Petition · past parliament

Provide keyworkers with real opportunity to buy property

Rejected 11 signatures

What the petition asks

Keyworkers, especially in the Southeast, have no real opportunity to get on the property ladder. Key workers don’t want shared ownership. They want to own home like everyone else. The average London home is around £575000. Even mid level salary keyworkers cannot afford this.
Provide key workers in professions that are core to keeping society running, with 1% interest fixed rate mortgages, and make a percentage of all new builds available to keyworkers at s discounted rate, but with full ownership on a mortgage. Cap service charges and ground rent on new leasehold properties. All keyworkers should be able to reside close enough to their place of work to commute less than an hour to their place of work.

Why it was rejected

It was not clear what the petition asked the UK Government or Parliament to do.

We understand that you care about housing for key workers, but we're not exactly sure what you'd like to happen.

The Government is not responsible for providing mortgages. You could start a new petition calling for the Government to extend its current discounted homes scheme for key workers to the Southeast, if that's something that you'd like to see. You could also start a petition calling for a certain proportion of new builds to be set aside for key workers, at a discounted price, if that's something that you'd like to happen.

You may be interested to know that new leases cannot be charged anything more than a ‘peppercorn’ ground rent. The value of this is zero so you will not have to pay anything, but it forms a legally binding contract with your landlord. You can find out more about ground rent and how service charges are calculated here: https://www.gov.uk/leasehold-property/service-charges-and-other-expenses

You can find out more about the discounted homes for key workers and local residents' scheme here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/discounted-homes-for-key-workers-and-local-residents-as-flagship-first-homes-scheme-launches

Timeline

8 Oct 2022 Petition opened for signatures
18 Oct 2022 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 11
Status Rejected
Rejected 18 Oct 2022

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.