Green building experts look to brown field sites to create the most environmentally friendly developments. The use of existing brown field sites can save not only on infrastructure costs in both monetary and environmental terms but also allows the reuse of floor slabs as arrogate and the possibility of reclaiming other materials such as bricks and roof coverings. There is also increased interest in the use of rural exception schemes that allows locals to buy new rural developments at discounted rates. These schemes use covenants on the properties sold to allow them to be sold at a discount to market value to genuine local residents. They work through land owners being given some of the planning gain by selling agricultural land between its value as agricultural land and its value as a potential development plot. The savings in the land purchase price is then passed onto the local buyers in the form of a percentage discount from market value like those used in the right to buy scheme. These discounts are then passed onto other local residents when the property is sold on in the future. The rural acceptance scheme has three fold benefits, the land owner receives uplift in value, local people get access to affordable housing, and the local authority get new build development properties towards their development targets.
Green builders call for brown field development sites as well as rural acceptance schemes
April 15, 2012
How to obtain planning permission for a site outside the village envelope?
April 9, 2012
Many planning consultants and town planners are waiting with great interest to see how the new planning guide lines will create planning precedence and effect planning applications outside the geographical plans for local authority strategic development. With the new planning guidelines presuming in favour of sustainable development what will this mean in real terms. The answer is that no one really knows, even house builders and developers have mixed opinions on whether it will make gaining planning permissions easier. For those holding potential development sites outside of the areas zoned for future development this law change could act as a lottery win. With rough figures for agricultural land fetching 4-8K per acre and development land with the correct permissions fetching 80-180K an acre you can see why site owners will invest heavily in planning consultants. Some planning consultants will chose to “work at risk”, and spilt the planning gains. This is good news for site owners as it means they can add value to their development sites by gaining planning permission without potentially incurring professional fees of tens of thousands of pounds at risk. The down side for the site owner is that they could potentially be giving away tens of thousands of pounds in planning gain profits.
Dilapidation repairs to commercial buildings
April 6, 2012
Business owners are often faced with a need for a base to operate their businesses, a commercial business premises. This could be retail, industrial or office space the two main options to acquire a business premises if through purchase or lease. The majority of businesses chose to lease their business premises. So just like renting a private house you usual look round the local business premises agent’s usually commercial surveyors. The other option is to retain the services of a commercial surveyor to assist you in the acquisition of your new business premises. This of course comes with a cost in the form of professional fees, many elect to do it themselves to avoid these fees. The issue with this is that the surveyor that will assist in acquiring your premises will have expert knowledge in lease negotiations. If a business owner elects to negotiate his own lease or in some cases retains a lawyer to help him there is still a gap in the process. One of the biggest problems that affect business tenants is dilapidations. If you take on a least on a business premises you may find that under the terms of that lease you as the tenant have certain legal responsibilities. The two that often catch out the unsuspecting tenant are dilapidations and a responsibility to maintain statuary requirements. The responsibility to maintain statuary requirements sounds harmless enough but could like dilapidations land a business tenant with some costly bills from building or mechanical and electrical contractors. You may find you have signed a lease that requires you to alter the businesses premises to keep up with modern building regulations, fire regulations or the disabled access regulations. These requirements could land you with invoices for building works running into tens of thousands of pounds. Dilapidations can be equally onerous, if you move in and on week two find a leak on the roof. Your friendly building contractor informs you that the whole roof needs replacing you call the landlord and you may not like his response. He may inform you to check the terms of the lease and inform you that it is now your responsibility to pay for the twenty five thousand pounds that it will cost to replace the roof. You may also find that the landlord is within their rights to serve you with a notice for non compliance to the terms of the lease if you do not affect the repairs in a timely fashion. Ultimately this could result in the landlord taking legal steps to take back possession of the property and recover their costs for the repairs, lack of rent etc. So you can see it may be worth paying for professional fees to protect your position once you sign a lease. A good surveyor will be able to negotiate your lease perhaps even saving you money and protect you from these issues.
Commercial property agents face fines over energy performance certificates
April 3, 2012
It is estimated that well over half of commercial property agents are currently on the wrong side of EPC regulation. With the change in regulations on the 6th of April property agents will also be responsible for making sure that commercial properties have the correct energy performance certificate in place when marketing a commercial property. If they do not comply with this regulation they will be receiving a visit from the trading standards compliance team. These regulations originating from Brussels will add another regulatory burden to property agents many are already governed by various regulations and professional bodies. If their mortgage department are not keeping up with FSA compliance their surveyors are making sure they keep up to date with Royal institute of chartered surveyor’s guidance and now they will have further regulation and paper work to monitor and complete. This is good news for EPC providers and of course office suppliers who will have a good opportunity to sell more filling cabinets.
