The Alex Goldstein Property Show (Part 11) is out now! This month I speak to one of the most knowledgeable property surveyors in the business, Jon Charters-Reid, who believes yet another major scandal is brewing in the mortgage industry. I also discover all there is to know about fires and fireplaces. No chimney? Apparently no problem! And will a wood burning stove save money on your fuel bill? And lastly I offer my four best tips to ensure your home positively shines when it comes to buyer viewings.
Full transcript below:
Alex: Welcome again to the Alex Goldstein Property Show, the number one rated property show on Stray FM. We aim to solve all your property queries and to demystify the property sector. We have some amazing tips plus some industry expert information. If you need that property fix, then connect with the Alex Goldstein social media accounts to get the best property advice whenever you need it. Now, in this months show we will be getting the inside track from Jon Charters-Reed, a Chartered Surveyor with some very distinct differences and who tipped us off about the next major scandal in the banking sector, which believe it or not could be bigger than PPI. We’re also joined by Chris Worsley, from Easy Fire Place who gives us expert insight into this sector. So much to fit in so we’re straight on with it.
This month we’re talking about the secret to instructing a great estate agent. Now when it comes to this our most important asset, our home, I regularly have conversations with home owners who are getting themselves in an absolute spin and we will say look it is any wonder. From their perspective estate agents all look the same, are going to say the same and they claim to do the same for their beloved home. Many believe that there are just three main criteria to choose from when they’re looking to instruct an agent, however all of these have got major flaws. Let me explain. So firstly, guide price now rightly or wrongly this subject alone seems to consistently come on top of everyone’s lists. Lenders understandably feel flattered when an estate agent exudes confidence in selling their home and especially when a guide price is quoted towards the upper end of the range. Now listen, agents of course know this and may quote enthusiastic figures just to get your instruction, At the end of the day anyone can quote a high guide price, so you have to look beyond this to get the right agent. The second criteria is fees, now estate agents are sales people, if you agree on a commission structure that’s sensible for both sides, the agents going to remain proactive right up until the point of exchange. However, many vendors feel that if they nail that agent right down on commission then they’ve made a saving, in actual fact they’ve instantly dis-incentivised that agent and it’s unlikely now they’re going to push for a top figure so these also need to be put to one side. The third benchmark lies in how professional the agent was in their pitch. They’re on the most part well dressed, they’ve got bounds of enthusiasm and obviously they’ve got confidence in selling your home. Of course, they love your property, which salesperson sat in your home is going to tell you otherwise so again, this point needs to be treated with caution. So, if it’s not about high guide prices, low fees and a professional pitch what do you really need to look at when picking the right agent? The answer of course lies with their front of house team. These are the people sat in the estate agent office who meet and greet potential buyers walking into the branch, deal with phone enquiries, website requests, know the properties, sell them effectively and have a intrinsic knowledge of the buyer database. The valuer sat in your living room, he’s going to handle a element of those but it’s their team back at the office who’s going to engage with all the buyers and the sellers whilst they’re out. And most importantly, they are going to push your property from being under offer to exchange. So, my advice is before you go and instruct an agent, go and mystery shop them as a perspective purchaser, see how engaging, knowledgeable and proactive the front of house team are. Find a team that is exceptional and suddenly you’re going to find that the estate agents guide price, fees and presentation take on a whole new meaning.
Very privileged indeed to have in the studio with me Chris Worsley from Easy Fireplace. Chris thanks so much indeed for coming by. Just talk everyone through your business, it’s a bit more unusual than most I think.
Chris: Yeah, my pleasure to be here Alex. Our business is based in Huddersfield, Easy Fireplace is what’s known as a bricks and mortar showroom and business. That basically means you can come along, touch and feel, experiment with the fireplaces, play with them, see how they work and basically get a gist of what the product is and what it does.
Alex: You cover a whole entity its not just the mantlepiece so to speak to go over it, it’s much more than that.
Chris: Yeah, the aspect of the fireplace industry is much more than what is known as the mantle or the surround, we do the fireplaces, we do them bespoke made from limestone, marble, wood, cast iron, black granite. You’ve then got things like the gas fires, you’ve got your inset fires your outset fires, your wall-hung fires, you’ve then got your stoves, your wood burners, you’re multi fuel burners….
Alex: Is there anything you don’t actually stock or dare I say know about? This could be quite a technical conversation I think.
Chris: Yeah, I mean from the business, it’s in a little village called Milnsbridge, which is in Huddersfield. We’ve got over 180 products on display that we can demonstrate. It’s a case of coming in and we get the product right for you and your home, it’s not about selling a product, it’s abut selling something that’s perfect for the home and how you’re going to use it.
Alex: I mean it’s been quite interesting, what are the changes that you’ve seen in the market in the recent years. I notice the oil price for example is all over the place and I don’t know if you’ve seen a direct result, whether there’s been a upsurge in business.
Chris: The main thing that’s changed is all about performance of what your purchasing, whether the economic crisis that we all went through, everyone started looking after the pound, our money is very virtual and so are our heating bills, then once a month we’ll get slapped with a bill and that’s when the virtual becomes reality. So suddenly its well how can we stop this virtual money becoming such a big reality check at the end of each month.
Alex: So, people get the bill land on the doormat once a month thinking well that’s a lot to be forking out for my gas, oil, whatever you’re running off and people are switching to I dare say, stoves or fire alternatives.
Chris: There is quite a lot of things in the industry that have changed. Basically, the stove market shot up, the stove market went right through the roof, everyone wanted wood burning because they thought it was an ideal solution to make their heating bills a lot cheaper.
Alex: Is that true, is that the case?
Chris: Actually wasn’t. We as a company, my decision was not to join that rat race, basically everyone was selling stoves based on no knowledge, no information given to the customers, the stove and the idea behind the stove sold itself. It is a beautiful product, you’ve got the warm romantic flames, you’ve got the heat from it, it brings back memories of grandparents, it brings back memories of holidays in cottages, whatever it would be an open fire brings back and triggers memories and that’s basically how the industry romantically grows.
Alex: It turned into a big sort of marketing campaign on the stove front. Why didn’t it work out do you feel?
Chris: It’s a little bit the stoves are a really really great product and if used correctly it can be a good heating source. The main thing is the cost of wood has gone up, the cost of coal has gone up, so the cost of actually fuelling that appliance has gone up so not it’s not just that cost effective.
Alex: I suppose the other thing that often crops up is that people really want a fire and traditionally you think that you need a chimney or a chimney breast that you can actually utilise, but I think I’m right in saying that nowadays you don’t necessarily need to have a chimney at all, there are other options open to you.
