Tag Archives: drawing
Consumer group blasts new second home property tax as dangerous and flawed
The new 3% surcharge on second homes in the UK is dangerously flawed and it could harm the very homeowner that the government wants to help, it is claimed. According to the Home Owners Alliance, a consumer group for home owners, said that while the surcharge is welcome in principle, the way it is going to work is not helpful due to a number of situations which have not been taken into account. In its response to the proposed change due to take effect from 01 April, the HOA says it is so overly complex and flawed that it will lead to massive unintended consequences. ‘It is great the government is trying to use stamp duty to help home owners, but they have made a real hash of it. The ridiculously complex way they are planning to introduce the scheme will end up harming many of the very home owners it is meant to help, and lead to widespread confusion among home buyers,’ said Paula Higgins, HOA chief executive. ‘We are already being contacted by distressed home owners who have worked out they will be caught by it, and not be able to buy the home they want to. Rather than push ahead with a well-intentioned but dangerously flawed scheme, it should go back to the drawing board and put it right,’ she added. In its consultation response, the HOA has suggested many remedies to iron out some of the worst problems with the proposals, but points out that almost none of the problems would exist if the government used the more simple system. ‘It is really simple, no one should pay the stamp duty surcharge if they are going to buy a home to live in, and home owners need confidence that will be the case. However, if you are buying a residential property for any other purpose, you should pay the surcharge,’ said Higgins. The HOA consulted widely with members and other stakeholders, and identified various problems. It pointed out that many ordinary buyers who are not buying a holiday home or one to let out will be hit by the 3% stamp duty surcharge at the last minute, forcing them to give up purchasing their new home. For example, a first time buyer will be charged the stamp duty surcharge if they jointly purchase their home with someone who already owns a property and they could pay more stamp duty than an existing home owner with a major property portfolio. Separating couples could be hit by the surcharge when one of them sets up a new family home and people moving to new build homes where the timetable is dictated by the developer will generally have to pay the stamp duty surcharge, only to reclaim it from the government later. This will particularly hit hard stretched pensioner downshifters moving into newly built retirement homes, says the document. Also, home owners who move for work and rent out their homes… Continue reading
Court rulings in Spain create more uncertainty over illegal homes
Three rulings by Spain's Supreme Court have left the owners of more than 16,500 homes built in Marbella since 1986 in legal limbo by declaring planning regulations void. In a series of decisions, the country's highest court has declared null and void Marbella's urban planning regulations that were passed in 2010 and which legalised thousands of homes constructed since the previous town plans, dating back to 1986, were approved. In response to appeals against previous Supreme Court of Andalusia rulings, the rulings all arrived at the same conclusions, namely that the Town Council does not have power to retroactively declare legal properties that have been built illegally as that rests with the courts, nor to alter land classifications, nor legal liabilities. According to Adam Neal of real estate firm Terra Meridiana it means that individual property owners, even those who bought in good faith, will be held liable for illegal constructions, rather than passing the responsibility on to developers, as the 2010 plan sought to do. He explained that much of the problem arose during the three terms of the GIL (Grupo Independiente Liberal) government, from 1991 to 2003. The then mayor Jesús Gil is regarded as having run the council like a fiefdom, with claims of cash being funnelling under the table in exchange for carte blanche building licenses. ‘Subsequent administrations, under mayors Julián Muñoz, Marisol Yagüe, and Tomás Reñones, all sentenced to jail time for offences following the Caso Malaya scandal, were little better, leading to the suspension of the entire Town Council in 2006 by the central government, to make way for a team of auditors who tried to unravel Marbella's finances,’ he said. Neal believes that now all the paperwork for every property built within Marbella's municipal area since 1986 will need to be looked at very carefully indeed. ‘There are two possible outcomes: either a property is legal, because it was built on urban land as per the 1986 town plan, or it isn't, because it wasn't,’ he pointed out. According to Mark Stucklin of Spanish Property Insight it is bad news for the local property market, which was one of the few real estate bright spots in Spain until now. ‘It drags Marbella’s reputation back into the dirt by reminding people of its corrupt past, whilst the uncertainty will put off buyers and investors,’ he said. He pointed out that the decision could mean no more new building licences for the foreseeable future, plunging the residential construction business back into crisis just when it looked like recovering after more than a decade of downturn. Ricardo Arranz, president of the National Association of Urbanisation Developers, said the decision was right and expected. He explained that the industry welcomes the demise of the 2010 revised plan. ‘It was an unmanageable plan, absurd in every way and had started to scare off investors. It was done in a hurry by architects who knew absolutely nothing about the needs… Continue reading
Rabobank Report Finds U.S. Land Values Will Level
By Agri-Pulse staff ST. LOUIS, Sept. 19, 2013 -The era of extremely low interest rates and extraordinarily high commodity prices is drawing to a close, according to a new report from the Rabobank Food & Agribusiness (FAR) Research and Advisory group. As this trend nears an end, the prices of U.S. land values will level. “We’ll likely see lower commodity prices this year, but they aren’t going to be low enough long enough to substantially impact land values over the coming year or so,” says report author and Rabobank Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory (FAR) senior analyst, Sterling Liddell. “In the short term, strong farmer balance sheets and high rental rates will support current levels. However decreasing commodity prices will keep the values from accelerating as rapidly as they have been.” The report, “Land Values Peaking Out-But Not Down,” finds in the medium term, the single greatest risk to U.S. agricultural land values is looming higher interest rates. Interest rates have been increasing through the first half of 2013, but based on the current Federal Reserve policy, a significant increase isn’t expected until 2014 or 2015. “We are entering an era where planning how you’re going to pay for your land is likely to become as important as planning for marketing your crop,” notes Liddell. The report forecast finds a decline in land values in the central U.S. of 15 to 20 percent over the next three years. In the Western and Southeast U.S., the decline will be less marked than in the Midwest. Corn was the leader in the commodity price boom, so as land values decrease in the Midwest, there is likely to be a general decrease across the Central U.S. as far south as Louisiana, the report explains. Rabobank also notes that while an increase in interest rates will have a similar impact on agricultural land values throughout the country, the amount of change will depend on the type of crop production and proximity to urban areas. Continue reading
