Social landlords trying to work out Low Cost Home Ownership rents using the Housing Corp-oration's grant rate calculator are facing serious setbacks in formulating development bids.
The news comes despite the quango extending its deadline again due to new Approved Development Programme guidance which has been slammed as "complicated, bordering on farcical".

Housing associations dealing with LCHO properties are required to put three different figures – two rents and a valuation – into the grant rate calculator.

Homes must be treated as if they were normal rented properties, according to corporation guidance released on its website this week.

A spokesperson for the National Housing Federation called the move a "recipe for confusion", adding: "It is important [the corporation] sees the levels of difficulties RSLs are having within this tight timetable to train staff and implement the changes".

LCHO grant rates now have to be calculated by inputting the valuation as of January 1999 along with a prospective market rent and also a low-cost proposed rent.

One RSL employee told Housing Today: "The situation is slightly ridiculous.

"I think the corporation has got into a bit of a mess over this and although I can see where it's coming from, I also think it's shifting the burden onto us to do the work."

Complaints from the sector include RSLs who made calculations using two inputted rents only to find the new guidance meant they would have to start again.

Another association staff member asked: "How does a shared ownership-only housing association calculate the rent for the purpose of calculating the grant rate when it does not have a rented rent policy?"

Dave Bullock, director of development at Riverside Housing, warned the confusion would have implications for the ADP deadline as associations struggled to cope with the calculator.

He called for "some give and take" from the quango.

But corporation assistant director of investment Fiona Cruickshank told Housing Today that many LCHO-only associations were part of larger group structures. "So they could turn to sister associations for advice on rents, and those that are not could work with other RSLs and should be able to find information easily," she said.