Connecting you to Verified Independent Chartered Surveyors
In this month’s edition … we look at the latest English Housing Survey, discuss the relevancy of the term ‘affordability’ in the housing market and discover one company’s solution to the B***** impasse
The Property Market Monthly Fact File
The property market fact file is a collection of data compiled each month by our Chartered Surveyors and the propertysurveying.co.uk team, reflecting survey data, statistics, trends and information from the property market. This provides a single place where anyone with an interest in UK property can find the information they need.
Inadequate solicitor’s advice possibly leading to homeowners trapped by ‘fleeceholds’
Are solicitors not making sure that their clients understand what they are contracting to? A crisis on a scale compared to the recent PPI scandal has left home owners and MPs alike wanting answers, as new home owners are lumbered with annual charges that they feel they did not sign up for. Owners of brand new houses are being asked to pay unexpected annual charges for the upkeep of fledgling neighbourhoods.
Legal: Greedy landlord guilty of disregarding planning enforcement
A landlord has been sentenced to a suspended prison term and ordered to pay over £300,000 for costs and compensation, after ignoring a planning enforcement notice and taking steps to hide tenanted flats.
New housing projects for London
Significant government funding has been announced that will link new housing at Brent Cross and Old Oak Common to Central London and further afield.
‘Air rights’ Bristol apartments to be built over car park
Bristol City Council has approved plans for a private developer to use ‘air rights’ to build a new ground-breaking design in the St George area of the city which will house eleven apartment flats, at no charge to developers over a 30-year lease.
New regulations in new builds could mean an end to gas heating
A new standard bans the use of fossil fuel heating from new builds to reduce carbon emissions and could make gas central heating a thing of the past.
Victory for postal workers brings EU letterbox regulations
Concerns raised as long ago as 1958 have finally been agreed in a landmark victory for postal workers across the UK after the government agreed to alter building regulations on letterbox heights later this year.
 English Housing Survey
The latest national English Housing Survey headline report has been published. The survey covers a range of topics including energy efficiency, home tenure and household movement between tenure categories, housing costs and expectations, housing stock condition and variations in housing circumstances.
New housing not reflecting income or demand
The term ‘affordable housing’ describes lower rent properties that are available to eligible households that are unable to afford the full market value. However, homes let under the ‘affordable’ banner may be decidedly ‘unaffordable’ to those on a low income, as rent is capped at 80% of the full market rate but crucially does not take account of local wages.
Gove makes £870,000 at taxpayers’ expense as MPs handed £42 million gift
160 MPs have benefited from a windfall of £42 million, paid for in part by taxpayers’ contributions to their mortgage interest payments and property running costs.
Wrexham developer ‘blackmails’ council
Wrexham Council has pulled the planning permission on a development that promised to deliver badly needed affordable housing to Wrexham after councillors accused the developer, Mandale Group, of making misleading statements.
Time to give your home a spring makeover?
In the current uncertain property market it is understandable that many householders are staying put, but in doing so, we have spent around £48 billion improving our homes over the last five years.
And finally …
Could redesigned buildings really ‘solve’ Brexit?
Could an architect’s tongue-in-cheek proposal of bringing light, open plan and collaborative spaces into the ‘confrontational design’ at the Palace of Westminster inject life into Brexit as well as the tired old buildings?
Written by Independent Chartered Surveyors
of the UK wide network of Property Professionals
This newsletter is a free service by PropertySurveying.co.uk for those with an interest in the UK Property Market. As well as being posted online here, it is emailed direct to our subscribers all across the country.
Subscribe to receive this newsletter by email every month (we promise never to share your details with a third party). The next newsletter will be published in May.
Email us at:Â office@propertysurveying.co.uk
© PropertySurveying.co.uk