Chris: The industry has gone down a little bit of a line of interior design. You walk into a room, you assess a room, you assess even things like the shape of the room, the window, is it a bay window, is it a curve, is it a hexagon shape is it straight? The room layout even before you think about the appliance and the product you’re going to sell the customer, without ourselves that’s first and foremost because it’s not about the sale.
Alex: Yeah and I thought it was surely on stoves and fires most people just look at what’s the output, try and match it with a sort of vague room dimension and then you’re done with it, but it’s more than that isn’t it?
Chris: That’s the way that a lot of shops and showrooms still work because it’s all about the sale. With ourselves it’s about, yes, it’s about the here and now but it’s about the future, how is it going to best work for the family. There’s many things, have they got children now or are they expecting children, did they plan for children in the room so therefore we don’t want to take up too much space in the room because the child is going to be playing so therefore we might not go for a full chimney breast, we might go for a inset balance flue fire, which could be either a hole in the wall or inset.
Alex: Just talking through the flue option there as you said if you don’t have the chimney there’s a flue option that you can base as long as you’ve got a external wall you can make it happen.
Chris: Yeah if it’s on a external wall you’ve got your power flue option which basically is a hole in the wall which has got a external fan and that pulls the combustion out and through the wall. With that the downside is you get a draft when the fires not on and if you ever had a power cut the gas can’t come through. The best market now is balance flue, which is basically a glass fronted, high efficiency gas fire, they range from about 80% to in excess of 90% efficiency. So, in terms of efficiency because a lot of people don’t understand efficiency we created a layman’s terms of how to understand efficiency. If you physically put £1 of gas into a fire, it’s how much heat you get on your legs. So, for a gas fronted fire you’re taking 80-90p into the room, onto your legs, the rest of it is lost through the flue, through the product of combustion, weight and heat, many different things. You’ve then got your open-fronted fires and with them they range from around 50-75% efficient but the industry has changed quite a lot and is now a lot more focussed around energy efficiency.
Alex: And is that the new frontier at the moment, is that where the latest technology is being ploughed into the industry, it’s all about energy efficiency, or are there any other avenues as well being looked at?
Chris: The industry went down a different route, so they went down the glass fronted industry peaked quite a lot, but the cosmetic side of it wasn’t quite as good, wasn’t as appealing as open fronted fires. An open fronted fire, even when it’s off, you’ve still got a look of the coals or the logs or the pebbles, you can physically touch them, and you can see them a lot easier so cosmetically they’re a lot more appealing, but the efficiency rating isn’t as high. So, then you’ve got the glass fronted fires. You’ve got the glass in front, you’ve got the coals or the other cosmetic, whether it’s the coals or pebbles behind and cosmetically it doesn’t look as nice because you’ve got reflection or a shadow so the industry went through a big change and the glass fronted fires now are a lot more appealing and the fuel beds have changed and whether it’s the angle, how the cosmetic look of them, the glass is now non-reflective, there’s a lot of changes. So, the glass-fronted market for the high efficiency has improved a lot but the open fronted as well has because now there’s a different category so you’ve got high efficiency, so you’ve got open fronted and then you’ve got open fronted high efficiency. The open fronted is if you look at the fire, there’s the face of the fire, you’ve got what I call is face value, how much air can be drawn through that face at any given time. Now for a glass fronted it’s minimal because there’s glass there so there’s not much air to pull through as you can imagine as you watch it, it only pulls through the top of the fire and through the bottom. Now, with the open fronted fire the face value is a lot more dramatic because you’ve just got the canopy and then all the coals or whatever the cosmetic lay out is so you’ve then got the open fronted AG so it’s still open, you’ve still got all the cosmetic stuff but the canopy is slightly bigger and you’ve got the convector on there as well so the face value is slightly reduced so the visual look of it you see less of the fuel bed but cosmetically its still more pleasing.
Alex: Chris, thanks so much and also if people want to get in touch with you, what are the best ways?
Chris: You can contact us via telephone and that’s Huddersfield 01484 644464 or you can visit our websites, easyfireplace.co.uk or envyfireplace.co.uk We do cover all of Yorkshire so please don’t hesitate to get in contact and we’re here to help.
Alex: Fantastic, thanks very much indeed again Chris.
Chris: Thank you.
Alex: The property hospital is all about me answering your property concerns and demystifying the process. Now this week I’m answering a question from Tom who’s got this to say.
Tom: Hi Alex, I’m thinking of going on the market because I’ve seen a property that I like, but, if I don’t get it I don’t know what to do. I’d really appreciate your insight on this please.
Alex: Tom, look please be careful here and you’re absolutely right to ask. Remember that nowadays the market is very transparent and there’s lots of websites out there recording all sorts of information about your potential house sale. Now as soon as you launch onto the open market these websites effectively press record and you start leaving what is called a digital footprint. Now, this is actually quite difficult to get rid of. I say this because if you’re going to go on to the market you must do it for the right reasons and have a plan B if you do not secure the property you ideally want. It’s not advisable nowadays to dip your toe into the water and test the market only to find that the property you wanted has gone under offer, you then withdraw your property from the market and you leave behind the digital footprint that can be looked at in years to come and you don’t want to give the market the wrong impression about your home when you really do want sell when that time comes. So overall my advice is if you want to sell then do it for all of the right reasons and go for it. If you just want to test the market, to gauge a reaction or indeed try and secure just that one single property then almost hold back and question your motivations to sell. If you’re unsure you only need give me a call. I hope this helps.
Voiceover: Name?
Jon: Jon Charters-Reed
Voiceover: Business?
Jon: Charters Reed Surveyors
Voiceover: Years experience?
Jon: 25
Alex: We’ve got Jon Charters-Reed here in the studio, a very interesting chap indeed. Now Jon, just tell everyone, you’ve got a few accreditations to your name, which is a bit more unusual than most surveyors out there I think it’s fair to be said.
Jon: Yeah definitely, I began my career as a classically trained York Minster Joiner, went on to become a chartered surveyor, a chartered builder and I’m also a chartered building engineer.
Alex: You’ve got a lot going on there, a lot going on and I think what’s quite interesting is because you’ve got the building background I think there was quite a famous story involved in that as well.
Jon: There was, we’ve had a few incidents where properties have suffered from structural movement, no one didn’t know what to do or how to fix them, so we took our own digger, underpinned it and guaranteed it ourselves.
Alex: That’s what you call an in-house one-stop surveyor shop. I don’t know many surveyors that will go and survey a property and then go and fix it and guarantee it themselves, that’s pretty impressive stuff. I just want to talk through the different types of survey, I think there are a lot of home buyers and indeed home sellers who get themselves into a bit of a spin as to what level they require and what the actual differences are. Just talk everyone through that.
