Open any of the free newspapers that littered tube carriages last week and you will have noticed a sudden glut of colourful no-expense-spared ads. Out-of-town developments – Ashford, Crayford, Thurrock – promising mortgages from as little as £364 a month, with only 5% deposit.

Despite its no-turning-back rhetoric, the UK government is actually introducing many of the kickstart measures for which critics of austerity have been clamouring (according to an article on the Guardian website: Osborne Turns To Keynes). Chief among them are the Help-to-Buy guarantees – which aforementioned developers have been lightning-quick to exploit.

Just like the real spring, the long-awaited ‘green shoots’ of recovery have stubbornly failed to materialise, and it has seemed that the UK economy was set for permafrost stagnation. However, as has often been the case in the past, it appears to be that where the housing market goes, the rest of the economy may be set to follow. The sudden injection of government-backed credit will offer the buoyancy and confidence needed to re-float other moribund sectors.

Potential buyers, frustrated by the banks for so long, will not only be looking at new-build – they will also be buying older properties in towns and suburbs, and this is certain to help unblock chains, building momentum across the market and reviving all manner of trades, services and businesses. Again, history is set to repeat itself with the South East taking the lead, though it is to be hoped that with initiatives like the Heseltine Growth Fund there is real intent to finally bring growth and rebalancing to other regional economies too.

Although some analysts will warn of a housing bubble, this is less likely when you look at the whole picture and the history of  UK house prices.

Jean-Paul Rodrigue’s graph ‘Lifecycle of a Bubble‘ (http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/graphs-bubble-lifecycle.php) illustrates this beautifully:

Historically, buyers come out of a housing downturn a little too bullishly, then the market corrects itself and normal service resumes.

At the moment, the economy is in an extremely fragile place: it hasn’t had a hernia, it’s had a triple-heart bypass, and it isn’t about to start training for a triathlon. Confidence will remain on the low side for a long time but movement in the housing market will start a gentle recuperation and with low interest rates in the medium-term, property prices will steadily swell.

All in all, 2013 looks like being the year that, thanks to an invigorated housing market, the UK economy will (like our hedgehogs and grass snakes) finally emerge from its much-longer-than-expected hibernation … blinking gratefully, half-believing it’s not real.

In a world where more and more conveyancing firms are opting to commoditise their service, and offer an on line, impersonal service to their clients, Cunningtons has moved towards offering a personal quality service to their clients.

In a recent article for the Property Reporter on line,  http://bit.ly/16WtpvA   the argument was made that estate agents should take control of the conveyancing market, in the best interests of the consumers of conveyancing services. The article also made it clear this would also be in the best financial interest of estate agents.

The concern expressed in the article was that too often the conveyancing process was held up by non specialist high street firms, who do not understand the needs of the key stakeholders in the process.  The conclusion was that the estate agent should take control of the consumers choice of solicitor to steer them towards their own recommendation. Consumers should however be careful when accepting a recommendation from their estate agent. The article refers to the collapse of some law firms, as a cautionary tale, but fails to mention that at least one of those firms was understood to be the recipient of referred work from estate agents.

The key issues here, are as follows:

1. All consumers have the right to use the solicitor of their own choosing, and this must not be compromised by anyone;

2. Estate agents who recommend particular, large firms of conveyancing firms, usually do so in the expectation of receiving a referral fee;

Cunningtons, ever mindful of these issues, has sought to forge a new path, of co operation with local estate agents, whilst maintaining their independence and integrity.  We have worked hard to create robust relationships with estate agents to ensure all parties work towards the ultimate aim of the conveyancing process, namely getting the customer into their new home, or their existing property sold.

As award winning conveyancing solicitors consumers can be confident that if they come to Cunningtons, whether by recommendation by an estate agent, or a friend, family member or colleague, or have simply found us on line, that they will receive a proactive service, from a solicitor working closely with the key stakeholders in the process, to ensure the transaction proceeds with the minimum of delay (although even we can’t do anything about delays caused by lenders!).

