Stamp Duty Threshold and the London Property Market

Increasing the starting threshold for Stamp Duty to £250,000 from £125,000 for first time buyers, will be be welcomed across the country; it was thought that the move will help 9/10 first time buyers.According to the site, FindaProperty.com, 43% of all properties currently for sale cost between £125,000 and £250,000, and with people buying at this range who will make the saving, the total saved in stamp duty from these sales could amount to a staggering £320,625,000.

But it is hardly likely to have the same impact in London and the South East where the cost of property is much higher and home-owners are more likely to be taxed by the chancellors measures; the increased stamp duty threshold is to be paid for by raising stamp duty on properties worth more than £1 million from 4% to 5%.

Comprando una Propiedad en Londres

Propiedad en Londres: Informacion para el Comprador

Comprar su casa puede parecer un viaje sin fin o una simple caminata alrededor del edificio

El tipo de jornada que escoja solo depende de Usted. Si se prepara con anticipacion y planea su destino, Usted puede hacer de la compra de su casa una placentera y divertida experiencia. Comprando una Propiedad en Londres

LDG West End de bienes y agentes de arrendamiento de casas, adosados, áticos, estudios, pisos y apartamentos en venta y en alquiler en el West End, Fitzrovia, Soho, Covent Garden, Bloomsbury y Marylebone áreas del centro de Londres.

Piccadilly Circus Gets £14m Pedestrian-friendly Revamp

BBC News are reporting that Piccadilly Circus will be made pedestrian-friendly as part of a £14m revamp, which will rid the busy central London junction of guard railings.
Westminster Council approved the plan that will see the area go back to what it looked like in 1963, as more than one kilometre of railings are uprooted.
A central island will be built along Piccadilly and Pall Mall and two-way traffic will be reintroduced.

Work will begin in November and is expected to end by December 2011.
As part of the revamp the pelican crossing in Pall Mall by St James's Square will be replaced with a zebra crossing and reintroduction of two-way streets from Piccadilly Circus along Piccadilly, St James's Street and Pall Mall is expected to reduce congestion in the area.

London Council Tax 0.1% Rise

Council Tax in England will rise this year by the smallest amount since the tax was introduced in 1993, according to the country’s most authoritative survey, released today by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA).

The CIPFA survey shows that England will see a rise in the 2010/11 Band D average bill of 1.8% to £1,438.72. The rise in 2009/10 was 3.0% (£1,413.84) which was itself the lowest rise for 15 years.

London councils are recording the lowest rises of any region with many councils, particularly those in inner London, freezing or reducing their Council Tax levels. Overall, households in the capital can expect to see a small 0.1% increase.

English regions outside London will be subject to higher rises, with the South West expected to see the highest increase of 2.5%. The average increase outside London is 2.1%.

The survey predicts that Welsh Council Tax payers will have a rise in the Band D average bill of 3.6%, the highest in the UK. This will mean an average Band D payment of £1,125.77, which is still £312.95 lower than the average in England.

Most Scottish councils are expected to maintain a freeze on Council Tax levels for 2010.

The CIPFA survey, carried out in conjunction with the BBC, analysed the Council Tax settlements of more than half of English and Welsh local authorities, in what is the most comprehensive and accurate examination of town hall finances for the coming year.

Ian Carruthers, CIPFA’s Head of Policy said:

‘This 1.8% rise demonstrates that local politicians have generally heeded Government calls to avoid large increases. However, councils will be facing increasing financial pressures in the coming years, which could result in cuts in some services.’

Green Leases Introduced for April 2010

The Residential Landlords Association reports that Britain is introducing so-called “Green Leases” in April and while the new scheme will at first only impact the largest commercial landlords and tenants, the programme’s success will determine whether or not it is introduced for the residential property sector as well at a later date. When a landlord and tenant sign a green lease, they agree to take measures that may reduce a given building’s carbon emissions, make the residential property more energy efficient and control waste.

The programme is seen as the first in a series of steps to impact the rental sector, which the government hopes will help it meet its ambitious target of reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent within the next 40 years. The Energy Efficiency Scheme amounts to a carbon trading programme, where landlords with properties that used more than 6,000 megawatt hours of energy in 2008 participate by lowering emissions. According to the plan, the largest landlords and organizations will have to buy allowances, in order to cover their carbon emissions.

Government officials, however, promise that the scheme will be revenue neutral, in that the money collected will be redistributed each year, based in part on how much a given landlord or organization has done to reduce its carbon emissions. But there are concerns among landlords that it may be difficult to ensure that tenants are also actively trying to be more energy-efficient, especially if they are not the ones required to pay extra for non-compliance.

This is why some landlords will turn to green leases, with some going as far as to stipulate financial penalties for tenants who sign, but do not make an effort to remain energy efficient. But some suggest that so-called “light green leases” will become more common, and these will encourage a concern for sustainability among tenants and will ask them to sign a memorandum of understanding, but will shy away from imposing financial penalties.

Over 65s Own Property Worth £765.18bn

New research commissioned by independent equity release adviser Key Retirement Solutions has revealed that British pensioners have property wealth totalling circa £765.18bn.

The news comes as the housing market continues its hesitant recovery, and marks the launch of Key Retirement Solutions’ Pensioner Property Equity Index which intends to measure the property wealth of the over 65s every quarter.

Most property wealth is in the south east (£123.44bn) with London in second place (£122.65bn).

Business Development Director Dean Mirfin has stressed that the housing market was hard hit by the recent economic woe and emphasised the fragility of the recovery.

Mirfin went on to say that as many properties were purchased decades ago they nevertheless represent a phenomenal success in financial terms for the country’s pensioners, and offer a potential income unaffected by low interest rates which are making savings accounts less attractive.

Insurance Daily

61% of Renters Cannot Afford to Buy in 2010

Nearly two thirds of tenants cannot afford to buy residential properties reports the Residential Landlords Association.Rightmove’s first Consumer Confidence survey for 2010 found that 61 percent of all tenants in Britain contemplated purchasing a home, rather than renting, but will not be able to do so in the foreseeable future, for financial reasons.

While real estate prices are still noticeably lower than they were two years ago, this decline in values has not been enough to give most tenants a realistic chance of purchasing their own home, without taking on a massive debt. Even when these loans are available, many tenants are also hesitant to assume such large mortgages at a time when the job market has yet to recover and when renting offers more flexibility to move from one region to another in search of employment.

The number of tenants who feel that residential property prices are too high for them to even consider a purchase has been rising for the past three quarters, according to Rightmove’s surveys. Many other tenants are simply unable to meet the more stringent mortgage requirements, especially the hefty deposits that are required for a successful loan application. The majority of tenants also indicated that they expected to continue renting for the foreseeable future.

Approximately 55 percent of respondents expected to rent for the remainder of the year and for as long as three more years, while nearly one third of all tenants (31 percent) anticipated renting for more than three years. Rightmove noted that the results of the current survey indicate that 2010 may very well be the “Year of the Landlord.”