Jon: Ok well before we do let’s just look at the reason why you have a survey and at the moment it’s all the wrong way round because there’s a basic valuation which tells you what the property’s worth and in essence that’s a bank valuation usually, and you’re lucky if that’s one sheet of paper, you don’t normally get to see it as the property purchaser. Now it’s slightly incorrect as how do you know what the property’s worth if you don’t know it’s condition? For that reason, Alex, that’s why you should have a survey first before you get the valuation. I looked around a 1649 property a few weeks ago and it had horrendous defects and it does have an effect on value, needless to say the costs of repairs is not a straight forward deduction off the market appraisal.
Alex: No indeed and what are the survey types?
Jon: What we have is your basic survey, is the industry standard is the RICS home buyers report. It’s quite a restrictive report because it has traffic lights in it and we often do 4/5 surveys a week where someone’s had the RICS home buyers report, its not clear, its not easy to understand and we’ve been asked to do a subsequent report on it just to highlight effectively what the deficiencies are in there.
Alex: Is it often where banks offer that because sometimes they do this overall package where they will give you a survey and I guess very often because it’s a lower grade one it’s cheaper for them?
Jon: Exactly, so the banks are being rather naughty because one of the things I’ve said in my book, How to be A Smarter House Buyer, is that the banks are not treating customers fairly, they are carrying out restrictive practices because if you go to the bank for a mortgage and they offer you a mortgage, they must give you the opportunity to get your own independent surveyor.
Alex: What is the next type or survey that you need to get?
Jon: Most individual private practices will offer their own version of that which is usually full of common sense and not standard phrases. So, you get your level 2 scheme which is one above evaluation, then you get your building survey which is suitable for older houses. What you must remember is that Yorkshire has got a plethora of terraced houses, most of them getting on for 120 years old and they too are likely candidates for a building survey.
Alex: So that is sort of the step 2, the next grade up, I think some surveyors call it an infrastructure survey.
Jon: Sometimes its got a number of names, its sometimes called a building survey, or a mains structure survey and you need to be extremely careful because there are a number of companies out there offering a building survey, charging a fortune and it’s four pages long.
Alex: How long are yours then?
Jon: 40-50 pages long and 40-70,000 words because the thing is that everyone needs to understand is that your home that you are buying is ostensibly the family silver and so why would you skim on going for the cheapest survey on something that is literally worth thousands and it’s your future?
Alex: No, I quite agree. Again, I think there’s confusion over formal valuations and sometimes I think estate agents offer these. Under what circumstance would someone say I want a formal valuation? What are they and in what situation?
Jon: So formal valuations usually begin with a probate valuation or a valuation for tax purposes or a matrimonial valuation. The banks will ask for a valuation because its part of the banks and building society’s acts and regulations that the bank need a valuation to know the property’s value and so the banks are quite canny because they’ll charge the customers up to £600/700 for a valuation which literally is one to two pieces of paper and they’ll keep 60-70% of the fee but they won’t tell you that.
Alex: No indeed, but can you get involved if I needed a formal valuation?
Jon: There’s no reason based on what we’ve previously said about the council of mortgage lenders why a house buyer cannot insist on their own survey. If the bank turns around says you need to use our panel of approved surveyors, its restrictive practice and it’s tantamount to being illegal.
Alex: It is and if you, you’ve gone very specific and ruled out a lot of other options, at the end of the day the clients or the home owner or the house purchaser is actually losing out at the end of the day.
Jon: You can choose your own solicitor, you can choose your own accountant and you can choose your own mortgage adviser. We need to be quite clear that the banks have got to stop behaving like this. I have spent 5 years researching this plus my 25 years in the business in order to create the book that I’ve written.
Alex: So, this is the next horizon, the next sort of scandal in the bank world potentially, certainly sounds as though its heading that way.
Jon: Definitely, we’ve already spoke to a couple of law firms that are interested in setting up departments to actually tackle what is effectively almost an in-house type of mortgage fraud by the banks really.
Alex: So, its setting up a monopoly on it all?
Jon: Definitely and it needs to stop and hence the birth of the smarter house buyer because people have got a lot more savvy as to what’s going on in the world.
Alex: You mentioned your book, I know that’s just recently come out. Just talk where is it, what’s it about?
Jon: It’s called How to be A Smarter House Buyer. Its available in Waterstones and on Amazon, paperback and Kindle. In essence it highlights the deficiencies in the housing market which effectively after the recession became broken we’re still using similar methods for selling and buying houses and advising people how to get mortgages that we we’re doing 10-15 years ago. It gives people tips on how to choose a good estate agent and try to do a bit of mystery shopping.
Alex: That was certainly in an article I’ve just written actually and do mystery shop them, go in behind the scenes and see how well you’re greeted as perspective purchaser if you’re looking to sell a house, I certainly agree wholeheartedly with that. Again, another phrase that’s thrown up is RICS Red Book Evaluation, just to be clear this is formal valuation and it’s what you talk through effectively but what is it? How do you actually go about it?
Jon: Ok so the RICS Red Book its in essence a large book, its red and as thick as the London Yellow Pages and it’s got a whole load of practice statements and guidelines that we have to comply with in order to provide an evaluation. Now interestingly enough when the banks are instructing surveyors in this closed shop environment to carry out an evaluation a lot of companies are not complying to this evaluation. So, I’ll give you another example, a lot of companies will go and do a bank valuation on a house and they won’t look in the loft and there is some practice statements now that say surveyors don’t need to look in the loft on valuations. Now to me this is wrong because the loft, which is probably a third of the property and you know its often the Pandora’s box which can reveal an awful lot of stuff and again lets take the average house price, you know £289,000, you’re buying a house, you’re getting a valuation, you’re paying a load of money for it, you’re not even getting to see it, you don’t know anything you’re getting, they’ve not even looked at two thirds of the house, how can that be right?
Alex: I quite agree, you must have in your years of experience quite a few embarrassing stories for us surely?
Jon: One of my favourite stories is going into a property as younger surveyor, and going into the garden of the property and shall we say the lady wasn’t petite, and it was a summers day and the lady was in her birthday suit and all I could do was offer her my clipboard, but it didn’t serve a purpose in covering a awful lot up really.
Alex: You really need a bigger clipboard Jon. How can everyone get in touch with you? As I’ve said you’ve got a lot of accreditations to your name, where are you based and what are your contact details?
Jon: You can get in touch with our Leeds or Harrogate office and if they type in Charters Reed Surveyors into Google we shall pop up on the screen. You can also contact us on our Harrogate number which is 01423 259601.
Alex: Jon, thank you so much, a fascinating insight as always, really appreciate you coming on the show.
Jon: Thanks very much indeed, take care.
