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Two rogue landlords who illegally evicted tenants from their homes have been taken to court by the Wandsworth Council's housing department.

Zahid Malik and Ram Mahendran were both convicted in separate court cases of unlawfully evicting tenants who had properly paid their rents and abided by all the terms of their tenancies.

New research conducted at the recent LV= equity release road shows, reveals that IFAs believe equity release is set to become a big growth area for their future business, to help deal with the needs of the UK’s ageing population.

Research showed that nearly all (98%) of them believe that there will be a surge in consumers using equity release over the next few years. 35% of the IFAs that attended said that equity release is already a core part of their business.

A Winson Green resident who pretended to be a needy citizen when he actually owned his property has been jailed after a benefit fraud investigation by Birmingham City Council.

Chaman Teji, 45, fraudulently obtained Housing Benefit worth £4,396.20 and was sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment at Birmingham Crown Court today (August 20).

Thousands of women fleeing domestic violence, pensioners who rely on home-help support and people with mental health problems could be forced to fend for themselves under expected cuts to a major government support programme, a campaign group has warned.

The National Housing Federation, which represents England’s housing associations, said that with the Treasury instructing all departments to model cutbacks of up to 40% almost 438,000 vulnerable people could see the outreach support that enables them to lead independent lives axed, and temporary accommodation shut as a knock-on effect.

In spite of government figures released last week, recording a 13% rise in housebuilding starts in England in Quarter 2, according to data from SmartNewHomes.com, which represents 85% of all new homes for sale in England, Wales and Scotland, the number of new homes for sale is at a record low.

The average price of a new home showed a minor adjustment in July and now stands at £217,660. The annual change in July was 2.5% - the third consecutive month of positive annual growth.

The private rented sector (PRS) has grown by 1.1 million households in the past decade and is now worth £500 billion dwarfing the value of the entire UK commercial property sector.

Over 66 per cent of all households created in 2008/09 were in the PRS, and it now accounts for 14.2 per cent of all households in England.

Tens of thousands of social housing tenants across Manchester can expect consistent levels of service from their landlords thanks to a ground-breaking agreement.

Some 23 leading registered providers of social housing across the city - who between them manage around 70,000 properties - have signed up to a set of common standards guiding how they look after neighbourhoods, working in partnership with Manchester City Council.

House prices have fallen by around 17% in real inflation-adjusted terms since their peak in 2007 and, according to a recent analysis by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC), they may not regain their previous peak in real terms until 2020.

Nonetheless, this still implies 2% per annum real growth in house prices on average between 2010 and 2020. This reflects the fact that, although demand for housing (and credit availability) may not be as strong as in recent decades, housing supply is likely to remain constrained in the UK.

Although the number of new completed houses is up this quarter, they are still less than half of what’s needed to meet demand, Shelter has said.

Responding to recent figures that show housing completions rose by 1% to 26,550 this quarter, Shelter’s director of policy and campaigns Kay Boycott said:

There were 28,590 seasonally adjusted house building starts in England in the June quarter 2010. This is 13 per cent higher than in the previous quarter and 84 per cent above the trough in the March quarter 2009, but 42 per cent below their March quarter 2007 peak.

The latest national statistics on house building were released under the auspices of the UK Statistics Authority on 19 August 2010.