Agents and property experts have reacted angrily to the government’s refusal to extend the stamp duty holiday.The government has told campaigners that it “does not plan to extend the relief” beyond March 31 next year.

“This is in response to the petition with the caveat that the government constantly reviews all matters of revenue” says Mark Hayward, policy advisor at NAEA Propertymark, which had been consulting with the government over the issue.

TV property expert Phil Spencer expressed complete exasperation at the government’s intransigence.

He tweeted: “The stamp duty holiday has been successful in activating the market. Ending on a cliff edge will create utter chaos! Surely it can be phased out? Timescales on deals slip more often than they don’t. The motivation behind people moving could disappear in a single day. Utter madness!”

Meanwhile Knight Frank agents have also expressed disappointment.

“The conveyancing system has been struggling massively and that will intensify as a number of people will be trying everything possible to get deals over the line before the end of March” says Luke Ellwood, a London Knight Frank agent.

“What I hope this shows the government is the need for measures to speed up the sales process in future” he continues.

Another Knight Frank agent – Charlie Taylor in Bath – says: “I can’t remember a time when we had so many transactions under offer and solicitors are really struggling to cope … However, early guidance from government might not be a bad thing as leaving it to the last minute would have been chaotic. This may focus minds and solicitors will be able clear the backlog before March.”

The apparent unequivocal statement from the government follows an online petition calling for an extension. Because that petition exceeded 10,000 signatures (in fact it’s now well above 22,500) the government was obliged to respond formally.

That response says: “As the relief was to provide an immediate stimulus to the property market, the government does not plan to extend this relief. SDLT is an important source of government revenue, raising several billion pounds each year to help pay for the essential services the government provides.“The government is committed to supporting home ownership and helping people get on and move up the housing ladder.

“When the SDLT Holiday ends, the Government will maintain a SDLT relief for first time buyers which increases the starting threshold of residential SDLT to £300,000 for first-time buyers that purchase a property below £500,000.

“In addition, a new Help to Buy scheme will be introduced from 1 April 2021. This scheme will run until March 2023.

“All tax policy is kept under review and the government considers the views it receives carefully as part of that process.”

Fall throughs which could be avoided by Reservation Agreements have cost agency branches an average £10,000 per month. That’s the claim from digital platform Gazeal which has made the calculation by monitoring transaction and other market data.According to HM Land Registry figures, there were 105,630 completed transactions in October. Based on Nationwide’s national average house price of £229,721 and an average commission fee of 1.0 per cent, Gazeal says agents’ total monthly earnings are in excess of approximately £242m.But it goes on to claim that £80m in commission fees could be lost each month due to a third of transactions falling through – that’s in excess of £10,000 per branch.

The figure reflects the fact that the number of potential property transactions has risen sharply in recent months due to the stamp duty holiday, which could continue into the New Year.

According to Zoopla forecasts, an additional 100,000 sales are expected in the first quarter of 2021 as high transaction volumes spill over from 2020. This could result in an additional 33,000 fall throughs and lost commission for the industry to the tune of approximately £75m, suggests Gazeal.

“This results in agents doing hours of work without getting paid. Agents have to face the reality that each branch risks losing thousands of pounds in commission each month due to fall-throughs” says Bryan Mansell, co-founder of Gazeal.

He adds: “Providing reservation agreements is a good place to start as they confirm commitment on both sides and take emotion out the equation. A reservation agreement is a fair and balanced way of protecting transactions in which no-one is punished if no-one is to blame for a transaction falling through. Furthermore, sellers are encouraged to use reservation agreements as recommended in the government’s How to Sell Guide.”

Gazeal claims reservation agreements have been proven to reduce agents’ fall-through rates by at least 50 per cent.

Mansell adds that ensuring properties are ‘sale-ready’ with up-front information such as protocol information forms, title documents, certificates and guarantees, can reduce the chance of any problems further down the line and protect agents’ pipelines.

