From rent reform to tax changes: 2024’s biggest property stories

Past the headlines, this has been a 12 months of rising property traits: an increase in “Birdnesting” amongst divorced {couples}, households embracing condo residing and “propfluencers” shaking up the capital’s property scene.

From rental reform to new airspace developments, listed here are a few of the 12 months’s greatest property tales.

In her first Finances on 30 October, Chancellor Rachel Reeves introduced a variety of adjustments to stamp obligation. This included a toughened stance on second residence purchases: anybody shopping for an extra property —both a second residence or a buy-to-let— should pay a 5 per cent surcharge.

Stamp obligation thresholds may even revert to their earlier ranges from 31 March 2025 onwards. For first-time patrons, the edge has dropped from £425,000 to £300,000 and from £250,000 to £125,000 for patrons who’ve bought a house earlier than.

In Might, the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 handed into regulation forward of the final election. This aimed to strengthen leaseholders’ rights, together with provisions such altering the qualifying standards for leaseholders to increase their lease, bettering transparency round service prices and rising the usual lease extension time period to 990 years, with floor lease lowered to a peppercorn upon fee of a premium.

Nevertheless, with no cap on floor lease or the prevention of forfeiture, campaigners known as this a “muted win for leaseholders”. “Whereas the laws shouldn’t be with out benefit, leaseholders should see it as a step in a journey reasonably than the vacation spot itself,” stated Linz Darlington, MD of leasehold extension specialists Homehold.

In January, Houses & Property instructed the story of a girl who was served a piece 21 eviction discover by her landlord after chasing for promised repairs and contesting a lease rise. Unable to contact her landlord —the tackle on her tenancy was not a enterprise premises however one other tenant’s residence— she known as Citizen’s Recommendation, who defined that her scenario was so widespread that there was little recourse.

Rental reform was first dropped at parliament underneath the Conservative authorities in Might 2023, however was dropped earlier than this 12 months’s normal election. The Labour authorities’s new Renters’ Rights Invoice had its first studying in September and is at the moment in its report stage within the Home of Commons. The brand new laws guarantees to abolish part 21 no-fault evictions and introduces extra detailed grounds for possession for landlords to get better their properties in addition to safeguards for tenants.

In November, Donald Trump received the US presidential election, elevating the query: how will this influence London’s property market?

In a single day, high-end property brokers reported a surge in calls, with anti-Trump Individuals in search of trophy houses to lease. “My crew have been up many of the night time fielding enquiries from lots of the US cities that we work with, together with New York and Los Angeles,” stated Becky Fatemi of Sotheby’s Worldwide Realty after the election. “Essentially the most speedy requests are for leases. They need wide-fronted townhouses in Notting Hill or giant lateral residences in buildings with a porter, such because the Peninsula. We count on to see this demand proceed.”

Different high-end brokers imagine that this curiosity will result in gross sales, boosting the UK market. US patrons have been purchasing for properties in London all 12 months, pushed not simply by the election however by the energy of the greenback towards the pound, falling costs in prime central London and the British training system. “An inflow of Individuals shopping for up houses with create a swing in sentiment and momentum and will transfer costs up too,” stated James Gow, head of London residential gross sales for Strutt & Parker. “A Trump win could possibly be good for the London market.”

Earlier this 12 months, seven present and former residents filed a declare towards Ealing council, who pledged to relocate all residents from Meath Court docket by the tip of January this 12 months. However by March, solely 33 of 60 had been moved. “The delivery containers at Meath Court docket are usually not match for human habitation,” stated Eleanor Solomon, companion at Anthony Gold Solicitors, which is representing the residents. “They’re too scorching in the summertime and too chilly within the winter, mouldy as a consequence of poor insulation and leaks and the property as a complete shouldn’t be secure.”

One resident, who fled an abusive companion together with her youngsters, instructed Houses & Property that the laundry rooms had been changed into brothels, there was defecation within the washing machines and that she was robbed as she entered her condo. The resident claimed to have witnessed a girl visiting the property be thrown from the fourth ground onto the concrete under.

“We now have put our arms up and we’re shifting individuals as rapidly as doable,” stated Councillor Bassam Mahfouz.

With 42 per cent of marriages now ending in divorce, “Birdnesting” — when a separated couple maintains one household residence and one other smaller home or flat, which they will swap into when it’s not their flip with the youngsters — turned more and more in style with prosperous mother and father eager to minimise the disruption of a break up.

