It’s not often that we blow our own trumpet but we are thrilled to announce that we have been shortlisted out of scores of firms to receive a coveted ESTAS Award for best regional Estate Agent’s Office (Southern England). The industry equivalent of the Baftas will be held at the Park Lane Hilton in May and we are looking foward to it with great excitement!
The pertinent thing about these estate agent awards is that they are categorised specifically for exceptional service, as voted for by both vendor clients and buyers that we had the pleasure of dealing with in 2013. Mark and I are so grateful to all customers who took the trouble to cast their vote and to all the wonderful testimonials that we received…and are rather embarassed!
Watch this space…even if we don’t get to make a speech we are delighted to have had such a positive impact on the sales that we have handled and the people that we have helped over the year and we aim to continue this with enthusiasm into 2014 and beyond.
Some prospective buyers can be put off properties that are listed fearing that they will not be able to make any improvements to their new home. This is a common misconception. True, should you want to make significant alterations to a listed house you are required to obtain Listed Building Consent first but it is not the default position of planning authorities to refuse all applications and that the building must be wrapped up in cotton wool for ever more and become a museum piece. One way of looking at it is that the listing status of a home is an endorsement of its historic character and special features.
English Heritage, who act as an advisory body to the Government on the country’s unique historic places, suggest that listing is not a preservation order preventing change but simply a list of buildings identified as being of special historic or architectural interest that require consent before making changes that might affect its important status. A Listed building may be altered, added to or even demolished within planning guidelines and indeed, Rural View have sold countless listed homes that have been substantially extended or refurbished.
Whether consent is given depends on a number of factors including the listing grade of the building, what is being proposed, whether it is in a conservation area and the type of materials to be used. The interpretation of what works might impact on the special quality of a property can be subjective and down to the judgement of the local planning department’s conservation officer. Some conservation officers can have a reputation for being quite pedantic, even obstructive but by and large they are helpful and supportive of schemes that are sympathetic to the unique qualities of the property and neighbourhood. My advice is that wherever possible, work with rather than against them.
All buildings built before 1700 that are anything like in their original condition are listed as a matter of course and most built before 1840. There are approximately 376,000 Listed buildings in England of which 92% are classified Grade II as being of national importance, whilst Grade II* are regarded as being of particular importance (5.5%) and Grade I exceptional importance (2.5%). You can check if a property is listed on English Heritage’s website www.english-heritage.org.uk .
The listing status includes not only the core building (both internally and externally) but also any additions to it and buildings on the land attached to it, i.e. within its curtilage. It is important to bear in mind that it is a criminal offence to carry out unauthorised work to a listed property. An owner of a listed property can be obliged to rectify any breeches made after it was first listed even if the work was carried out by a previous owner some years ago. Therefore if buying a listed building make sure that your solicitor obtains all documentation relating to previous consents.
The sort of work that one would normally require consent for would be for things like adding extensions, removing internal walls, replacing doors or windows, painting over brickwork or altering chimneys. Updating or replacing existing modern fittings such as kitchen and bathrooms or routine maintenance does not usually require consent. If you are not sure whether or not you need Listed Building Consent to carry our certain tasks, consult with the local conservation officer first and they will tell you if you need to submit an application.
Most owners of listed homes tend to be the type of people who appreciate and value the special charm and character of a period property or one of architectural interest. They can rightly claim to be custodians of the country’s heritage.
As 2015 gets underway, we look to the year ahead and wonder what it has in store for us. At the moment there is a good deal of uncertainty as to how the housing sector will perform this year. The collapse of oil prices, free falling values of some of the World’s major currencies and a weak Eurozone has led to a fragile global economy and coupled with the prospect of a close general election, the outlook is one of caution.
Despite improved trading conditions in 2014 and the recent welcome overhaul of the stamp duty system, many commentators are forecasting UK house prices to remain virtually static in 2015 and for the London market not to be quite as buoyant as it has been in recent years. However prospects for the country sector appear to be more upbeat with the expectation that rural towns and villages, particularly in Southern England, will continue to perform well.