For the last few years, those buying in certain “disadvantaged areas”  http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/sdlt/reliefs-exemptions/disadvantaged-areas.htm#1 have had the benefit of relief from stamp duty land tax (SDLT) for properties valued between £125,000 and £150,000.  So for example those buying in various wards in a number of London Boroughs, such as Penge, Thamesmead East, Arsenal, Charlton or Oval, or in other areas of the South East including Moulscoomb in Brighton, Blackbird Leys in Oxford or Folkestone Central have been able to purchase property in this price band without paying stamp duty.

From today, the Government is scrapping the relief, so anyone purchasing such a property from 6 April will find themselves liable for 1% stamp duty. There has been very little publicity surrounding this decision, and it could leave some with an unexpected bill of £1250 or more where they are legally bound to purchase such a property, but legal completion has not yet taken place.

Those most affected by the change are likely to be First Time Buyers as it will affect the affordability of properties in these areas, as they will now have to budget for the SDLT payment as well as all other moving costs.

So do beware if you think the property you are buying may have benefitted from the relief, and check with your conveyancing solicitor before entering into a legally binding contract to make sure you know exactly what costs you will incur at completion.

Yes, we all remember asking it, and for those with children you will experience it, even on the shortest of trips.

So, did it get us there any faster?  Did it speed up the journey?  Did it help keep everyone calm and less agitated?  Did twitching the curtain, looking out of the window, waiting for those first birthday party guests to turn up, make them arrive early?  We all know the answer  -   NO

Then why oh why do ‘grown-ups’ still do it now, but in the conveyancing process?

“Are we ready to exchange yet?”   “Have we got a moving date yet?”   And best of all  -  “ When will the other side be ready?” 

 The problem

So what exactly causes this problem of regression into child-like expectations?  The clue is in the question.  It’s the expectations that are out of kilter.  It is important to do something about it because if not, then unnecessary calls become more frequent, a culture of blame grows, stress and agitation sets in all round and what could and should be a smooth and  pleasant  experience becomes, or at least is perceived as, a nightmare.

For the lawyer the problem manifests itself by constantly being on the phone, being asked the “ are we nearly there?” question which stops them doing the very thing clients and others are on the phone asking and chasing for.

What exactly can and should be done and how?  Well, let’s look at another analogy.

Did Spain win the European Cup by playing as individuals?  No, they showed they were the best and got results by working as a unit, occasionally lending the ball to their opponent to show off their own individual skills only for Spain to take the ball back, when they chose to, (or be given it back in the case of England!).

It’s true that there are plenty of old-fashioned lawyers out there who regard agents as a nuisance – who believe agents are only interested in their commission, but take heart, because there are others who treat agents with the respect they deserve as part of a team. 
In fact, they are more than that.  They are like the captain – holding things together when other parties in the transaction are all doing their own individual thing.

So, out of the problem comes the opportunity……… ……….
Solving The Problem requires team work – solicitors and agent MUST work together and manage the sellers/buyers expectations to make not just the clients’ but everyone’s journey better.
Now all will be fine with the solicitor who communicates and shares information with you, the agents:
                                   
                telling you when contracts have been sent/received
                telling you when enquiries have been sent/received
                telling you when the other sides clients aren’t responding
                asking you for help to chase clients/other side
                sharing information
                trusting one another
But what about the lawyers who don’t do these things?   Well – as the saying goes – if the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed must go to the mountain.  Yes, you have to educate the solicitors. 

And what can you, the agents do? 

If you come across a solicitor who doesn’t play the team game, TELL THEM WHAT THEY NEED TO DO.  Perhaps no one has before.  Arrange a meeting with their conveyancing partner/head, or better still, their team.  Tell them the importance of informing you:-

               : when contracts have been issued/received
               : when enquiries have been sent/received
               : when the other side aren’t responding
               : when clients don’t reply to letters or return forms or money
               : what problems are holding things up
        

More importantly, explain the benefits – Explain you can do the chasing and keep clients informed, so that they can get off the phone and get on with the job.
Don’t believe the bad press about agents (well not all of it anyway!). At the end of the day we lawyers know that clients quite often feel more comfortable speaking with agents than lawyers and if they “hear if from the agent”, they are more inclined to accept it.

