Features

The only game in town?

Anyone working within the equity release sector has always understood the strong underlying demand...

Sorting the conveyancing wheat from the chaff

When it comes to conveyancing there are certain fundamentals that will be craved by...

Helping a client out of a hole

Sometimes, a mortgage application that appears to be on-track for a quick and trouble-free...

Rate rise on the horizon

The news that Britain’s inflation rate turned positive in July has added further fuel...

Pension freedoms haven’t hit equity release

There were many commentators who suggested the new pension freedoms would sound the death...

When you want to sell up

‘It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish...’ goes the song however I...

How landlords might respond to tax relief changes

Now that some of the dust has settled from George Osborne’s Emergency Budget particularly...

Over land and sea

With July 2015 looking likely to be the wettest on record in the UK,...

A tax on all your houses

It is a sure sign that the property market is in rude health when,...

Time for remortgage clients to grasp the nettle

The Bank Base Rate (BBR) rollercoaster appears to have been steadily cranked up in...

Budget implications for buy-to-let landlords

With the government’s plans posing new challenges for landlords, property investors may want to...

Budget consequences will run and run

If Chancellor George Osborne wanted to get the nation talking over the summer period...

Lenders still – and will always – wield the power

Reading about the major UK lenders and their apparent push for some of the...

Not making a claim can still cost your clients

I recently read a piece in one of the national personal finance pages that...

COMMENT

We need to wait to get a clearer picture

It's been a week where the political and economic backdrop has moved almost as fast as rates themselves, and it's worth taking stock of...

Leasehold valuation reform: the consultation is asking only half the question

The Government's consultation on leasehold enfranchisement valuation rates is important because it will help determine what leaseholders pay to extend leases or buy freeholds,...

What commonhold will mean for mortgage lenders and brokers

Commonhold is often presented as the straightforward alternative to leasehold. It removes the freeholder, gives flat owners greater control and avoids some familiar problems...

Why you need to know what sits behind the average review score

There’s a funny thing about review scores. The better they are, the less likely we are to question them. If a company is sitting at...

The new Chancellor wants to remove barriers to growth; he should start with housing

There was probably a degree of unintended irony in the Treasury choosing to call the Chancellor, John Healey’s, first major market ‘intervention’ his ‘Growth...

Latest news

Housing wealth could help close retirement income gap for 3.7m homeowners

Almost half of homeowner households aged 55 to 79 are expected to fall short...

Northern regions lead rise in Land Registry activity

Property transaction activity is strengthening more quickly in northern England and the Midlands than...

Middle-aged workers face similar financial strain to younger employees

Financial pressures remain widespread well into employees' peak earning years, with debt and housing...

VAS overhauls valuation platform with new lender and broker dashboards

VAS has rebuilt its lender and broker dashboards as part of a wider programme...

PROFILES