Alex: When you’re selling your home, it is the little touches that help. A couple of neat little tricks for you. Firstly, make sure you have your windows professionally cleaned inside and out so they have a sparkle finish to the property, really does make such a difference, especially on large windows overlooking the garden say. Another tip is to ensure that any overhead light bulbs are high wattages. If you have the energy efficient versions, ensure you have them turned on in advance of any viewings so they have time to warm up and get to full candessence. Equally for side lights make sure you’ve got them appropriately positioned in dark corners but ensure they’re lower wattage. You want your rooms to feel cosy and comfortable rather than emblazoned in dazzling light throughout. Final point, your front door and to either side should be in show home condition. Paint your door, have some potted plants either side. First impressions really do count.
That’s the Alex Goldstein Property Show (part 11) and yet again some amazing top tips and features. If you need expert information, videos and up to the minute property news then head over to my website alexgoldstein.co.uk Alternatively if you require personalised advice when it comes to buying or selling your property please get in touch directly. The next episode is out on the 1 March so make sure you tune in for that. Until next time.
There is a lot of talk in the news about when to invest in property. Brexit, Article 50, Donald Trump, FTSE 100… it’s all quite confusing. In a turbulent environment, property consultant Alex Goldstein shares a simple solution that makes perfect sense
Full transcript below:
Alex: This month we’re discussing property investment and when to invest. Now, believe you me the time is now believe it or not. The market overall especially say in London has actually come back, with London coming down between 8/9% as a general rule. Interest rates have never been so low and let’s face it they can’t get much lower. As a result, borrowing money has never been so cheap. The Brexit decision has been made, the economy is looking fairly stable and demand for rentals remains incredibly strong. Now many people are asking well Alex, what happens if the market falls in the next couple of years? Well remember you need to look at the medium to long term now as an investment. Gone are the days of short term flipping. If the market falters over one or two years look it’s not going to have a significant impact because you’re looking at a longer timeframe. Now the all-important question is where are you going to invest? Now, as I think of it the key points to consider are look towards the key northern cities, look towards Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield, plus of course look at student accommodation. These have got relatively low capital outlays but really can provide excellent yields. If you happen to be looking in London compare where the cross-rail station are, look at the zones three to six plus if you want to take a bit more risk on look at the East and the South East Boroughs. They’re higher risk looking at say Peckham, Dagenham and Forest Hill, these are predicted to see very strong capital uplift in the next three to five years’ time but buying now whilst slightly on the cheaper side. Also bare in mind the key university cities, Durham, Bristol, Reading, York, Cambridge and Warwick, these are all highly popular with investors too at the moment. As I see it, look what doesn’t change is the UK is still seen as one of the safest places in the world to invest. Property is still proven to historically outperform any other investment over the medium to long term. Overall always know the type of tenant who you are aiming at. As a generalisation consideration should be given to buy property with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. This gives you flexibility when renting, especially through say Air B&B and if you decide to sell it’s going to appeal to wider audience. And finally, ideally secure some parking on the property and look if you don’t use it or the tenant doesn’t use it you can rent it out separately and it provides another passive income stream.
The Alex Goldstein Property Show (Part 10) hosts Katrina Allen from Winston Solicitors in Harrogate and Leeds gives the inside track when you are looking to sell and indeed buy a property.
What are the steps that you go through and what do they all mean? What is the point of having a conveyancing solicitor and what are Katrina’s best tips.
Alex: It’s great indeed to have Katrina Allen from Winston Solicitors here. Thank you for coming in, Katrina. Very exciting times indeed, I hear on the great fine. Tell me a bit more about it.
Katrina: Yeah, so we opened our Harrogate office on the 1st of December. There’s myself and Mark Fagan, our Heading of the office for the time being. I do residential property and commercial property. Mark is our Property Litigator. We also offer other services which include employment, wills and probate, and other litigation matters.
Alex: Wow. So, it’s almost the one-stop legal shop there where you say it’s kind of… [crosstalk]
Katrina: It is, it is. It’s very exciting. I must say, there’re amazing coffee shops in Harrogate, so looking forward to it.
Alex: At the moment, what are the other options you’ve got there?
Katrina: So, we have our Street Lane office around here, which is where I have been based for the past three years, and we also have Leeds City centre, so exciting times.
Alex: Expanding, one of the very few solicitors that are actually expanding at the moment. Great to hear. Tell me a bit more about your role within the company because I think you’re a bit more unusual for most on the property solicitors. Just tell me about that.
Katrina: Well, I’m a Property Partner, but I do cover for residential and commercial, which is unusual as most people just sit with one seat, but it is fun and it’s a variation. I do tend to deal more with residential at the moment, just because, sure, other properties listed fine in the markets are really buoyant, but I do commercial as well.
Alex: And when you say residential, is that on the conveyancing side of it?
Katrina: It is, it is.
Alex: And the same on the commercial side.
Katrina: Yes.
Alex: And if there’s a problem, that’s where you’ve got your psychics?
Katrina: Exactly.
Alex: Got you. A lot of people say, “Well, what’s the point of having a conveyancing list, and what is the actual point to having a sale?
Katrina: Property is very complex. There’re lots of different elements to property. It’s a must to have a professional assisting you and guiding you. If you’re buying with a mortgage, in any event, you would have to find a property solicitor because the bank would not lend without that expertise. People sometimes do have the opinion that convenes in transactions can be simplistic, but I’m sure you found, Alex, that that’s a rarity.
Alex: Certainly, yeah.
Katrina: So, property solicitors will do things such as searches, which is local authority searches, water searches, environmental searches, which look at the property. We also have to make sure that we check the covenants on the title. Covenants are restrictions on the property itself, so for example, if you are buying property that you wish to extend, you not only would need to check say a drainage report, which would show a potential sewer or drain pipe in the boundary, which may affect development, we do also need to check whether or not there are any covenants which could restrict development. So, it’s always very, very important you do instruct a property solicitor.
Alex: And how do you check these, these little gremlins? Sometimes people talk about some historic footpaths that no one knew about. I’m guessing when you involve a covenant list, they’re able to sort of check all that out for you.
Katrina: Yeah. We check the documents that are passed to us. So, for example, if we’re gonna check regarding footpaths, the local authority search would be the first port of call that would look for whether or not there are any public footpaths registered. Also at the moment, I’m noticing that there are more applications to register a public right. So, we’re seeing that now more in local authority searches. And so, that is something that’s important. Sometimes your deeds will show a relative way. I’ve just acted recently for a client where they had to fishing right at the bottom of the garden. So, things like this are important for your solicitor to be checking because if you bought that blissfully unaware, and then moved in and then it was alerted to you, then you might be a little bit unhappy.