Until the ‘us’ and ‘them’ barriers are broken down lawyers and agents will only be able to work as individual players.  Once the barriers go trust will exist between the lawyers and the agents.  You won’t feel the need to ring the lawyer – the lawyer won’t feel pestered; and the seller/buyer will be kept informed and reassured that the lawyers are doing everything they should be doing.

So, are we nearly there yet?
Well not yet, but the journey will be a more pleasant experience!

Cunningtons have recently won Gold in the Best Small Conveyancer, and Best Overall Conveyancer categories at the Estate Agent of the year Awards sponsored by The Times/Sunday Times.

Call our Sales Director Justin White on 07891 347754 to discuss how we can help your clients move.

Cunningtons was awarded winner of the Best Overall Conveyancing firm at The Estate Agency of the Year Awards in association with The Sunday Times and The Times.

On Thursday 6th December, approximately 600 leading estate agents and conveyancing lawyers descended upon The Lancaster London Hotel opposite Hyde Park for The Estate Agency of The Year Awards ceremony. The winners received their awards from celebrity guest, Rebecca Addlington.

Cunningtons receiving the Conveyancer of the Year award

The awards ceremony was the culmination of a rigorous and thorough judging process carried out by a panel of industry experts. The panel assessed initial entry submissions before conducting an extensive review of the entrants which included hundreds of telephone interviews and mystery shopping exercises. The whole judging process was overseen by The Property Ombudsman, Christopher Hamer.

The awards have become increasingly competitive with the standard of entries rising ever higher. Now in its 10th year, these awards are firmly established and amongst the most coveted and respected in the industry. Over 5,000 offices were represented this year, but only the very best of the best were crowned as winners.

Cunningtons, winners of both the small Conveyancer category and overall best Conveyancing firm were delighted to receive the award.  Justin White, Sales Director, commented “We are delighted to have won our second award this year; our staff have all worked incredibly hard to ensure we deliver excellence in customer service.  This award is testament to their understanding of the needs of the customer and the Estate Agents that work with them. We passionately believe that customer service is what the customer wants and then we deliver it. A big thank you to everyone who has been involved in making Cunningtons a double award winning firm in 2012”

A website listing all the winning companies with comments from the judges as to why they won can be found at www.estateagencyoftheyear.com

Peter Knight, Chairman of the event organisers Estate Agency Events commented “When we set up the awards ten years ago our goal was to encourage, identify, highlight, reward and promote best practice in Estate Agency – a decade on we now have a competition that is without question the most sought after prize in the industry as well as being the longest established. Each year the quality and quantity of entries considerably increases and the winners can be very proud in the knowledge that they have beaten some seriously good competitors.”

For further information about Cunningtons services contact Justin White, Sales Director, Mobile Tel: 07891347754, email  Justin.white@cunningtons.co.uk

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Community self-build housing feels like it’s both a step back to centuries past, echoing the way Britain was originally constructed, whilst at the same time a glimpse of how a more co-operative and sustainable way of living can be achieved in the modern age.

This is particularly true when you look at the Hedgehog project in Brighton. A small group of people decided to work together to build not only houses, but also a community and a future for their families. It took 2 years to get council approval, find a suitable site, and get the support of a housing association, and then another 2 and a half years to build the houses.

This ambitious project got the interest of Kevin McCloud from Channel 4′s Grand Designs, and was the subject of a programme broadcast in March 2001. Ten years later, Hedgehogs were featured on Grand Designs Revisited (http://www.channel4.com/programmes/grand-designs-revisited/4od#2920083), as Keven wondered how the community – and the houses – had stood the test of time.