“Giving buyers a transparent view of the property before they make an offer can really speed up transactions and drastically reduces the chances of them pulling out at a later date. Quicker transactions which are more secure allow agents to get paid sooner and more frequently, while increasing consumer satisfaction with the moving process” he concludes.

 

George Michael’s former north London home has sold for £19 million in a hotly contested private sale on the “grey market”.

Sources say there was a lot of interest in the Highgate village house, which sold for “significantly more” than the asking price to a “very local couple”.

The couple are understood to have “swooped in” and gazumped a keen buyer after hearing via a local network that the house was being sold off-market via an agent who was approaching a handpicked pool of wealthy potential buyers and had received a number of offers. The Highgate Literary and Scientific Institute and the Highgate Society are among community organisations where the great and the good of Highgate mingle.

One local agent was astonished at the sale price, revealed in Land Registry documents this week, estimating the house’s value at closer to £12 million.

Another agent said the property was unusually up to date for the street it is on – where many homes have been in the same ownership for decades – with modern bathrooms, kitchen and a particularly good garden with views of nearby Hampstead Heath making it ready to move in to.

By comparison, when Jamie Oliver bought a £9 million house on the same street in 2015 he “had to rip everything out and start again”.

The Wham! singer bought the Grade II-listed property for £7.65 million in 2002, joining a roster of celebrity residents past and present including Sting, Annie Lennox, Jude Law and Victoria Wood. Kate Moss has said that Michael would let her and her daughter climb over the wall between their gardens to swim in the swimming pool.

The semi-detached red-brick house was originally built in about 1688 with three storeys and a basement and was subsequently rebuilt in the Thirties.

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One of the best-selling musicians of all time, after he died on Christmas Day 2016 a patch of grass opposite his Highgate house became a shrine to the singer and there was a campaign to erect a commemorative statue there too.

The star is believed to have left an estate worth £98 million, with his major assets shared between his two older sisters.

His sister, Melanie Panayiotou, is believed to have moved into the property after his death. In a sad coincidence she died there on Christmas Day 2019, exactly three years after her brother.

Michael’s widespread philanthropy was revealed only after his death and extended to his local community. Born in East Finchley, not far from Highgate, he anonymously paid for the Highgate Christmas tree each year and was the largest private sponsor of the local fair. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery next to his mother.

Mortgage brokers across the UK should be on their guard against an alarming new pitfall in the house buying process, which has arisen seemingly due to the Covid pandemic.

A Reading couple with a young baby are faced with a bill of at least £33,000 plus ‘damages’ following the collapse of their housing chain after exchange of contracts – despite having a secure mortgage themselves. Abdus Saboor and his wife were left devastated when, in the period between exchange and completion, their buyer was told by lender Santander that their mortgage offer was being withdrawn.

The fact that contracts had already been exchanged meant that all buyers were still obliged to pay their 10% deposit to their respective sellers. The Saboors were in the process of buying a £660,000 house, but were selling their own for £330,000 – so their deposit was of course double. They therefore faced the prospect of losing £33,000.

Abdus appealed to Unbiased.co.uk, which helps people find independent financial and mortgage advisers, after reading one of their articles on this issue. He explains, ‘The problems started due to the Covid situation, when my buyer’s lender Santander withdrew their mortgage offer on completion day – while we were loading the removal van! We were willing not to ask our buyer to pay their deposit, but our seller insisted on us still paying our deposit. This money is all our savings from the past seven years. Our account’s empty. We are devastated by this – we have an eight-month old baby.’

The Saboors have tried to raise the issue with Santander, but so far have been offered no explanation as to why the bank took the decision to withdraw their buyer’s mortgage offer. Particularly baffling is the decision to do this following the exchange of contracts.

