 64 – i.e. those who are in work – spend 92 per cent of their disposable income on average, while two-adult households only spend 83 per cent of theirs.
Most things are more expensive now than they were when this study was conducted, so you could conclude that the pressure will be greater.
As Alex Clegg, a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, recently told me: “The latest economic forecasts suggest that housing is set to be a major living standards headwind over the Parliament.
“Rent rises are projected to outpace income growth, while the ongoing freeze to Local Housing Allowance will make things even tougher for low-income renters.”
He added that even though this Parliament will benefit from falling interest rates, “that fall will take time and mortgage costs will remain significantly higher than they were during the decade of ultra-low interest rates that preceded the cost of living crisis”.
So, make no mistake, life is harder than it was before the pandemic and the inflation crisis. And single people are hard hit.
Policymakers need to address the plight of single people seriously. It ought to be top of the agenda.
Why? Because having money to save impacts a young adult’s ability to plan for old age, to go out on dates and meet a partner and to contemplate starting a family if that’s something they want to do. Making life harder for single people will only further entrench some of the societal issues Britain is grappling with – a low birth rate, low numbers of first-time buyers and a growing number of people in their twenties and thirties moving back in with their parents instead of living fully fledged adult lives.
If Rachel Reeves wants to make life harder for young adults who are trying their best to keep afloat, cutting the single person’s council tax break would be a very good way to hurt them.
Key housing
Next week, I’ll be bringing you lots of juicy exclusives from inside Labour’s first party conference as the party in government for over a decade.
This week, however, I’d like to return to housing market watch.
The online property listings site RightMove has published some very interest data.
Across the country, the housing market seems to be recovering steadily from the doldrums of recent years. Lower mortgage rates are likely playing a major role in this.
Average new seller asking prices rose by 0.8 per cent (+£2,974) this month to £370,759.
September usually sees a monthly rise in prices because buyers and sellers have “back to school” energy after the summer, but this year’s increase is double the long-term average, with prices supported by increased activity levels
The number of sales being agreed is up by 27 per cent year-on-year, a strong rebound compared with last year’s more subdued market.
Good news but, remember, the cost of homes is still not affordable for many would-be first-time buyers across the country and house prices remain nearly at their highest point since the mid-1800s.
Ask me anything
This week’s question came from a leasehold homeowner in his thirties who lives in south London. This leaseholder bought his first home a few years ago and his freeholder is his local council.
His flat has been blighted by mould and damp which engineers have told him is being caused by a structural problem with his block. However, his freeholder – the council – would not take action to investigate this further. Instead, they sent a contractor to repaint the wall. This is no more than a cosmetic cover-up and local councils should know better.
Exasperated, he asked me what to do? So, I emailed the brilliant Martin Boyd of the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership.
Martin advised that this leasehold homeowner should submit a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman.
“In terms of completing a complaints process several councils seem to forget to reply, perhaps in the hope people give up,” Martin said.
He advised this leaseholder to write something like:
“Further to my complaint regarding the mould which continues to be an ongoing problem please confirm we have reached the end of your complaints process so that I can now raise the matter with the Housing Ombudsman.”
Thank you, Martin!
You can find the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership here. It’s an excellent resource.
Please keep your questions coming: @Victoria_Spratt, on X, formerly Twitter, @vicky.spratt on Instagram or via email vicky.spratt@inews.co.uk.
Vicky’s pick
I’m re-reading Heartburn by Nora Ephron. It’s as hilarious and as bittersweet as I remember.
This is Home Front with Vicky Spratt, a subscriber-only newsletter from i. If you’d like to get this direct to your inbox, every single week, you can sign up here.