Following her divorce, for instance, Farhana Hussain lives together with her three teenage sons within the household home in Tonbridge, Kent, whereas her ex-husband lives in a studio close by. “He comes and goes all through the week and makes himself dinner and has dinner with us as soon as every week,” she stated. “One or two weekends a month, he comes and spends the weekend right here and I’ll go off some place else. He has keys and lets himself in, makes himself at residence and makes himself meals.”

“5 years in the past, nesting was seen as actually ‘on the market’ and judges discouraged it, as they wished the divorce to be a clear break, nevertheless it’s now extra widespread,” stated household regulation barrister Samantha Woodham, who helps shoppers contemplate Birdnesting. “It’s acquired to be bilateral.”

Heathfield Home is a futuristic, 18,239 sq. foot property in Highgate. It was constructed from scratch by its proprietor, a Russian-born businessman who bought the land and demolished the vacant property that stood on it, aspiring to “make an architectural assertion”, in keeping with Trevor Abrahmsohn of Glentree Estates. The property was first listed for £40 million in 2019 with Lee Koffman —then at Sotheby’s Worldwide Realty, now with Robert Irving Burns— and stays in the marketplace 5 years later, now with an £8 million value discount.

“It’s a really distinctive home. It value [the owner] a fortune to do it, with the supplies he used: the unbelievable marble and onyx; the glass elevate. However it’s fairly particular to his tastes,” stated Koffman. “It’s the urge for food for doing the work, or getting the planning, or no matter it’s they need to do. We’re in search of a distinct segment purchaser that loves a recent, nearly James Bond-look home, and can pay good cash for it.”

Koffman has had presents on the home, however none have materialised in a sale. And the proprietor, in the end, is in no rush. “At this value level, you’ll be able to’t actually put a timer on it,” says Koffman. “It sells when it sells.”

As a part of a wider return to central London post-pandemic, this 12 months noticed some households eschew a home within the suburbs in favour of a centrally situated flat. Anna and Pete Austin, for instance, purchased and renovated their Chelsea condo in 2020, prioritising proximity to close by cultural sights over house – although it means renting out a storage unit in Croydon and packing up the flat after their daughter goes to mattress. “My husband and I joke that we dwell within the smallest flat in Chelsea,” stated Anna. “We’d reasonably dwell in a tiny flat in central London than a home anyplace else.”

With a view to escape the fee and power required to keep up a big home, Clio Wooden and her husband Bryn Snelson had been additionally considering a transfer from their four-bedroom home in Forest Gate to a central London condo. “The payments aren’t getting any cheaper and gas prices are going up. There’s a stress on us mentally… These points don’t disappear with a flat, however it might be higher than it’s now.”

Whereas airspace initiatives are sometimes complicated, prompting resistance from neighbouring residents, a brand new Camden airspace growth, 50 Oakley Sq., offers an attention-grabbing blueprint for future growth. There, a gaggle of condo house owners struck a take care of architect-developer Echlin Studio: they’d have their roof fastened and communal areas improved, whereas Echlin may construct eight flats on high of the condo block. All residences within the growth have now offered.

“The planning course of was robust as there was preliminary resistance to a two-storey scheme. The technique was to go for one storey (which was obtained) after which having established the precept of rooftop growth being acceptable, we submitted a two-storey utility,” stated Mark O’Callaghan of Echlin. “London incorporates many buildings that could possibly be appropriate, particularly given the significance of retaining actual property reasonably than demolishing and rebuilding to cut back carbon emissions and contemplating the town’s housing disaster.”

Because the world of property company has modified over the previous few years —fewer excessive road businesses, extra self-employed brokers, and a shift in the best way properties are marketed on-line— it has given rise to a brand new breed of entrepreneurial, formidable property influencers with huge on-line followings. These embrace Summer season Newman and Matt Mellor of The Luxurious House Present; Toby Corban, who began his personal property company, Corban Group, in 2019; and Jade Vanriel, who has been speaking about property on her YouTube channel since 2015.

Having a web-based presence is vital to constructing relationships and producing shoppers, London’s propfluencers say. “We’re shifting into an period the place if you happen to develop your private model and showcase elements of your life, individuals will comply with your journey and need to work with you, earlier than even assembly you in particular person,” stated Newman. “They really feel like, via social media, they’ve already acquired to know you.”

“We’re promoting to our personal friends. I imagine that’s why the business is doing effectively,” Vanriel agreed. “We all know learn how to communicate to our audiences on-line, what individuals are in search of, what’s essential… It’s superb to see such a change in such a brief house of time.”