Vicky Spratt
@Victoria_Spratt
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Housing correspondent @theipaper Orwell Prize finalist 2023, 24 & 25. Author of TENANTS & We Were Promised The Moon (2026). Please do get in touch with stories.
London, England
Joined July 2011
Extract from my book Tenants in today’s @theipaper - my grandparents were saved from poor housing conditions by their council flat in the 1950s. Today they wouldn’t be so lucky.
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RT @jessiehewitson: I have written a piece for @theipaper expressing my alarm that the DfE has decided too much access to specialist school….
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RT @lewis_goodall: Two governments took @TheNewsAgents to secret court for two years via a constitutionally unprecedented superinjunction t….
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The relatives of social housing tenants do not “inherit” a house, they can “inherit” a tenancy and still have to pay rent…. Succession rights generally only apply to the partner of a social housing tenant or close family members who live in the home, like children.
What possible defence is there for someone *inheriting* social housing?. It seems to be an utterly perverse system of taxpayer funded privilege. A feudal right to live in a valuable property, often in the most expensive areas of the country, just because a relative lived there.
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On a serious note re outrage about children of social housing tenants “inheriting” a tenancy when a parent dies…. More & more families rent privately. There isn’t really a mechanism that I’m aware of for dealing with the death of a tenant in the PRS if children live in the house.
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RT @Kwajotweneboa: After my dad died, we were given a 30-day eviction notice and were nearly forced onto the street right after losing him.….
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Lenders will be over the moon about Reeves push to relax mortgage lending restrictions. But….what is someone on £30k/a couple on £50k actually going to be able to afford to buy?. Their monthly repayments will be expensive! . What happens if rates rise?.
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So here we are, again - convincing banks to allow lower income first-time buyers to take on huge amounts of debt because house prices are divorced from wages. My analysis of Labour’s plan (or lack thereof) on mortgages @theipaper .
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RT @FisherAndrew79: We are an ageing population, and climate change is increasingly going to hit our economy. My new column for @theipaper….
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RT @robin_white13: This is deeply frustrating. Its the same bad argument Osborne made when cutting LHA. Its also mad when the policy is….
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RT @theipaper: Saturday's front page: Heatwaves drive Government to consider air con grants for homes #TomorrowsPapersToday . Latest by @ja….
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This - and - the transferred wealth will likely cause more house price inflation…. Further pricing those without wealthy parents out of the housing market . Or, at least, out of buying the homes they need and want.
In the next 30 years, £5.5trn will pass from one generation to the next, much of it unearned wealth from house price growth since the 1990s. Not taxing it would be insane.
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Another interesting policy problem which, like the issue of inheritance, underpins the intergenerational inequality that is coming to define Britain and British politics ….
🚨📝 NEW COLUMN. Britain is sleepwalking into fiscal catastrophe. The triple lock is emblematic of this - even if it was right to introduce it, the policy's time has surely passed. Yet all political parties are full-square behind it. Which leader will be bold enough to, er, lead?
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On a serious note…right now there’s quite a lot riding on younger adults inheriting property / money to keep the housing market moving. That creates a set of interesting policy problems whichever side of the debate you come down on….
Inheritance tax should be abolished.
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RT @robin_white13: The CMA absolutely should not accept this. We need to know whether these organisations actually broke the law or not. Be….
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British summer is no longer cold. Your new build home is probably too hot right now. We retrofit old housing to make it warmer, but what about cooling new homes down in summer?. This week’s newsletter @theipaper ft. @AntBreach & Prof Bill McGuire .
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RT @faisalislam: NEW. OBR fiscal risks report:. - Triple lock is costing treble what it was initially assumed to cost when introduced in 20….
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Not no.
The discussion about property tax in the U.K. is pointlessly complicated. Drop stamp duty. Replace with indexed capital gains tax on sale. Easy.
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Reductions, down valuations and homes that just won't sell. inside Britain's stalled housing market for @theipaper
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RT @duncanrobinson: Last acceptable form of climate denial. Pretending British summers aren’t warm (and will only get warmer).
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