Traumatic as this ordeal has been for both the Saboors and their own buyer, it has huge implications for every homebuyer and mortgage broker in the UK. If lenders can withdraw an offer after contracts have been signed, then every buyer in the chain is at risk. The only person to benefit would be the seller at the top of the chain.

Nor does this predicament appear to be a one-off. Research earlier this year by Butterfield Mortgages suggested that as many as three in 10 buyers whose chains had collapsed, had ended up losing their deposits as mortgage offers were withdrawn post-contract. The Saboors’ case indicates that this is still happening, leaving families’ finances in ruins along with their dreams of home ownership.

It has been widely assumed by mortgage brokers and homebuyers alike that a mortgage deal in place at exchange cannot be withdrawn before completion. It appears in practice that this is not the case. This means that, for a period of between one and two weeks, all buyers in the chain are entirely at the mercy of every lender involved – any one of whom might theoretically pull out.

The Saboors’ only hope currently is that the government may eventually offer compensation for people in this predicament, just as they have provided money for furlough and other Covid-related costs. Until then, brokers should advise their clients to take extra care, and perhaps try to get contracts worded so that they are not liable if they lose their buyer post-exchange.

‘We need help to bring this out and share it with the public,’ said Abdus. ‘I don’t want anyone else to go through what we are going through.’

 

Mortgage brokers across the UK should be on their guard against an alarming new pitfall in the house buying process, which has arisen seemingly due to the Covid pandemic.

A Reading couple with a young baby are faced with a bill of at least £33,000 plus ‘damages’ following the collapse of their housing chain after exchange of contracts – despite having a secure mortgage themselves. Abdus Saboor and his wife were left devastated when, in the period between exchange and completion, their buyer was told by lender Santander that their mortgage offer was being withdrawn.

The fact that contracts had already been exchanged meant that all buyers were still obliged to pay their 10% deposit to their respective sellers. The Saboors were in the process of buying a £660,000 house, but were selling their own for £330,000 – so their deposit was of course double. They therefore faced the prospect of losing £33,000.

Abdus appealed to Unbiased.co.uk, which helps people find independent financial and mortgage advisers, after reading one of their articles on this issue. He explains, ‘The problems started due to the Covid situation, when my buyer’s lender Santander withdrew their mortgage offer on completion day – while we were loading the removal van! We were willing not to ask our buyer to pay their deposit, but our seller insisted on us still paying our deposit. This money is all our savings from the past seven years. Our account’s empty. We are devastated by this – we have an eight-month old baby.’

The Saboors have tried to raise the issue with Santander, but so far have been offered no explanation as to why the bank took the decision to withdraw their buyer’s mortgage offer. Particularly baffling is the decision to do this following the exchange of contracts.

Traumatic as this ordeal has been for both the Saboors and their own buyer, it has huge implications for every homebuyer and mortgage broker in the UK. If lenders can withdraw an offer after contracts have been signed, then every buyer in the chain is at risk. The only person to benefit would be the seller at the top of the chain.

Nor does this predicament appear to be a one-off. Research earlier this year by Butterfield Mortgages suggested that as many as three in 10 buyers whose chains had collapsed, had ended up losing their deposits as mortgage offers were withdrawn post-contract. The Saboors’ case indicates that this is still happening, leaving families’ finances in ruins along with their dreams of home ownership.

It has been widely assumed by mortgage brokers and homebuyers alike that a mortgage deal in place at exchange cannot be withdrawn before completion. It appears in practice that this is not the case. This means that, for a period of between one and two weeks, all buyers in the chain are entirely at the mercy of every lender involved – any one of whom might theoretically pull out.

The Saboors’ only hope currently is that the government may eventually offer compensation for people in this predicament, just as they have provided money for furlough and other Covid-related costs. Until then, brokers should advise their clients to take extra care, and perhaps try to get contracts worded so that they are not liable if they lose their buyer post-exchange.

‘We need help to bring this out and share it with the public,’ said Abdus. ‘I don’t want anyone else to go through what we are going through.’