Alex: Indeed. And then when you try and then the consequences I always say, when you actually come to sell, you’ve then got that problem and you’ve now got to declare it.
Katrina: Exactly.
Alex: In terms of the actual process of conveyancing, obviously once you’re instructed and the deal’s been put together, you’ve sent up for all the searches, as you said, and you get all the information back, what are the actual next steps? Because again, I think a lot of people have overlooked the conveyancing process and they just said, “Oh, well, we will just get our solicitor to run it,” or what actually happens behind the scenes once you’ve got those bits of information back?
Katrina: Yeah, and it is a complex process so if once the client instructs, we obviously submit searches with the client’s authority. We try to do that at the start of the transaction and behind-the-scenes whilst we’re waiting for the search results to be received and we are raising inquiries with the other party’s solicitors. During that obviously, we’re getting replies in working through the replies checking officer the Covenant reporting for the client on the covenants raising queries with the actual client because we need to chat.
Alex: Indeed, a bit of a solicitor legal phrasing here. Sometimes you call it inquiries. People out front will probably call it questions.
Katrina: Questions, there we go.
Alex: But they are effectively the same thing.
Katrina: Yes. So, we’ve got to raise questions with the other party’s solicitor on the title itself, when we receive search results, there may be questions we have to ask them. All this is happening behind the scenes.
Alex: This is if something is not clear. One of the searches comes back, possibly, you’re thinking in your professional mind something’s not quite right.
Katrina: Exactly. You have the basic questions that you will always ask. I’ve never had a transaction where you don’t ask a question. So, there will always be the basic questions that you’ve got to ask as a starting point, and then quite rightly, there will be questions where you may be alerted to something in the form that the seller has completed. So, there’s been an extension, so then we go on to ask the question, “Please supply planning and building regulations.” There may be something that the seller… for example if you’re purchasing a property that’s highlighted such as the dispute, we’ve then got to raise a further question. So, there’s always something behind the scenes that’s happening. We may not always be speaking to you every day about that question, but you will then be reported to further on with copies of those questions because ultimately, the client is your eyes as it were for the property. We never see that property, so it’s always important you keep your client in the loop because they might say, “Oh, fire.” We’ve noticed that at the property in the event the seller hasn’t actually noted that.
Alex: Should a purchaser of a property that you’re acting for, they obviously most of the time people do actually get a form of service as best that you have, and see the site of that for those reasons or nothing to do with you?
Katrina: I always ask for a copy of the survey. I’m certainly not a professional surveyor, but there is always an area, an element matter for the legal representative which we need to check.
Alex: Yeah.
Katrina: For us, the survey and the client are our eyes for that property, so it’s very, very important you have that communication with your clients, so they can highlight to you points that you may need to raise, which ultimately will have impact if you didn’t raise that other question on a future sale.
Alex: Got you. So, once you’ve gone through those inquiries, you’ve tested all the avenues, then this stuff comes on the most part people have a mortgage, and you get the gain of technical phrasing, “I’m pulling down on the mortgage.” Just talk around through if you’re getting a mortgage, how it actually works from a legal, from a solicitor’s perspective? There’re banks and panels, and all it gets…there’s a lot of jargon involved.
Katrina: Yeah, once the client has applied for the mortgage, then the mortgage lender will check the solicitor who’s actually on the mortgage lenders panel. We are because of the number of partners, and we are, generally, on most of the panels. Once the evaluation has been done, the mortgage offer will obviously come to the solicitor, in most cases. HSBC are a little bit different, they send it out before. And for example, if we’ve got all searches, I received all replies to the questions that I have raised and I’m satisfied, and the mortgage offer is set on file, at that point then I would ask the client to attend the office for signature of papers, go through papers with the client, any questions. At that point then if we are ready, we would then say to the solicitor on the other side, we would like to discuss completion dates. Once that date has been agreed, we send off what’s called a Certificate of Title to the mortgage provider, and that is us the solicitor saying, “We are happy that there is a clear title that you can give lending to.” And then we request drawdown of those funds.
Alex: Got you. So yeah, the mortgage line is putting everything up to you.
Katrina: Everything on the solicitor.
Alex: I’ve got you. So, is that part of the reason why the whole process I hear you have a lot of those grumbles?
Katrina: Yes.
Alex: The whole process takes a long time, especially at the moment. I suppose in the last three to five years, the length of time from going under offer, free, to exchange, just things have got slightly longer. I don’t know whether you feel the same with your experience, and I don’t know how long it actually takes from your perspective now.
Katrina: Yeah, I’ve been doing this job a long time. I do hear when people can quote that a property transaction will take four to six weeks. I think it’s difficult. We always give a client an estimate. So, somebody who sells to me three whole purchase, what would you estimate? I would say around six to eight weeks. You can never give a determined time because each property transaction has its variables. It depends on the length of the chain, it depends on what questions you have to raise and what responses you’re gonna get. If you raise questions and you get amazing responses back quickly, then that transaction, ultimately, is gonna happen a lot faster than where you send off queries and it takes four weeks for somebody to respond.
Alex: And does that then make a difference? So, say you’re acting for a buyer, and obviously, the buyer sounds to be extremely efficient, but then on the other side, if the vendor, the house sellers, and their solicitor isn’t as proactive, again, that also hinders the process.
Katrina: Completely. It’s ultimately the variable. So, for example, if it takes longer for the other party’s solicitor to get replies, that’s gonna have an impact because you waited. And then if you get a response that you don’t like, it’s ultimate, you may have to go back and raise additional questions, and I think this is sometimes the issue we have. If a client is told, “Replies are in.”, doesn’t necessarily mean at that point I’m gonna be ready.
Alex: It suggests, yeah.
Katrina: It might mean, unfortunately, I’ll have to go back and raise further questions. Again, it depends on the length of the local authority search. You have Woodcock local authority that can do them within 24 to 48 hours. You have another that, at the moment, they’re saying their lead times 20 working days, but I would say some another two weeks over that. So, so many different variables, it’s so difficult. As long as you chase on the transaction, that’s about as much as you can do because you can only put so much pressure on another party. But it’s important, obviously, that there is chase during the transaction with the help of the estate agents.
Alex: Absolutely. And what actually happens? Because, again, I suppose this is a bit of a hot topic. Yes, it is very much so in the estate agency sector at the moment, but sort of the online disruptors as they like to call themselves, you’ve got this mass online conveyance. What intrinsically is, I suppose, the difference between one of the online guys and then obviously, you guys, in Leads and Harrogate? People just instantly go, “Well, it’s hell of a lot cheaper.” Why is that?
