Category: Building Regulations & Planning Section

Proceeds of Crime Act – Brent to Receive Over £500,000 for Illegal Landlord House Conversion

Property Surveying

Norwich Crown Court has this month reached a decision on a case concerning a landlord in Brent, London who converted a house into 12 flats without the appropriate planning consent. He faces well over £1.4m in fines.

£500,000 of this will be due to Brent Council and the total of £1.4m constitutes the largest damages order ever seen for an incident of this type – reflecting the earnings Mr Ali illegally made from renting out the properties.

Follow this link or the one above to find a surveyor in London if you are planning on purchasing property or converting property to flats. A Chartered Surveyor will be able to advise on planning implications and meeting Building Regulations.

First Day on Site Ends with Terrible Injuries

Nottingham Surveyors – A first day on site for a Nottinghamshire labourer near Worksop, ended with the employee hit by a falling excavator bucket. The result was the loss of one eye and part of his scalp, a punctured lung and a two week coma. The case has recently been brought before Mansfield Magistrate’s Court and resulted in 250 hours unpaid work and £300 towards legal costs for the excavator driver.

The case has been referred to the Crown Court for further sentencing of the construction company itself. It highlights the importance of Health and Safety and effective project management. To instruct a qualified professional to manage a project, click here.

Bristol Council releases solar property map

Bristol Building Surveyors – Bristol City Council has recently released a map which you can use to check your property’s suitability for solar panels. A user can simply type in their address and see a graphic of their property and the surrounding area, revealing an estimated potential for solar generation between ‘limited’ and ‘very good’.

Further details are listed, including estimated system size, electricity generation and CO2 savings.

Homes and Communities Agency agrees deal with a local authority to create around 700 new homes.

derbysurveyors.co.uk– Kier Partnership Homes has been appointed as the  development partner for the old Manor and Kingsway Hospital site in Derby, comprising a deal worth £100 million over 10 years.

The HCA and Derby Council chose Kier – whose proposals include a business park to support 450 jobs – after preparing the site for development. Of the 700 homes to be built, ‘a number’, yet to be disclosed, will be affordable.

Kier will now work with the healthcare service providers on the site to ensure the new scheme meshes with the provision of essential services. Works are planned to start on site in Autumn 2012.

More information can be found here, on the Inside Housing Website.

Consultation begins on Social Housing Allocation Guidance

The Government has released a consultation concerning new draft statutory guidance on social housing allocations for local authorities in England. Grant Shapps MP, Minister for Housing, hopes the guidance will help do away with the ‘injustice’ associated with the social housing system.

To read the full article, click here.

New Plan released by MPs Field and Davis could help shake up Social Housing Right to Buy scheme.

Two prominent MPs, David Davis (Conservative) and Frank Field (Labour), have put together a report suggesting that the Government go further with their proposed changes to the Right-to-Buy scheme – providing the opportunity for potentially another 1 million tenants to get on the property ladder.

To read the full article, click here.

Councils in fears over RTB effectiveness

PropertySurveying.co.uk – With the Government currently consulting on proposals to increase the maximum discount under Right to Buy (RTB) to £50,000, fears are growing around local authorities that new homes will not be assured as a result.

The consultation’s wording reiterates the Government’s commitment to replacing every social housing unit sold with another affordable home. Some councils, however, are arguing that the borrowing caps their financial resources are governed by restrict them from being able to raise the necessary capital for this goal. With unit values as low as £70,000 in some areas, some councils could be looking at receipts as low as £20,000 to build a new affordable house – something which the Communities and Local Government Department itself believes will cost £40,000 – £50,000 per unit.

Young people to be restricted to two year tenancies in London Borough

surveyorsbarnet.co.uk – The Council for Barnet in London has put forward plans to restrict tenants aged 18-25 to just two year tenancies as part of a shake up of its housing allocation policies.

The tenancy agreements would also be conditional upon unemployed tenants taking part in skills development, training or education which could lead to employment. They would, of course, be reviewed every two years; allowing the council to reallocate housing away from those, for example, not deemed to be trying hard enough to find gainful employment, and towards those deemed to deserve greater support.

Additionally, new tenants over the age of 25 would be offered a five year tenancy agreement, the minimum outlined by the Government.

Both measures are part of a wider exploitation of the powers gained through the recent Localism Act, with additional moves towards prioritising social housing for servicemen and women and towards tackling under occupation.

More information on under occupation and underused homes can be found here.

London’s Lloyd’s Building Now Grade 1 Listed

surveyorslondon.co.uk

At nearly twenty six years old, the Lloyd’s building is now one of the youngest listed buildings in the country and joins just a handful of post war structures to receive the accolade.

The listing was carried out by the Minister for Tourism and Heritage, John Penrose, on the advice of English Heritage.

English Heritage’s Designation Director Roger Bowdler said: “We are delighted that the Minister has endorsed our advice to list the landmark Lloyd’s building at Grade l. Its listing at the highest grade is fitting recognition of the sheer splendour of Richard Rogers’s heroic design. Its dramatic scale and visual dazzle, housing a hyper-efficient commercial complex, is universally recognised as one of the key buildings of the modern epoch.”

It is a world renowned structure and a building that has been described as “heroic and Cathedral like”.

To read more on listed buildings and how they affect you, click here.

For further information on VAT and listed buildings, click here.