Cunningtons’ partner Jason Bradshaw interviewed Paul Crouch, the driving force behind the The Hedgehogs project.

Image taken from Channel 4′s Grand Designs

Cunningtons: So who’s idea was it originally to approach a Housing Association (HA) for funding to self-build, and how easy a conversation was it to convince them the idea would work?
Paul: Mine, since the Diggers scheme (http://www.forevergreen.org.uk/Forever_Green_Ecological_Architects/Diggers_Self_Build.html) for CHISEL HA in Hollingbury [Brighton] was already nearly finished it was fairly easy to point to it as a model, despite facing an almost 50% cut in grant funding from the previous level. They needed to fulfil Local Agenda 21 targets [Rio earth summit-endorsed ecological and sustainable standards] and we would do that, we also offered 100% nomination rights [allowing the local council to select a new tenant for a housing association property from the Housing Register].

C: Did you have an idea of what you wanted to build and where before approaching the HA, and had you even heard of Walter Segal?
P: I knew of a piece of land I had seen that I wanted to park my rig on but the access was too steep. I looked it up on the Borough Plan and saw it was set aside for social housing. Having seen The Diggers scheme I knew of Segal and wanted to build in that method due to its efficacy and style.

C: How easily did you reach a consensus on what type of houses you were all to build, and what influence did the HA have on the final decision?
P: The HA own the houses and have the final say on everything but we were very happy with the drawings the architect from Architype (Robin Hillier) showed us initially.

C: What has been the most satisfying part of the whole process?
P: Gaining a community.

C: The Grand Designs programme highlighted how many of the tenants have taken jobs in the community to “give something back”, and Kevin was clearly inspired by the “efficient use of human energy”, what was your inspiration at the start, and does it still hold true now?
P: My inspiration was simply to provide a safe environment in which my child could grow up. I think that was the same for all of us.

C: What tips or advice would you give would be community self builders?
P: Don’t have a financial investment or ownership, it will lead to problems in the community later and a high chance of ‘moving on’. Don’t select people on any basis other than eligibility for social housing.

Image taken from Channel 4′s Grand Designs

C: Are your tenancies transferrable? Can you leave your homes to children in your wills?
P: Yes, and that adds to the continuity. Each home can be transferred to one named person.

C: Did you like contributing to the Grand Designs programme?
P: It was generally a good experience, though it had to be ‘dumbed down’ a little to fit in with the schedule and the audience. I would’ve liked to have spent more time discussing the funding models and the reasons that it is not ripe for financial speculation; and why the involvement of the HA was crucial.

C: And how do you get on with your neighbours outside of the self-build?
P: Really well – it took a while, but we all feel part of the wider community now. People in Hedgehogs work within local community, and we have been here for long enough now to be considered old timers.

C: Would you do it again?!
P: Absolutely not, why would I?!

Image taken from Channel 4′s Grand Designs

Interview by Jason Bradshaw of Cunningtons Solicitors, Cunningtons.co.uk © 2013

Having worked in the property market for over twenty years I can honestly say that, in common with what many market observers are saying, this market is the worst I have experienced. There is a process needed to build a stable market from a declining one and currently I cannot see that there are any of the right ingredients in the mix that would even halt the decline still less start the healing process. I am struggling to identify many positive indicators for the rest of the year or into the early part of 2013.

I believe that values must drop by at least 10 to 15% to make house prices affordable again and stimulate activity. We desperately need a more competitive lending market with new incentives and higher loan to values for first time buyers. The other major factor, one I just can’t understand bearing in mind the current debt problems and biting austerity cuts, is the lack of houses coming onto the market. Low interest rates, currently at 0.5%, seem to be providing a cushion for those in debt and I believe that it may be this false debt “affordability” which is hindering any recovery.