Katrina: It’s difficult to say because I certainly don’t get quotations from line agencies and solicitors. I would always personally choose local because I like that relationship with the local solicitor. Generally, you’re gonna find with local solicitors, they’re gonna know local agents, local professionals, which ultimately if you’ve got the problem, then you can pick up the telephone and say, “Look, I need your assistance. I needed your guidance. I need you to push on this transaction. Can you assist?” I’ve never used an online firm myself, so it’s difficult to comment, but I personally think have been able to step into the office of your solicitor, call and five-minute chat, or deal with everything in one meeting, drop paperwork off rather than you have to wait a week for it to be posted, all these things I’m sure will add to…
Alex: It’s the little things that count.
Katrina: Yes.
Alex: Absolutely. And if I’m a homeowner and I’m looking to sell, are there any things that I should look to get done in advance, or prepare, or things to be mindful of?
Katrina: Most certainly. If you’re selling a property, when it goes on the market, I wouldn’t wait to speak to your solicitor once it’s sold. Make contact with your local solicitor early on. They can then guide you as to what would be required from you at the point that the property does sell, so for example, your identification, proof of funds, things that you can take time in the background to collaborate to pass on. Say, for example, you’ve had a recent gas safety check on your boiler. Your solicitor can say, “Get my paperwork together.” If you’ve had an extension, make sure that all you pay for it for your building regulations and planning permission is all bundled in readiness to drop to your solicitor, because ultimately, the more that they have a start, the quicker your contract papers are gonna go out.
Alex: Good little top tip there.
Katrina: On the purchase transaction, again, speak to your solicitor early. You may have viewed a property, you might not have had that offer accepted, but at least, again, you can have the chat. So many clients just do the basic evaluation which is for bank purposes only, and then until they instruct this list that they may not think about a survey. So, again, if you’ve spoken to a solicitor before, you could’ve potentially had an offer accepted. At least then you might think, “Didn’t mention the survey.” Have that discussion and make an informed decision early on. Then you’re not obviously upsetting the vendor by asking for a survey four weeks down the line, which ultimately may give the vendor a little bit of the… they might be a little bit concerned by that. If you’ve done it early on when you can do it.
Alex: Yeah, just out of the way.
Katrina: Yeah, exactly.
Alex: Because I know you mentioned sort of extensions, and certainly in my experience, that tends to be a bit of an issue where people have overlooked, accidentally of course, on some things when it comes to extending. From your perspective, what are the issues that you come up against, or you would be mindful from the legal perspective?
Katrina: Yeah.
Alex: If I was extending my house, for example, what should I get done?
Katrina: Yes. So, if you’re looking to extend, you’d obviously need to check with the local authority what you would need to do. So, does it require planning permission or is it with unpermitted development? Does it require building regulations? It’s so important to have that contact with the local authority because ultimately when you come to sell, the solicitor acting for your buyer will raise that query. Unfortunately, we do see it more often than not that when people do come to sell, we’re asking for paperwork for that extension, and ultimately, they don’t have that can be able to offer.
Alex: What happens if you fall into say that sort of circumstances where you don’t have that paperwork for an extension? Is there a way around legitimate leave?
Katrina: Yeah.
Alex: Have you sold something like that?
Katrina: There’re different variables. One of the first questions we’ve got to ask is, “When did the extension take place?” We’ve got to give the client the choices to which way they wish for us to move forward with the seller solicitor. So, for example, the best way forward would be for the person who owns the property to go back to the local authority, have a retrospective concern, and they would issue what’s called a regularization certificate. But that would be ultimately only if the seller would be prepared to do so, because the moment you get the local authority to the property, you’re putting a local authority on notice that you didn’t have those permissions.
Alex: Oh, yeah.
Katrina: So, that would be the first conversation you’d have with your client. Now, ultimately, in conveyancing, everybody wants to meet the end result as quickly as possible. For solicitors, we’ve got to make sure that end result is not gonna cause a problem when you come to sell. So, if the seller does not wish to go back to the local authority, most seller solicitors will then offer what’s called an indemnity policy.
Alex: Yeah.
Katrina: Now, that’s fine. That obviously is something that we would agree to, but clients have got to be aware that an indemnity policy merely covers for council enforcement. It doesn’t cover for structural defects as such. So, it would be important for the client to make sure that they satisfy themselves on that point because what you don’t want to do is go, “That’s fine. We’ll accept the indemnity.” And then find there’s a problem with your footings. Ultimately, that could pose a potential problem. What we also suggest the clients is they do check with that building’s insurance company, that they are satisfied, that they’ll also be prepared to offer insurance, on the basis that we couldn’t say whether or not that extension would need building regulations or planning permission. It’s just ultimately very important that clients do think of the bigger picture when they are proceeding. People do proceed with indemnity, as long as it’s notified to the mortgage provider, and they’re happy, and the client’s happy. They just got to be aware that it is partly up their own risk to accept that on the indemnity basis.
Alex: So, if you haven’t got that paperwork for that extension, you can get rounded, but it’s gonna be quite a headache and, as you said, that is another reason why the whole process can take so much longer.
Katrina: Yeah. I have seen recently three…We’ve been acting in three recent cases where the seller has agreed to go back to the local authority when this is on leads, and the local authority, I must say, have been brilliant, and they’ve gone out, and I think we’ve had the regularization certificate within a week to two weeks, from the other party’s solicitors. In one case, it was 48 hours. But that was just a question where building regulations was noted on the local authority search, that just hadn’t had the sign up for the completion certificate.
Alex: Got you.
Katrina: And so there are things that can be done, it’s just ultimately nobody should make an approach to the local authority without speaking to the solicitor. If anybody makes that approach without taking a necessary advice from those professionals, and that can cause a major problem.
Alex: It really can.
Katrina: Because if you make an approach to the local authority, it could potentially invalidate an indemnity insurance. So, it’s a must that people don’t just think, “Oh, I’ll just pick up the phone.” Because the moment you do that, you could be causing yourself and the whole chain a problem.
Alex: It does happen more often than you think.
Katrina: Unfortunately, it does.
Alex: And I’ve got to say, with the length of career that you’ve got, I dare say surely, you’ve got an amusing story for us.
Katrina: Yeah, this was a difficult question because you have to be careful with the information that I gave without highlighting a client’s case, but I do remember this was right at the start of my career. I was reporting to a client on covenants. There was a covenant that you could not keep pigs or poultry, and the client actually said to me, “But what about my pet pig?”
Alex: Wait. We’re talking micro pig here?
Katrina: Yeah. A pig. A full-size pig. At first, I thought she was… because obviously, people have humor but she was actually being quite genuine. She had a pet pig that lived partly in the house and partly in the garden.
Alex: Well, okay.
