For all kinds of professional work including; building surveys, structural surveys, home buyer reports and property valuations. We also do expert witness reports, party wall surveys and all other professional building surveyor work in and around the Cardiff area.
Tel: 029 2193 2193
Address:
Haywood House North,
Dumfries Place,
Cardiff,
CF10 3GA
The Government backed ‘Leasehold Advisory Service’ has recently released an advice note detailing the law relating to shared ownership leases. In light of this, we have created a short document to act as your guide to the subject.
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Dale Farm travellers set for eviction won an ‘11th hour’ reprieve on Monday 19th September after the High Court granted them an emergency injunction to delay Basildon Council from clearing structures on the site. But how did the travellers win a last minute legal victory?
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A new hotel near Paris, France, offers residents a unique take on a ‘room with a view’. The establishment provides clients with a dual experience: a night of lavish comfort and a view of the stars through the ceiling of their room, but with the atosphere inherent in the so called ‘City of Love’, perhaps transparent walls and absent curtains aren’t a great idea…
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As part of the Government’s wider initiative to combat the empty homes problem in the UK, a problem to the tune of reputedly 700,000 ‘void’ properties, the Department for Communities and Local Government released two online toolkits to help local communities and councils better identify empty homes and bring them back into use.
The first is the Geographical Information System (GIS) Empty Homes Mapping Toolkit, which plots the location of long-term empty homes in private ownership across the country. This has been developed to allow councils to pinpoint empty homes ‘hot spots’ in their area, and work with the landlords and local community to bring the derelict properties back into use.
The second is the Empty Homes Knowledge Toolkit, which is designed as a ‘one-stop shop’, giving local authorities, housing associations, empty property owners, landlords and the wider community access to everything they need to know about bringing properties back into use, including the legislative frameworks, partnership building and investment mechanisms.
Andrew Stunell MP commented:
“Long term empty properties easily fall into disrepair, attracting squatters, vandalism and anti-social behaviour, bringing down the neighbourhood and causing misery for neighbours.
“Local communities hold the keys to bringing these empty homes back into use and I hope these new toolkits encourage councils to work with them and the landlords to end the scandal of empty homes.
“They will sit alongside the new £100 million fund we have announced for refurbishing properties, and our commitment to match the council tax raised for every empty property brought back into use for six years. Together these are powerful incentives to encourage local areas to bring more properties back into use, and create new homes for thousands of families.”
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John Cridland, speaking at the CBI (Confederation of British Industry) North East annual dinner as Director General, called upon the chancellor to introduce measures to assist first-time buyers and those wanting to progress up the property ladder. These included an expansion upon the shared ownership programme and a scheme by which first time buyers could get finance by accessing savings in their personal pension pots via a loan back system, involving borrowing money from their pensions and paying it back through their salary.
“I want to see the chancellor use his autumn statement on 29 November to jump start the housing market,†he stated.
Read more about his speech here.
Do you need a survey in the Cardiff area? Click here to go to Keith Batten FRICS’s new propertysurveying website. Give him a call for a no obligations, freephone chat about how he can help.
Keith is the new Director of Right Surveyors Glamorgan. He has lived and worked in South Wales all his life. He is an experienced professional and provides all kinds of building surveys and professional consultation work. These include Property Surveys, Building Surveys, Structural Surveys, House Purchase Surveys, Homebuyers Reports, Major Defects Reports, Home Surveys and Property Valuations, Property Acquisition work, Party wall work and acting as an Independent Expert Witness.
A recent case in the Court of Appeal has ended with a ruling in favour of making lawful bankrupt tenant possession orders on grounds of rent arrears, a decision which could spell a significant blow to statutory insolvency protections, including bankruptcy and Debt Relief Orders, and the safety net they offer to debtors in the UK.
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In a move designed to strengthen tenants’ and landlords’ awareness of their rights and responsibilities, Housing Minister Grant Shapps has published helpful advice aimed at those letting or renting a property.
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In yet another mystifying revelation over local council expenditure, five councils in the North East spent £2,500 calling the speaking clock last year. This was wastage the equivalent of spending five full days calling the automated service – which provides the listener with the precise time – leading union leaders to reportedly describe the act as ‘baffling’.
Perhaps even more ‘baffling’ is the fact that the very same service can be found online….for free.
Tom Brennan, North East regional secretary of the GMB, said: “I can’t for the life of me see why councils should be using services like the talking clock.
“If you turn on the BBC, or the radio, you get the exact time for free.
“There are cases where it appears councils are spending unnecessary money and we would welcome any savings which don’t impact the public but help protect jobs. That is the most important thing at the moment.”
The figure is just a small part of the £50,000 the five councils are reported to have spent last year calling premium line telephone numbers. Newcastle City Council, for example, spent £13,163 calling Directory Enquiries alone.
In a period when councils must ‘tighten their belts’ and prepare to cut jobs and budgets, such unnecessary expenditure continues to confound many.