Solid results delivered by UK Commercial Property Trust
March 20, 2012
The Guernsey based commercial property giant has delivered impressive £53million pounds of profit for the 2011 period. They produced these figures party because of good acquisitions and an enviable void rate of 3.4 percent down from 3.6 percent in the previous year. They achieved this while only booking £5 million pound portfolio uplift. Their portfolio is valued at £1.052 billion increasing 9 percent on the previous year’s holdings, with a net asset per share value hovering over 77 pence per share. They are well liked in the industry because of their low borrowings and a strong war chest of a cash facility. The company has performed well in the various key performance indicators of this type of Property Company. With good acquisitions, a high rental collection, low voids and an impressive tenant base.
Do I need a building contract for my home extension or building project?
March 17, 2012
Many home owners are concerned that they will get what they want and the quality they desire for their home extension or building project. The most important thing is that you do have a suitable level of documentation for the type of home extension or building project you are undertaking. With even a small home extension project it is important that you have enough detail in the building quotation or building tender document. It is no good starting a fifty thousand pound project with a single A4 page quote that says build as drawing. The more detail you can specify from the outset not only are you more lightly to get what you want at the price agreed. You will also find that your building contractors will be able to quote “like for like” the last thing you want is beautiful oak windows to then find your contractor had priced for MDF window boards. That is exactly the type of detail that can trip up a client or leave the building contractor faced with a difficult conversation. There is various documentation that is used in a building contract, a schedule of works, this outlines the various components and the installation or construction costs. The preliminaries, specification and workmanship document details the finest details of finishing and the relative specification for each trade and professional construction project section. The other document that is often used for a building contract is a JCT or joint contractual tribunal building contract of which there are various types from DB (design and build) through to more simple JCT contracts like Minor Works Building Contract. These documents when used correctly are more than sufficient to cover most domestic building works contracts.
Close Brothers delivers strong profits with gains in the development funding sector
March 16, 2012
Close Brothers has not only delivered substantial profits it has also increased its loan book by an additional nine percent to 3.8 billion. They are well known by the property industry and commercial development loan brokers as the first port of call for speculative property development funding. They have also reported a substantial reduction on bad debts down to 1.7 percent of their loan book. This takes their bad debts very close to the ten year average of 1.6 percent. Their property division has increased their loan book by just short of 20 percent to over 650 million pounds. They have enjoyed a period of relatively low competition but as with all economics the laws of supply and demand always follow market conditions. So will we see 2012 as the start of other specialist lenders returning to fund speculative property development lending?
Property developers and regeneration consultants look beyond the banks for mezzanine funding
March 13, 2012
With record low levels of bank lending, the banks appetite for lending on commercial property and speculative development projects is heavily reduced. Many property developers and surveyors are looking to alternative sources of development funding, the banks are holding around £280 billion of loan notes secured by commercial property. This as a proportion of their balance sheet is leaving them looking to avoid any additional lending to this sector in an attempt to spread their risk. It seems the best way around these challenges is to use a percentage of traditional primary bank lending with lending vehicles like tax incremental funding, regional growth funds, and enterprise zones topped up with private investment and mezzanine funding. There is some frustration in the property industry that tax incremental funding (T.I.F) is being drawn into other related amendments to business rate schemes. As with all finance and business success it is the most innovative schemes that will deliver the best results for the community, developers and ultimately private investors.
Period property conversion and renovation specialists
March 10, 2012
Building work carried out badly to period property will not only devalue the property it can also potentially cause thousands of pounds of damage. The use of cement based renders, pointing and finishing, stop period properties from “breathing”, they were built with lime based mortar and need to be able to dry through render and mortar. So before you start work on a period property ask your contractor the right questions and ask to speak to some of their existing customers with similar properties. If you have a particularly historic property it would be worth contacting the conservation register to get some advice on suitable materials and best practice. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings is another good resource for those that have the more specialist properties. So what is the most important thing to watch for when choosing your building contractor or building surveyor? Passion, you need someone who shares your passion for period property, this is the single most important aspect. A contractor or surveyor who genuinely enjoys their work is bound to make that extra effort, whether it is finishing lead detail or writing a preliminary document, JCT, schedule of works or dilapidation. The rest will follow, so ask them about their back ground, other projects and customers. Take time to understand their skills experience and love of period buildings.