Katrina: So, this was gonna be a deal-breaker for her. In the end, we did write to the local authority, and they did refuse. So, it’s one of those things that it was quite interesting to be part of. I think she’s the only person I’ve ever met with a pet pig in the house,
Alex: So best declare absolutely everything, including if you have a pet pig.
Katrina: Yeah. This is why is so important when we write to clients and report on the covenant, is so important that people do read those documents because ultimately that one covenant could have impact on either your decision to purchase or future availability.
Alex: And I’m assuming the pig was absolutely fine and he moved in happily.
Katrina: They didn’t buy. They didn’t buy, no. The local authority wouldn’t give consent.
Alex: It’s the way it goes sometimes. But it’s great to have you on the show, Katrina, and thank you so much. If anyone wants to talk through that pig scenario or if they’re buying or selling a property, one of the best ways to get in touch with you, obviously, at the new snazzy office.
Katrina: Yes! So, if you would like to pass through your pet pig stories to me or any questions on that the legal process for buying or commercial property if you can give me ring on 014-2327-5375 or drop me an email at kaa@winstonesolicitors.co.uk.
Alex: Fantastic stuff. Thanks so much again.
Katrina: No, thank you for having me.
When the unexpected Brexit result came though, there were ramifications in the wider economy and the property market. However is all the media hype to be believed? Listen in to property consultant Alex Goldstein give his years of insight in to the the effect of brexit on the property market and picks out what one should be mindful of…
Full transcript below:
Alex: This month we are discussing the outcome of Brexit and to put the record straight. Now come on, let’s face it when we heard the UK was leaving the EU what happened? Panic set in. Whilst one half of the UK were revelling in their success the other half were going into meltdown. The stock exchange was all over the place, sterling fell off a cliff, political resignation went around like wildfire and let’s face it the doom-mongers had a field day. People then started buying into this psychological panic about the economy and they actually lost sight of what was going on. What we’ve got to remember is that leaving the EU is not an on/off switch type scenario. From the point the UK government invokes article 50, there are 2 years from that point of detailed renegotiations. So, in other words it’s going to be 2019 before we know the full extent of the detail. The key to all of this whether you are Brexit or Bremain is mindset. By staying positive and keeping calm you will start to see the new economic and property landscape in a brand-new light. Now, mortgage lending rates, they are at an all time low and money’s never been cheaper to borrow. So therefore, if you’re thinking of moving home you can go up a couple of rungs on the ladder. The Bank of England have held the interest rates at half a percent, however there’s talk that that’s possibly going to come down. Again, good news if you’re borrowing. Supply and demand are kings when it comes to property. In Yorkshire supply’s always been weak but demand very high and this has led to prices holding firm in comparison to other parts of the country. So therefore, if you’re a homeowner looking to sell, demand remains good and as long as your guide price remains realistic there are answers out there for you as well. Investing and buying in property has rarely been about short term flipping, so therefore any changes in the house price index is likely to balance out over the length of ownership. That is why property has always historically proven to be the best investment over the medium to long term. International investors have also plagued on the current exchange rates and are increasingly keen to buy. So, the actual conclusion of Brexit is way down the line and everything in the media currently is on the most part, educated speculation. So, after all no country has ever been in this position before. What we do know is that the UK and the EU wants a clean break on the best terms for both sides. We need them and vice versa. So, when you look at the world in a positive frame of mind keep calm and always take a medium view point, the outlook is not so bad after all. Yes, of course there is some current short-term turbulence but that’s not a surprise, we knew this was going to be the case anyway. Here’s a parting thought for you, will we actually leave the EU in the end? Either way, all the white noise about going in, staying out, meeting in the middle, it’s all talk. Am I going to put my life on hold for a minimum of the next 2 years? No, of course I’m not and I suggest you may wish to do the same.
When it comes to letting your property, what do you need to do and how do you choose between letting agents? During this fast paced interview, property concierge Alex Goldstein speaks with Alison Guggenheim from Lentin Smith, to get a true insight into this sometimes misunderstood industry sector.
Full transcript below:
Alex: It’s great to have Alison Guggenheim, from Lentin Smith, who are a letting agents actually right in the centre of town here. Great to have you here Alison.
Alison: Thanks for having me Alex.
Alex: Getting straight to the heart of it I suppose, you often comes across and you hear on the grapevine that estate agents and letting agents are all tarnished with a similar sort of brush, they’re not very reputable, that they’re dare I say at times sort of lazy, I dare say you feel that’s a fairly unjustified comment. How do yourself and Lentin Smith sort of fit within that context?
Alison: Ok, well I think it’s simply because those particular agents just aren’t doing their job properly. There’s a lot of different aspects to leasing and property management and what you need is a experienced team of property managers in place to deal with the complex legal and compliance issues that you face, and also people who’ve got robust systems in place to minimise any issues you may encounter through your tenancies. As a firm, as a business we take a very proactive approach to problem solving and try to help both landlords and tenants through our experiences that we’ve built up over 50 years now in property management, to help them through the difficult times.
Alex: As a landlord what do you actually need to look for in a letting agent, what are the I suppose issues they could come across and what they actually need to prepare? They’ve got a property they want to get onto the market, what do they need to be mindful of?
Alison: Ok, well legally to advertise your property you need a energy performance certificate, an annual landlord gas safety certificate to make sure all your gas appliances are safe, check of your electrics, again just to make sure you’re not putting anyone at risk with no harm or anything there, and obviously insurance for the landlords building.
Alex: How can you ensure as a landlord, how do you find the right tenants on the right basis I suppose quickly because you don’t want a property sitting there idle for too much time, what are the thing you need to get right as a landlord, what do you need in place?
Alison: Absolutely, it’s very unusual really for any property that it is correctly marketed to have any kind of void period in Harrogate now. The tenant demand is growing month by month and we are seeing a massive shortage of all sorts of houses within the Harrogate area. So really to make sure you don’t get this void period you need to basically present your property in the best possible way. By that I mean make sure it’s clean and tidy, any external area, gardens are well presented and obviously clean inside and well decorated because you want these people to treat it as a home and if you’re expecting them to move in with sub-standard accommodation, quite honestly they’re not going to treat it as you would want them to treat it and it will lead to further problems down the line.
Alex: So, it’s almost like having it in if you like, show home type standard.
Alison: Absolutely yes.
Alex: And I’m assuming sort of does it matter if it’s furnished or unfurnished, is there a preference where we are at the moment?
Alison: I think generally it’s easier to let properties which are unfurnished and then perhaps to have an agreement where you may be willing to provide one or two pieces of furniture if required. It depends if you’re talking about a big detached family home or a small bedsit or two-bed new starter home something like that. But generally, it’s better to let the properties unfurnished and then as a landlord you don’t have that issue at the end of the tenancy where your family heirlooms or items of high value have been left in the property and perhaps have been slightly marked or damaged or just general wear and tear.
