The Effectiveness of Rural Housing Burdens: A Policy Summary

How Effective Has This Mechanism Been At Increasing The Supply Of Rural Housing?

  Finding effective mechanisms to secure affordable homes and then retain their ‘affordability’ is a key rural policy challenge. It is an essential component of the Carnegie UK Trust’s work on Community Land Trusts, and an important element of the Trust’s People and Place policy theme. This report considers the effectiveness of Rural Housing Burdens.  The Rural Housing Burden (RHB) mechanism introduced in Scotland in 2004 allows a legal obligation to be placed in the Title Deeds of a rural house/house plot which ensures that whenever it is sold, the discount included in the original purchase price (typically derived from a plot acquisition price well below market value) can be retained in perpetuity in all subsequent sales of the property. This is the summary version of the report (PDF, 14 pages).  A full version of the report entitled The Effectiveness of Rural Housing Burdens is available in the Publications Library on this website.  To open the report, click on the image above.