{"id":8598,"date":"2026-10-28T13:55:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T13:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/scotland\/news\/8598-healey-bets-4.7bn-on-first-time-buyers-as-landlords-face-tax-hit"},"modified":"2026-10-28T13:57:55","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T13:57:55","slug":"healey-bets-4.7bn-on-first-time-buyers-as-landlords-face-tax-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/scotland\/news\/8598-healey-bets-4.7bn-on-first-time-buyers-as-landlords-face-tax-hit","title":{"rendered":"Healey\u2019s Budget bets \u00a34.7bn on first-time buyers as landlords face tax hit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chancellor John Healey has confirmed a \u00a34.7bn Your First Home scheme to help 70,000 first-time buyers, alongside \u00a31.5bn more for social housing and new support for housebuilders.<\/p>\n

The equity loan scheme, first announced<\/a> by Prime Minister Andy Burnham at Labour\u2019s conference in September, will let first-time buyers in England put down a deposit of 2.5% on a new-build home, with the government lending up to 20% of the price. Loans will be interest-free for five years, with charges rising gradually after that.<\/p>\n

Household income caps have been set at \u00a3110,000 outside London and \u00a3140,000 in London, while price caps will be based on local median house prices, with caps of \u00a3650,000 in inner London and \u00a3500,000 in outer London. The maximum deposit will be 15%.<\/p>\n

Developers will have to pay a contribution to join the scheme, on a sliding scale designed to protect smaller developments, and the government expects it to support the delivery of around 20,000 new homes.<\/p>\n

Pre-registration will open by the end of December, with full applications from February and the first loans issued from April 2027. Homes England will run the scheme initially, before the new National Housing Bank takes it over.<\/p>\n

The scheme will be funded by moving money from other government budgets, including the Warm Homes Fund.<\/p>\n

More money for social housing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Healey also announced an extra \u00a31.5bn for the Social and Affordable Homes Programme to deliver around 10,000 more homes, prioritising social rent and council housing. The uplift takes total investment in the programme to more than \u00a340bn over 10 years.<\/p>\n

Land sold to housing associations will be zero-rated for VAT from April 2027, to speed up the construction of social housing, while councils\u2019 preferential borrowing rate for housebuilding through the Public Works Loan Board has been extended for another year.<\/p>\n

\n

Read our analysis<\/a>: Can Burnham\u2019s Your First Home deliver what Help to Buy couldn\u2019t?<\/h4>\n
\n

Help for housebuilders<\/strong><\/p>\n

The government said it would not make major changes to building regulations for the rest of this Parliament, other than on building safety, to give housebuilders more certainty.<\/p>\n

Small brownfield housing developments on sites of up to 1.5 hectares will also be exempt from Biodiversity Net Gain requirements, which the Treasury said would make it \u201ccheaper and simpler to build both council and private houses\u201d.<\/p>\n

Landlords, meanwhile, will pay more, with tax rates on property income rising by a further two percentage points from April 2027.<\/p>\n

Business rates handed to mayors<\/strong><\/p>\n

In what Healey called the \u201cbiggest wave of devolution in a generation\u201d, local and regional government will keep 100% of business rates income by the end of the decade, with mayors taking a 20% share from next year. Mayors will also receive a share of income tax from 2028.<\/p>\n

\u201cLocal leaders shouldn\u2019t have to come cap in hand to Whitehall to build a new tram or concert hall,\u201d Healey told the Commons.<\/p>\n

The threshold at which retail, hospitality and leisure properties pay business rates will rise from \u00a312,000 to \u00a318,000 from April 2027, taking around 70,000 more businesses out of rates altogether. It will be funded partly by higher gambling taxes and partly by making online marketplaces collect VAT from UK sellers, rather than by the higher levy on large warehouses that had been floated before the Budget.<\/p>\n

First-time buyer savings<\/strong><\/p>\n

A new First Time Buyer ISA will replace the Lifetime ISA for new savers from April 2029, with a 25% government bonus on savings of up to \u00a34,000 a year, towards homes worth up to \u00a3450,000. From tomorrow, the penalty for existing Lifetime ISA holders who buy a home above the \u00a3450,000 cap will fall from 25% to 20%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chancellor John Healey has confirmed a \u00a34.7bn Your First Home scheme to help 70,000 first-time buyers, alongside \u00a31.5bn more for social housing and new support for housebuilders<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":284306,"featured_media":8599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120782,9],"coauthors":[137138],"class_list":["post-8598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-property","tag-featured-story","tag-national"],"yoast_head":"\nHealey\u2019s Budget bets \u00a34.7bn on first-time buyers as landlords face tax hit<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thebusinessdesk.com\/scotland\/news\/8598-healey-bets-4.7bn-on-first-time-buyers-as-landlords-face-tax-hit\" \/>\n<meta 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