Bringing the Harm Home: The Quest for Home Ownership and the Amplification of Social Harm

ABSTRACT

The article contributes to the debate about the centrality of home ownership in conceptualising and understanding the contemporary political economy through the introduction of a social harm framework. It demonstrates how the focus on social harm offers a more holistic view of the harmful consequences of the privileging of home ownership within the context of political economy. It does so, firstly, by demonstrating the negative medium- and long-term social harms of current housing policies in the UK, namely financial/economic harm, cultural safety and physical, emotional and psychological harms. Secondly, it is possible to draw attention to these harms for individuals or groups that seemingly believe, or are commonly seen to have, benefited from the current structure of home ownership in the UK. And thirdly, it highlights the transformative potential of the social harm approach in terms of developing an alternative to the current variety of residential capitalism in the UK.

KEYWORDS:

• Home ownership
• housing
• social harm
• asset-based welfare
• financialisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Financialisation is conceptually broader than liberalisation (Biebrich 2012 referenced in Nölke 2017, p. 31) and is defined here as ‘the increasing dominance of financial actors, markets, practices, measurements and narratives, at various scales, resulting in a structural transformation of economies, firms (including financial institutions), states and households’ (Aalbers 2016, p. 2).

2 I am grateful to Andreas Nölke for suggesting this term.

3 For the importance of political economy in relation to criminology see for example: Garland (1997), Cavadino and Dignan (2006) and Lacey (2008, 2012).

4 Pemberton (2016, pp. 74–75) focuses on three broad categories of harm: physical/mental health (intentional killing, infant mortality, obesity, suicide and road traffic deaths), autonomy (relative poverty, child poverty, long working hours and NEETs – Not in Education or Training) and relational (social isolation).

5 For home ownership and social class see also Ronald (2008, pp. 17–20). For a wider Marxist critique relevant here see Gill (1993).

6 For example: Office for National Statistics, A Century of Home Ownership and Renting in England and Wales (2013, pp. 1–16). For an informative overview of the history of the housing crisis see Robertson (2017a).

7 The private rental sector continues to benefit from mortgage interest relief. Following tax changes that took effect on 6th April 2016, mortgage interest relief is only available at the standard tax rate even for higher rate taxpayers.

8 The Rent Act 1977 is still in force, supplemented by The Rent Acts (Maximum Fair Rent) Order 1999.

9 Most buy to let mortgages taken out by private landlords used to require short leases of not more than a year on the insistence of the lender. There have been some relaxations recently.

10 For the data see ONS (2013, pp. 7–9).

11 For more details see HM Government, ‘Help to Buy’.

12 For more details see HM Government, ‘Lifetime ISA’.

13 In April 2016, the UK state pension moved to a flat rate pension. The maximum pension available under this new arrangement is £9,110.40 (April 2020) (HM Government, The new State Pension; own calculations).

14 The process of auto enrolment started in 2012 and was completed in 2018. For more details see UK Pensions Regulator.

15 For an in-depth discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of both DB and DC schemes see: Bodie et al. (1988), Watson (2008).

16 Historically, the average pension pot used to buy an annuity is only £36,600 (Association of British Insurers 2014).

17 For example, assuming a homeowner downsizes and buys a smaller property, releasing equity of £100,000 in the process, then in March 2020 this amount of money would buy an annual pension of only £1,920 (male, retiring at 65, index-linked pension, 50% of the pension will be paid to the spouse in the event of death) (Aviva, Pension annuity calculator).

18 For more details see Money Advice Service, ‘What is Equity Release?’.

19 For example, assuming an average house price of £234,742 (data for December 2019 provided by HM Land Registry 2020) a homeowner with a property valued at £230,000 could only release £69,000 as equity (Aviva, Equity Release Calculator).

20 For more details see Money Advice Service, 'Deferred payment agreements for people who own their own home and are moving into a care home'.

21 I am grateful to an insurance professional for pointing this out to me.

22 Comment by Sir Stuart Lipton, quoted in Allen (2015).

23 For a useful summary and analysis of the acts, respectively, see: Inside Housing (2016); Parkin and Wilson (2016).

24 Selling prices for ‘Starter Homes’ prices can be in the range of up to £450,000 in London and in the range of up to £250,000 in the rest of England (including the 20% discount on market prices) (Shelter Legal 2019).

25 In October 2018, the government announced the removal of the Housing Revenue Account borrowing cap. See HM Government, ‘Removing the Housing Revenue Account Borrowing cap: letter from the Communities Secretary’.

26 For the paragraph see RIBA (2009).

27 For a useful overview of the key features of the UK’s housebuilding industry see RIBA (2009, pp. 16–22).

28 For a discussion of our changing expectations of space see Dorling (2014, pp. 191–203).

29 For the paragraph see RIBA (2011).

30 For a discussion of the intergenerational dynamics of home ownership see Eley (2016), Griffith (2011).

31 For an overview and a critical analysis of the Grenfell Tower fire see Gapper (2017), Tucker (2017).

32 For a discussion of the impact of rising house prices on the Western middle classes see Chauvel and Hartung (2016).

33 I am grateful to Fabienne Emmerich for suggesting ability, sexual orientation and gender identity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marc Schelhase

Dr Marc Schelhase is a Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department, School of Security Studies, King's College London and a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges. He is currently finishing his second book, entitled The Political Economy of Risk in Finance and the Military, for Palgrave Macmillan.