Is it me but doesn’t it seem like we’ve been here before? The Greek crisis seems to have been dragging on longer than the Trojan War. It has been vacillating from spikes of on-the-brink debt refinancing, to periods where it has been seemingly out of the news altogether. But this time things appear different, more [...]

This week Halifax has launched a Smartphone app that boldly goes further than any home hunting app before it. Available on Android and iPhone, Halifax Home Finder has everything you expect from a site/app such as Rightmove, but takes it further. It’s like having Kirstie and Phil – and a bank manager – at hand [...]

It’s the national sport. The beautiful game. Americans call it soccer, but we know it’s called football. Before we begin I should warn you that we’re Norwich-based, so I can’t guarantee that this blog will be free of references to the mighty Canaries. We love the clubs we support, giving them our hard-earned cash to [...]

At the end of April, 14p will go onto the price of first and second class stamps. And while some are cunningly (and completely legally) buying up official, unused stamps to save money; others may be tempted by online vendors on sites such as eBay who are selling cheap, un-franked stamps for re-use. Un-franked stamps [...]

Saving to buy your first home can take what seems like an age. And the magic age you can expect to get onto the property ladder in the UK is 30, according to Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks. It confirms the considerable savings slog facing anyone looking to buy for the first time. But the interesting [...]

The sad fact is that with the country needing every penny to pay down debt, and with a housing market that’s far from making a full recovery, stamp duty reform just isn’t going to happen. Stamp duty land tax is the tax you pay when you buy a new property. It’s charged as a percentage [...]

Experian – the credit reference agency – is introducing a UK-first, by including rent payments as part of a tenant’s credit file. In an effort to give landlords a more accurate picture of a prospective tenant, and tenants a greater chance of building a credit history, the “Rental Exchange” looks set to divide opinion. While [...]

Fuel poverty is a term we hear bandied about a lot. It’s a major issue – one that the previous government set out to eliminate by 2016. But instead of solving the problem, it looks like three times as many of us will be in fuel poverty by 2016. The failure is due to ineffective [...]

Throughout the economic downturn the Government’s top priority, understandably, has been to protect struggling borrowers. It’s now been three years with the Bank of England Base Rate at 0.5% and, whilst borrowers have enjoyed the reprieve, savers have seen their pots erode as inflation has consistently outstripped the best savings rates. So what can be [...]

The East London borough of Newham is consulting on a mandatory licensing scheme for all landlords operating in the area. If adopted, it could provide the model for other local authorities in the UK to follow suit. The private rental sector in Newham is estimated to account for over a third of total housing in [...]