News and Updates

A new report by Barbour ABI has indicated that the value of residential construction contracts across England and Wales in 2017 was over £21 billion. In all regions, except for London, Wales and the East Midlands, investment in 2017 was higher than in 2016. However, a significant fall in investment across the capital means the total figure for England and Wales as a whole remains...

To date in 2018 properties have taken an average of two months to sell, (the period between them being first marketed and 'sold subject to contract') according to data produced by Rightmove. How long a property takes to sell is dependent on a whole range of factors - price, location, condition and time of year to name but a few, but despite challenging market conditions in many areas,...

Treasury coffers have netted close to £9.3 billion in SDLT (Stamp Duty Land Tax) receipts on 1.1 million residential transactions across the UK in 2017–18. While sales volumes rose by just 1% over this last year, residential tax receipts rose by 8%. The mean amount of SDLT paid per residential transaction was £8,700. Over a quarter of a million (252,000) properties...

HM Treasury has recently updated its consensus forecast for UK house price growth over the next five years. Property prices are expected to rise by 2.8% during 2018, higher than many predicted at the start of the year. While the Governor of the Bank of England has stated house prices may fall by a third in the event of a ‘no-deal’ Brexit, a situation that has occurred only...

Managing a work-life balance in the era of the smart phone, with its incessant dings as yet another email drops through the inbox, is a twenty-first century challenge. And it is not only our mobile devices that have blurred the boundaries. Our offices have become more like homes and our homes are far more likely to include working areas. Much has been written about the changing nature of...