At the time of the last recession in the early 1990s interest rates were at 15%. Whilst no-one wants to see rates return to this level it is easy to see just why the property market reacted the way it did with a very high volume of properties flooding the market as debt became unmanageable. This fuelled the downward spiral on prices but also brought about a quicker adjustment to the out of kilter market. It is this “quick shift” effect that is lacking in today’s market, making recovery a long and arduous journey.

Current low housing stocks mean that there is little competition in the market and few factors indicate that this will change much in the short-term. Experts now say that it will be years before we boom so it will be canny sellers and hard working agents who truly take advantage of current conditions.

All this has meant the conveyancing market has been sluggish with volumes of transactions well down on pre credit crunch levels. This means many firms have struggled and a large number have either merged or closed their doors. However the number of conveyancing transactions is expected by some commentators to hit one million again next year for the first time since 2007.  Cunningtons ever seeing any threat as an opportunity, has re-focussed its conveyancing services towards giving the customer service many client’s appreciate, which has meant that despite the falling market, Cunningtons have recovered some lost ground in the market, and are receiving accolades from other market players such as estate agents, having won the coveted Conveyancing Firm of the Year award at the recent Times and Sunday Times National Estate Agency of the Year awards.

For those considering placing their property on the market, Cunningtons have produced two short videos, currently available on You Tube, giving some advice regarding what you can and can’t say about your property, to ensure you don’t fall foul of the law.

So property sellers, after you’ve done the spring clean, de-cluttered, and touched up all those areas you’ve been meaning to decorate for the last few years, its time to contact an estate agent to place your property on the market.

 
Anyone selling will always want those who view their property, to see it in the best possible light, but the temptation is to over embellish, or to exaggerate certain key features, or play down other less favourable ones. Whether you are selling with an estate agent, or privately, it is important to ensure the information given to any prospective buyer is accurate.

 
If you sell with an estate agent, make sure your agent:

1. Presents your property in its best possible light, but doesn’t mislead by highlighting the attractive features to the exclusion of any bad features, as the overall impression may be misleading.

2. Checks with you the accuracy of any information on the property particulars, as it’s a criminal offence under the Property Misdescription Act for an estate agent to dishonestly or misleadingly describe a property.

The link to the first video is here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFsXTCVBAf0 - take a look, let us know what you think! More to follow…

The Bank of England’s August banking report shows that despite several banks applying for £60bn in cheap loans since the Funding for Lending Scheme’s (FLS) launch in July, which should in theory be passed on as affordable loans to consumers and businesses, the quantity of new loans to businesses and households has not improved, and the price of mortgage money is rising, not falling.

The report shows that lending to non financial companies fell by £1.2bn in August, whereas these are the type of companies which form the backbone of the economy, and are therefore of most concern.

The report also shows interest rates charged on new mortgages increased in certain categories, such as for some first time buyers, even where they had saved up to 25% deposits.

New mortgage approvals did show a modest rise in August, but this is of course from historically low levels.

The Bank of England has cautioned that it is early days for the FLS and there are signs that for some products, particularly those aimed at first-time home buyers, rates are becoming more competitive, lets hope so.

No doubt time will tell, but the property market really does need the banks to start producing competitive loans to help stimulate demand.

There has been a buzz around regarding the Government backed NewBuy scheme which enables home buyers to purchase a brand new property with a 5% deposit. The scheme has now been running for six months.

Reservations have now hit 1300 and there are now 30 builders selling via this scheme and six lenders offer NewBuy mortgages, including latest entrant Aldermore. More importantly the lenders have been reducing their interest rates offered under this scheme.

We reported on a similar scheme in March 2011 which had local authorities being involved in financing the lending gap to allow first time buyers to purchase with a 5% deposit.

With the website set up to provide information about the scheme having recently received its 100,000th unique visitor it would seem there is much pent up demand, and perhaps this scheme and others like it will finally help those first time buyers onto the property ladder.

Cunningtons are on the panel of all major lenders including those on the scheme and have a great deal of experience in dealing with the conveyancing process to help first time buyer achieve their dream of getting on that first rung. Get a free quote from our website now!