The Bank of England has announced, as was broadly expected, the official bank interest rate is to remain at 5.75% this month as it has for the last few months.

This comes at a time when the Halifax has announced a small drop in house prices in October of around a 0.5%. Meanwhile Nationwide found house prices had picked up a little in October. What is significant is how different this is from a year or so ago when we were expecting around 1 to 2% each month.

Tighter credit availability caused by the worldwide credit squeeze and higher interest rates are taking their toll on housepurchases. The once very profitable Buy To Let market also appears to be slowing as the likelyhood of large capital gains fades. Nobody can say what the future of the house market is but it would seem that if you are in the market to buy a house there is little reason to rush into it. Patience may prove to be a virtue.

Money Magic: Seven Simple Steps to True Financial Freedom (Quick Reads)

It has been announced that the Land Registry is to stop displaying the deeds of properties online. This follows concerns being very publicly broadcast on the BBC Radio 4, You And Yours program last week and an investigation by the Land Registry themselves.

There had been cases of people, particularly tenants, visiting the Land Registry website and downloading copies of the deeds and the owners signature and they were then able to make copies of the signature on forms sent back to the land registry to change ownership. It’s a shocking thing for anyone who it has happened to but these cases have only come to light when the ‘new owner’ has attempted to take possession of the house. If there were any patient criminals out there then it may be the case that a lot of people remain blissfully unaware that this illegal action has taken place. Presumably it could go unnoticed until the time they decide to sell.

It is quite shocking that nobody thought of this. We have a data protection act and surely that requires government bodies to take care of our private information. If it doesn’t it should and even if it doesn’t somebody should have seen the obvious dangers in all of this.

If you visit the land registry website one of the first things you see is this…

If you’re buying or selling a house or are just interested in property, you’ll be glad you visited Land Register Online

For properties you are interested in, you can download for only £3 each:

• a title plan defining the property (example)
• a title register where you can find out who owns the house or land, price paid/value stated information if sold since April 2000 and any rights of way or restrictions on the land (example)

For properties you are interested in, you can also download:

• all leases relating to the property (if referred to in the Register and available electronically) for £10 each
• all other documents relating to the property (if referred to in the Register and available electronically) for a total of £5

So now we know the real reason for this problem. It’s all about making money. Firstly why should it cost so much for a computer to spit out that information but secondly should this information be so easily available to anyone who pays the fee? A right of access to view in person would be wise and reasonable. The ability to download it all should surely require some evidence of a need to have copies. I remember a time when public service was supposed to be about service and there was pride in providing that service. No longer, it would seem. It’s all about the money.

Money Magic: Seven Simple Steps to True Financial Freedom (Quick Reads)

The Bank Of England has released it’s monthly Monetary & Financial Statistics (Bankstats) for October 2007. It makes fascinating reading, if you love numbers and statistics. For the rest of us it is probably more useful as a cure for insomnia. I have browsed through it to see what it reveals and perhaps one of the more interesting items is regarding mortgage loans made by banks and building societies.

It would appear that mortage lending in September 2007 had slowed and mortgage approvals are down by around 20% compared to a year ago. One important change appears to be in the value of remortgages taken out. This is may not directly impact the housing market in general but will be very significant for the economy. It is possible a significant portion of this borrowed money was being used for Buy-To-Let in which case this could be very significant for the housing market. If there isn’t the same new money coming in to the market then prices cannot rise and may well fall. All that borrowed money was being spent in all sorts of areas of the economy and remortgage borrowing from Building Societies has dropped significantly from 1,911 million in Sept 2005 to 1,234 in Sept 2007.

What we can say is that there is less borrowed money around for consumers to spend. The impact of that will be felt over the coming months and years but the feeling must be that the easy credit boom years are over, for now at least.

Money Magic: Seven Simple Steps to True Financial Freedom (Quick Reads)