The simple answer is a resounding “YES”. BBC News reported this week that the number of people looking to buy residential property in the UK has fallen by 18% in a month and is down 40% on this time last year. Increasing interest rates have priced many potential buyers of residential property out of the…
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The widely reported cost of living crisis is causing significant financial problems for many families. Private tenants have felt the pinch as rents and the cost of utilities have increased. If you are a private landlord, you may recently have had the unhappy experience of your tenant(s) failing to pay rent due to you on…
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Gifted deposits have become increasingly commonplace in recent years as young people are finding it incredibly difficult to get on the property ladder without financial assistance. If you are gifting a sum of money to a child or other family member, you will be asked to comply with a number of regulatory requirements. Firstly, you…
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If the seller dies between exchange of contracts and completion of the transaction, the contract remains valid and the benefit and burden will pass to the seller’s Personal Representatives (Executors if the seller made a Will or Administrators if the seller died intestate i.e. without a Will). The practical situation for dealing with completion varies…
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Stamp Duty Land Tax (“SDLT”) is a lump sum payment anyone buying a property or piece of land over a certain price has to pay to Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (“HMRC”). Chancellor Rishi Sunak today announced that, as a temporary measure, but with immediate effect, buyers won’t pay SDLT on the first £500,000 of…
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This is a question that I have been asked numerous times over the past few weeks. The answer is dependent on if contracts have been Exchanged or not; if contracts have been Exchanged then generally “yes”, if they have not then generally “no”. In essence “no one is bound in a sale and/or purchase transaction…
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We have recently been approached by a number of residential landlords who have been told by their letting agent that they have no prospect of getting a tenant out of their investment property any time soon; the anxiety and frustration is palpable when we are posed the question “But the Tenant isn’t paying the rent!…
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In recent years, commercial tenants have taken shorter leases or leases with break clauses in order to allow them flexibility due to uncertainty in the economic climate. A break clause allows a tenant a right to terminate its lease before the expiry of a fixed term. Serving a break notice should be a relatively straightforward…
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The law of restrictive covenants is a complex area and a mystery to many landowners, some of whom believe that restrictive covenants cannot be challenged, however, this is not the case. Restrictive covenants affecting land arise out of an agreement that one party will restrict the use of its land in some way for the…
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A general guide “Conveyancing” is the legal process of transferring home ownership from the seller to the buyer. Whilst every transaction is different, there are a number of crucial steps in the legal process that are common to each sale and purchase transaction and we have outlined these below by way of a general guide….
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