Almost 1 in 4 tenants of privately rented homes have felt physically ill because of worries over their tenancies, according to housing charity Shelter. The charity said the YouGov survey they commissioned revealed an estimated two million adults have been facing concerns like affording their rent, the poor condition of their property or the threat …
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A new report claims that more than three million renters are being locked out of buying a home of their own because of spiralling mortgage costs. The Centre For Political Studies (CPS) says that a combination of deposit rises and the stringent affordability tests applied to any mortgage application these days are preventing people getting …
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New figures from the Association of Convenience Stores (ACS) claim tens of thousands of their customers have no local cash machines and the situation is getting worse. It says the decline in bank branches and free-to-use ATMs becoming more and more acute as their customers struggle for access to cash. Rely Now many people rely …
The government’s delayed Pension Scheme Bill has been re-introduced to Parliament after being delayed by the General Election. The bill was entered into the House Of Lords after previously gaining cross-party support before being dropped as Parliament was dissolved before the December election. New rules It includes new rules for the long-awaited pension dashboards, collective …
The collapse of mini-bond provider London Capital & Finance (LCF) is likely to cost the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) millions of pounds the scheme has announced. An FSCS spokesman said the total value of 159 bonds it covered was £3.1 million, but the claims are still being reviewed. It added that many customers may …
Families are being forced into homelessness by the very benefit meant to ensure they have somewhere to live. Landlords all over England have been asking struggling families to vacate their homes because of rent arrears following mistakes made by local councils in the way that their housing benefit was calculated. Errors Cases examined by the …
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The National Living Wage is set for its biggest ever increase in April when it will go up by an average 6.2%. The rise, affecting 3 million workers, is four times the rate of inflation and will take hourly pay for people over 25 to £8.72 per hour. Other groupings The rates for other groupings …
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It has emerged that Travelex, the international foreign exchange company, has been forced off line by a ransom demand for $6 million (£4.6 million) by Russian hackers. The hackers, calling themselves Sodinokibi, forced the firm to shut down all its computers with a ransomware attack on New Year’s Eve. The firm are still trading, but …
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There has been much talk of interest-only mortgage time bombs over the years, but now experts are warning that they could be joined by equity release time bombs. The UK financial regulator has launched a probe into the selling of equity release mortgages after claims of ‘rampant mis-selling’. Probe The announcement of the probe has …
Thousands of UK pension savers have lost billions by investing in government approved schemes. All were persuaded to invest in 105 bogus schemes which were signed up and approved by Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) under Tony Blair’s government in 2006, making them seem legitimate. Scams But they were scams and victims lost their …
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