As is ever the case, attractive rural and village cottages and houses for sale or let in the areas covered by Rural View including South Wiltshire, North Dorset, South Somerset and West Hampshire are sure to remain in strong demand particularly those in the most desirable locations.
For some years now the vast majority of home buyers have house hunted almost exclusively on-line. The days of relying just on advertisements in the local press or popping into the estate agent on the High Street have all but gone and in this digital age the mouse is king!
Bearing in mind the number of property transactions throughout the UK during the course of a year (roughly one million in 2013), it is perhaps surprising that there are so few property related portals with just three major websites; Rightmove, Zoopla and Primelocation. Rightmove is certainly the most dominant and is the 8th most viewed website in the UK. I used to refer to them as the Tesco’s of the internet but even Tesco’s at their height never had such a large share of the market.
Up until now the Zoopla Property Group has been the only serious competition for Rightmove and their heavy investment in highly visible marketing campaigns has meant that they remain a key player and attract large numbers of prospective buyers to their two sites; Zoopla and Primelocation.
Rightmove, being all too aware of their importance to estate agents and indeed, an agent not on their site might as well shut up shop, has for many years got away with commanding huge fees from their agent customers. The irritation that this has caused hundreds of estate agency firms up and down the country, large and small, has resulted in the formation of Agents Mutual and the launch on the 26th January of a new estate agents’ owned website called ‘On the Market’.
To ensure their commitment to the cause, to be able to advertise their clients’ homes on ‘On the Market’, Agents Mutual members are obliged to use only one other portal which means they have to drop either Rightmove or Zoopla/Primelocation. This is something that we at Rural View are uncomfortable with as we feel that this is restrictive and contradicts our duty to promote our vendor clients’ properties to as wide an audience as possible.
We certainly welcome the challenge to Rightmove but it is unlikely that many firms will have the nerve to ditch them and instead ZPG, whose two sites are popular and fees reasonable, will be the innocent if unintended victim leaving Rightmove as strong as they were before thereby defeating the raison d’etre of ‘On the Market’. We will be keeping a close eye on the new portal and will, as ever, act accordingly in the best interests of our clients.
As has been widely reported, the headline news in yesterday’s autumn statement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the much needed overhaul of the way Stamp Duty is calculated. The new system is much fairer and the vast majority (reputedly 98%) of buyers will now pay significantly less tax on residential property purchases that complete from today, 4th December and onwards.
Previously a buyer paid duty on the whole purchase price of the property, the rate being determined by which price band the house fell into. This was something that impacted on the saleability of homes whose true value fell just into the threshold of a higher band, for example the duty payable for a house that sold for £500,000 was £15,000 and for one that sold for £500,001, it was £20,000, the additional £1 costing a buyer an extra £5,000 in tax.
Under the new rules, the amount of duty is based on incremental bands. New rates have been set but a buyer only pays tax on the portion of the sale price that falls within each band. It has also resulted in the first £125,000 of any house purchase being free of any liability. The new bands and rates are set out below:
Purchase Price of Property New Rates
£0 – 125,000 0%
£125,001 – 250,000 2%
£250,001 – 925,000 5%
£925,001 – 1,500,000 10%
£1,500,001 and over 12%
Note that tax is paid on the part of the property price within each tax band
Notes from HM Treasury explaining the reforms in more detail can found on the link: Stamp duty – factsheet . There is also a link to an on-line calculator: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/tools/sdlt/land-and-property.htm
We completed on the sale of a client’s property this morning. Originally the completion date had been set for yesterday but by happy chance the seller and purchaser agreed a few days ago to change it to today, a lucky break for the buyer as she ended up saving £3,000!
There has been considerable speculation in the media since yesterday’s announcement as to what effect these changes will have on the housing sector with predictions that they may lead to fresh stimulation of market activity and a rise in property prices. It remains to be seen what will happen in reality and whilst lowering the cost of house buying is clearly good news for the industry, those of a more cautious disposition may argue that the positive impact will be negated by concerns about next year’s general election, the wider economy and possible interest rate rises.
If you have any views on these changes or would like further information, please get in touch, it would good to hear from you!
