Tag Archives: legal
Rental market expected to be stronger than sales in some parts of London
This year is expected to bring fewer sales and more letting transactions, with strong rental markets across London’s Midtown, City and Docklands, a new report suggests. There will be a two tier sales market with demand for properties up to £1 million continuing to attract buyers and a slower market at prices over £1 million, according to the latest report from property advisors and development consultants Hurford Salvi Carr. However, as the market slowed in 2014, two segments of the market bucked the trend, it reveals. ‘Demand for entry level one bed apartments continued to outstrip supply so that it will be no easier to buy a pied a terre in Central London in 2015 than it was in 2014,’ the report says. The other segment to buck the trend was Docklands, where demand strengthened, as buyers looked to East London, to deliver value for money, although plentiful supply kept a lid on price increases. Over the whole year, property prices rose by an average of 4% in 2014 in City, Midtown and Docklands. Strong demand from UK buy to let investors is expected in 2015 with a concentration on sub £750,000 levels where returns are most attractive. The firm also says that buyers from the UK dominated the residential markets in 2014, accounting for almost 70% of sales, in comparison to 54% in the first half of 2013 and 61% in 2013. Other European buyers also increased their share by a small margin but the big shift was in the proportion of Asian nationals, which dropped from 17% of sales in 2013 to 7% in 2014. Almost 70% of tenants who rented homes through Hurford Salvi Carr in 2014 were overseas nationals. Overall the split was 32% British, 31% other European and 37% from elsewhere in the world with Asians being the most dominant group within that. The Docklands attracted the highest proportion of British tenants at 43%, whereas Midtown attracted more Asian tenants and the City attracted more American tenants. The most common occupation for a tenant is in the financial sector, closely followed by students. The financial sector was more prevalent in the City and Docklands, where it made up over 30%, while students were by far the most common group in Midtown, where they accounted for 62% of all lettings. The relatively high proportion of Asian tenants in Midtown reflects the demand from overseas students at top universities such as UCL, King’s College and LSE. Continue reading
UK house price sentiment moderates
Almost 20% of households in the UK perceived that the value of their home rose in January, according to the latest House Price Sentiment Index which reveals a downward trend in 2014. Some 19.5% of the 1,500 households surveyed across the UK said that the value of their home had risen over the last month, while 3.1% reported a fall, the data from Knight Frank and Markit Economics shows. This gave the HPSI a reading of 58.2, the twenty second consecutive month that the reading has been above 50. The index report points out that the HPSI was on a general downward trend for most of the second half of 2014. January’s reading of 58.2, the lowest in 14 months, was a continuation of this trend and well below the average reading for last year of 61. In spite of the month on month fall, households in all 11 regions covered by the index reported that prices rose in January, led by Londoners at 65.3 and households in the South East at 63, while, households in the North West at 53 and Wales at 53.9 perceived the slowest rates of price growth over the course of the month. In London, perceptions of house price growth moderated compared to the previous month and stand well below the previous high of 74.9 in April last year, suggesting that households are less confident that the value of their property has risen than previously. The future HPSI, which measures what households think will happen to the value of their property over the next year, fell in January to 69.5, down from 70.5 the previous month. This was the second consecutive monthly fall in house price expectations across the UK. The future HPSI stands well below its record high of 75.1, which was seen in May 2014. Households in London at 75.3 are the most likely to expect price rises over the next 12 months, followed by those in the South West at 75.1 and the South East at 74.9, the index shows. Expectations of price growth are highest among mortgage borrowers and those who own their home outright with readings of 75.8 and 71.3 respectively, followed by those living rent free at 66.8. ‘House price sentiment has slowed across the country despite the cut in stamp duty introduced by the Chancellor in December. Households in London and the South East signal slower annual rises in house prices this month than last month, an important development as these areas have been the engines of high house price growth over the last year,’ said Grainne Gilmore, head of UK residential research at Knight Frank. ‘Even the prospect of record-low interest rates being in place for longer than anticipated has not been enough to lift expectations for house price growth on a monthly basis in January, however this, coupled with an expected rise in wage growth will likely result in modest price uplifts over 2015,’ she added. Tim Moore, senior economist at… Continue reading
Landlords facing serious court delays on evictions due to cuts
Under resourced county courts in England are exasperated by the number of possession claims being put forward, resulting in costly delays for landlords, it is claimed. According to tenant eviction service Landlord Action it has become such a problem in the last three months that chasing up cases with the courts is now a full time role for one member of their in-house legal team. The vast majority of residential possession claims are dealt with in the county courts and enforced by county court bailiffs. However, government spending cuts, an ever growing number of possession cases which have increased around 15% on last year, are leading to overload. On top of this the firm points out that some courts are insisting that bailiffs must no longer act alone, only in pairs, and this has added to serious delays in the eviction process. ‘We are forever chasing courts for updates on possession orders, Notice of Issues or bailiff appointments. By the courts' own admission, cases are getting overlooked, administrative errors are being made and there are simply not enough bailiffs to support the number of cases, leading to long delays,’ said Julie Herbert, head of legal at Landlord Action. This is having serious implications for landlords who are not only losing thousands of pounds in unpaid rent but racking up more legal costs the longer a case goes on. Some landlords, who are unable to meet mortgage payments as a result, even face possible repossession, in addition to the added risk of their property being left uninhabitable by current tenants, where communication has broken down. One landlord, Mr Waller, has had severe delays with his case as a result of the courts losing his claim, twice. Landlord Action finally obtained a hearing date, which took place on 24 November. ‘Our eviction case has been delayed for almost a year due to severe maladministration by the courts. Files were repeatedly lost and the inefficiency we and Landlord Action encountered was astounding,’ said Waller. ‘This has been a deeply frustrating experience for us as landlords, but an even more harrowing one for our tenant who desperately wants to be rehoused by the council and needs a court order. We're in an impossible catch 22 situation, which only the courts can resolve. The negligence and insouciance of certain individuals are quite literally destroying people's lives,’ he added. Herbert of Landlord Action said another common frustration is when a possession order has been granted and a bailiff appointment confirmed, but the tenant makes a last minute application because they have nowhere else to go. ‘The standard procedure is that a hearing has to be considered by a judge. We recently learnt that many of these applications don't even reach a judge, who would have the authority to strike out an application based on the information already provided,’ she explained. ‘Instead, the knee jerk reaction of court staff is to set down a hearing date, in which everyone is dragged to court,… Continue reading
