Property finance strategy, broker insights, quizzes, common myths and market history.
The Rent Act 1977 gave private tenants extreme security of tenure and 'fair rents', heavily restricting the rights and profits of landlords.
To solve the massive housing crisis after WWII, the UK government built thousands of temporary 'prefab' homes designed to last 10 years. Some are still lived in today.
The Enclosure Acts legally fenced off vast areas of common land, transferring public farming areas into the hands of wealthy private landowners.
Following the Great Fire of London in 1666, the Rebuilding of London Act 1667 explicitly banned timber-framed houses to prevent future disasters.
Introduced in 1662, the Hearth Tax charged property owners based on the number of fireplaces in their home, making warmth a luxury.
To help pay for the American War of Independence, the UK government introduced a tax on bricks. Builders responded by making bricks twice as large.
David Lloyd George's 'People's Budget' introduced unprecedented taxes on wealthy landowners, forcing them to sell off their massive historic estates and birthing the modern suburbs.
The Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 crushed the wealth of the landed aristocracy and shifted economic power to the industrial middle classes, changing UK property dynamics forever.
The Housing Act 1988 invented the Assured Shorthold Tenancy (AST). By giving landlords the guaranteed right to evict, it resurrected the private rental sector.
Until 1963, homeowners had to pay income tax on the imaginary rent they saved by living in their own home. Abolishing it fuelled the British obsession with homeownership.
The government's £29 billion 'Help to Buy' scheme was meant to help first-time buyers, but critics argue it simply artificially inflated the profits of major housebuilders.
The Town and Country Planning Act 1947 was the most radical piece of property legislation in UK history, effectively nationalising the right to develop land.
The modern mortgage industry was born in a pub in Birmingham in 1775, when a group of workers pooled their savings to build each other houses.
Did you know the government used to help pay your mortgage? MIRAS (Mortgage Interest Relief At Source) gave homeowners tax relief on their mortgage interest until it was abolished by Gordon Brown in 2000.
Margaret Thatcher's 'Right to Buy' policy in 1980 saw millions of council houses sold to their tenants at huge discounts. It was the largest transfer of wealth to the working class in British history.
The Green Belt wasn't designed to protect nature—it was designed to stop London from swallowing the Home Counties. The 1938 Green Belt Act remains the most powerful and controversial piece of planning law in the UK.
Modern UK building regulations—specifically regarding party walls and fire safety—were born directly from the ashes of the Great Fire of London in 1666.
Before 1996, 'Buy-to-Let' didn't exist. Landlords had to use expensive commercial loans. The introduction of the first BTL mortgage by ARLA and Paragon Bank completely transformed the UK housing market.