“Let’s move in together” - It seems that these words are becoming ever more popular with marriages at an all time low according to today's newspapers. It is increasingly common for couples to live together before they marry and, sorry to be so unromantic, but it is also more common for unmarried couples to break up than their married counterparts.

So the prospect of breaking up needs to be considered particularly for unmarried couples as the law governing division of assets is more complicated than for married couples.

Contributions to outgoings, such as the mortgage and utility bills do not, surprisingly, necessarily bring an entitlement to a share in the property.
The couple must have advice when they buy about the way in which they will legally hold it. Joint Tenants means that they have equal shares which will obviously become relevant should they decide to sell their property, or separate, or both! On death, the survivor will automatically inherit the whole of the property irrespective of the terms of a will or otherwise.

The alternative is Tenants in Common. This allows the parties to specify their shares in the property. This is, understandably, important to agree from the outset and should be recorded in a declaration of property trust. As the share of the property forms part of the couples’ estate, an up to date will must be in place to ensure that it passes to the correct beneficiary. Otherwise, you could end up owning your home with your deceased partner’s parents!

Additionally, an unmarried couple should consider a Cohabitation Agreement. This sets down what they intend to contribute and to what they will each be entitled. It extends further to cover the impact of the arrival of children, whose surname the little ones will take and contributions to their financial maintenance.

So before setting aside time and a budget for the wallpaper for the garish feature wall, you need to do the same for some bespoke legal advice.

The squeeze on liquidity is getting worse, rather than better, and yesterday's three-month Libor rate – the rate at which Banks lend to each other-of 6pc, has proved- if proof was needed- that the last cut in interest rates announced by the Bank of England has had little or no effect.

Homeowners are complaining that their variable mortgage rates are actually going up not down, blaming lenders of everything under the sun, but the simple fact is that if mortgage lenders themselves cannot borrow at less than 6pc (and often much more than this), they are hardly likely to lend money to anyone else for less.

Some of the smaller building societies cannot get funds at anything less than Libor plus 1.5 per cent (nearly 7.5pc), and it is this issue that will cause the greater long-term harm, in the view of many economists, rather than a short-lived hike in inflation.

Economies need confidence in order to grow and one of the pillars of confidence in the UK is the value of property. If the housing market grinds to a halt through lack of liquidity, then there would be only one direction for it to go - down!

In a market short of buyers' house prices will fall and with fewer people able to get a mortgage, unless The Bank of England pumps more money into the system then we could be heading towards this scenario.

Until now the Bank has given the impression that if it does nothing for long enough then, the problem will sort itself out. Well, the credit crunch hit last August and the problems are still with us. Fortunately yesterday Mr King
pledged to pump more cash into money markets to try and restore confidence in the UK's financial system amid the credit squeeze.

The promise comes after the Bank put an extra £5bn into the market last week.

Mr King also predicted that house prices would be "broadly stable" over the next few years, which he welcomed. He said that a slowdown in the housing market would eventually make houses more affordable for first-time buyers, as the ratio of wages to house prices returned to more normal levels.

Activity and prices had continued to weaken in both the residential and commercial property sectors, he added.
"That stems in part from the continued tightening of credit conditions reflecting the turmoil in financial markets," Mr King said.

He told the Treasury select committee that the global financial crisis had "moved into a new and different phase".

"Across the world, confidence in financial markets is fragile. It is not that banks, at least in the UK, have made loans that are likely to result in unsustainable losses," he said.
"The heart of the problem is not in the real economy. It is in the financial sector itself."

Uncertainty about the strength of banks' financial positions has grown because of their difficulties to secure funding against assets they hold, he said.
Despite the billions being pumped into money markets, the Libor rate remains high.
Mr King said that it was a "matter of concern" that the efforts by central banks had so far failed to stem the problem.

The Bank of England would continue to offer extra money in the markets as a short-term way of boosting confidence in the system, he added.

However he said that longer-term solutions would be discussed with UK banks.

Perhaps there is some light now at the end of the tunnel?

In his first budget today the Chancellor revealed that there will be no stamp duty on shared ownership homes until the owner owns 80 per cent of the equity.

Alistair Darling also confirmed in the budget that it will be launching a new shared-ownership housing scheme in April, which will see the old scheme extended to key workers who can only afford 50 per cent of a home.

The current Open Market HomeBuy scheme is available for those who can afford 75 per cent of a home.

Darling also repeated his wish for more long-term fixed-rates, such as 10, 20 and 25 year fixed-rates, to be on offer in the mortgage market. They are quite common in the rest of Europe and in the USA, but they have never taken off over here.

Mr Darling had no further details to announce other than the Government would be seeking views in the mortgage market on how this could be done.

Darling says the Government will then report back in the next Pre-Budget Report.
"I will seek views on how we can deliver - drawing on international experience - the right framework for the UK to achieve affordable, long-term fixed rate mortgages", Darling adds.

After much hulabaloo the Government’s Home Information Packs (HIPS) were finally branded a complete waste of time yesterday by the Communities Department. What a surprise!

Research undertaken by the Department into the Government’s pilot scheme found that the packs which were introduced to speed up house sales were only being provided to four in ten buyers. A further 20% did not receive them from estate agents until after they had made an offer on the property and in total 80% of buyers never saw them at all. Grant Shapps, the Tory housing spokesman said: ” It is proving to be a very costly and bureaucratic farce”.

It also emerged yesterday that in spite of the Government spending £100m on a scheme to help first time buyers onto the property ladder only 700 people had actually received helped since the programme began nearly 2 years ago.

Research also showed that while 115 first time buyers in the South East had received help and 117 in London, the scheme had only assisted 4 people in the east of England and not helped a single first time buyer in the East Midlands.

How does this compare with the non- Government scheme for first time buyers run by Joint Equity Ltd? The answer is it doesn’t. I know for a fact that 12 people in the East Midlands were helped by Joint Equity in the space of two months, not two years!

The answer for first time buyers is plainly don’t wait for the Government to help you, contact Joint Equity Ltd now.

The main housing news this week will be on Thursday when the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee will decide whether to cut interest rates or keep borrowing costs on hold.

Although most economists are predicting that we can expect a further one or two cuts this year it will not happen on Thursday. Why? Because inflationary pressures are still rising and cutting rates under those circumstances would damage the Bank's credibility.

Since last December the Bank has cut rates by 0.5 per cent from 5.75 to 5.25 per cent, but with inflation just above the Bank’s 2 per cent target at 2.2 per cent and rising food and fuel prices expected to push this to nearer 3 per cent I don’t think we can expect any good news for homeowners for a couple of months.

Whilst aspiring homeowners would love to see the predicition of Charles Goodhart, a former Monetary Policy Committee member, that interest rates could be safely cut to 4 per cent now materialise, sadly it is not going to happen