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Call to encourage older people to downsize

Wednesday, 19 October 2011 12:20 PM

Older people should get tax breaks to encourage them to move to smaller homes and help tackle the housing crisis, according to a new report.

The Intergenerational Foundation estimates there are 25 million unused bedrooms in England and that a third of homes are under-occupied (defined as having two or more spare bedrooms).

Under-occupation has increased in recent years and more than half of the over-65s have more than two spare bedrooms, it says. At the same time younger people are struggling to get on to the housing ladder and find homes unaffordable in most of the country.

Options for encouraging people to move include:
- Abolishing stamp duty for people downsizing
- Changing planning rules to increase the supply of homes suitable for downsizing
- Withdrawing some universal benefits for people living in homes worth more than £500,000
- A property value tax
- Abolishing the single person council tax discount.

Intergenerational Foundation co-founder Angus Hanton told the BBC: "The 'housing crisis' is increasingly an issue of how our housing stock is shared between younger and older generations."

"The divide between the housing 'haves' and 'have nots' has moved from being one dominated by wealth or class to one dominated by age."

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