Alex: Bit of hot topic but Menwith Hill, the number of employees there I gather, and everyone sort of understands they’re all going back to the States and they were a massive driving force behind this sort of letting market. Have you noticed much of an impact at this point?
Alison: Yeah certainly the last 18 months, the decrease in the number of Menwith Hill workers has had a big impact on certainly the luxury end of the Harrogate housing market, and I think that’s particularly come through in the upper end of the two-bed apartment rates. We’ve seen they’re certainly coming down slightly in price and there’s less demand for those at the moment.
Alex: Then I suppose on the flip side if I’m a tenant and I’m actively looking, how can I, I suppose, put myself in the best position so that Alison knows about me and I’m going to find that great property to rent out. What do I need to do from a tenancy perspective?
Alison: Ok, you need to make sure that you can move quickly and when you go to the viewing if your happy with it and you’re in a position to decide quickly.
Alex: There and then do you mean you can strike a deal.
Alison: Strike a deal or yes certainly within 24 hours at the end of the day it’s not our decision who gets to let the properties it’s always the landlord, so we have to get as much information as possible to give to the landlord after viewing for him or her to make that decision. But you know if we feel that person is the right person for the property then you know then let’s close a deal.
Alex: Does it matter about credit reference and that side of things? So, again if you’re a tenant prior to going down the route with yourselves and finding a property, you almost want to go on one of these websites and do all the background checks and ensure that’s all-in line, you look into that nowadays as well?
Alison: Yes, before anybody can move into a property, we’ll do a full credit reference check on them which will include employment checks, salary checks, previous landlord reference, credit reference as well. So, anything that could come back, you’re much better to be honest and upfront about that at your viewing because it’s not something we would look brightly on if it comes out at a later date once the application has been and fees being paid.
Alex: Ok, understand, I mean do most letting agents do that? Is that the standard doing that number of checks?
Alison: That’s the standard now yes.
Alex: How do you get around it? I mean, again, you hear scaremonger albeit that I don’t know, the tenant abuses the property, they paint the walls all black for example, what do you do from a letting agent perspective and indeed a landlord perspective to mitigate that, to ensure that doesn’t happen, or there are no real guarantees, what can you do to protect yourself?
Alison: I can reassure your listeners that it happens very rarely in Harrogate, we’ve got very good properties and very good tenants and very good landlords on the whole. And where there is accidental damage or where there is excessive wear and tear during the tenancy, most tenants are happy to contribute towards the cost of repairing or replacing that at the end of the tenancy. It’s really important that landlords and agents do make regular inspections of the property so any issues that may come to light, you can deal with effectively at the beginning of the tenancy, rather than at the end of the tenancy and we lodge all our deposits through the deposit protection scheme.
Alex: I was going to ask about that, how does that actually work? This is relatively new all of the deposit schemes, just sort of fill everyone in on this.
Alison: So, the deposit protection scheme or the DPS, is a government backed scheme where an agent or a landlord taking the deposit is required to lodge that deposit within 30 days of the start of the tenancy. What a good agent will do is they will go round at the start of the tenancy before they hand the keys over and make a full written and photographic inventory of all the items in the house and the condition at the time the tenants make that commitment to sign the tenancy agreement. That then stands as a benchmark to assess any wear and tear or damage or dilapidations at the end of the tenancy, when another inventory is undertaken with the photographs and you can compare photographic evidence on the table. There are occasions where it isn’t possible to agree the retentions and the dilapidations and at that stage it unfortunately has to go through the DPS adjudication process.
Alex: So, it goes a bit more legal in that case within it actually goes through the government scheme for them to resolve?
Alison: That’s right, the DPS actually hold the tenants deposit, so the tenant doesn’t need to worry that its held with the agent or the landlord, so they can take increased confidence that their money is being held by a third party.
Alex: Is there any sort of major or significant difference I suppose from a tenants view point that if the property they’re in is managed either by you as the letting agent or indeed I suppose is managed privately by the landlords, are there things from a tenants point of view that you should be mindful of when entering into a agreement or because of again these government schemes there, it doesn’t really necessarily matter these days?
Alison: I think if you’re renting from a private landlord always check where he’s going to lodge your deposit and make sure that you get the appropriate paperwork so you know where that money’s held and make sure that obviously you’re renting from someone that you feel that you can get along with, perhaps someone that’s local and has local contacts in place if you’ve got a repair, you’re not dealing with an overseas landlord where it may take 2-3 days to get in touch with and that obviously repairs can be actioned promptly.
Alex: There are some very significant organisations really that are specialists in the letting side of things and they use sort of two or three offices locally, where do you feel that Lentin Smith adds value or does something that’s different in comparison to the bigger set-ups if you like?
Alison: As a business we’re set up and run by landlords and they’re a very experienced team of property managers and we are independent, and we do offer a very specialised property management service. We are extremely proud of what we’ve built up over the last eight years and we continue to grow and expand really on the recommendation of our landlords and I think that speaks volumes of how we operate. And I would just like to stress that we are local people, who know the market and as a business we’ve invested in technology to be able to offer our landlords and clients a login portal to access their property information 24/7, which obviously helps them at that awful time of year when you have to do your tax returns or any other accounting information you need to do. We offer wide angle photography, 360-degree virtual tools and floorplans on all our properties now. So, the other tip for landlords when they’re marketing their property is to make sure that the agent has time to do a thorough market appraisal of your property, make sure you’ve got the best photographs and it’s presented in the best light. Also, my advice would be don’t necessarily go with the agent who thinks he can get you the best price. Sometimes its that time it takes holding on to that final £25 or whatever it is you’re looking for, that will eat into your costs because you’ve got a longer void period and sometimes its those tenants that feel they are paying top dollar on their rent will demand everything to be 100% perfect in their property, 100% of the time, which may cost you more in the long run with monthly repair bills.
Alex: Now, I have from my experience, certainly the marketing side of things, so many letting agents just don’t even bother doing floor plans and it can be sort of infuriating if you’re trying to point a client in the right direction. I suppose almost to finish on this I suppose, you’ve got the luxurious position someone like you that you’re seeing a lot of properties, day-in day-out you must have a lot of funny stories up your sleeve that have happened in your career, please share.
Alison: Well it never ceases to amaze me how many tenants and people will open the door with no clothes on! Not something I’d do but there’s a lot of people out there who don’t seem to mind.
Alex: And they’ve just been caught out!
Alison: Yes, not that they’ve been too embarrassed.
Alex: It does happen. Just remind everyone Alison if they wanted to sort of touch base with you, what’s the best number to reach you on?
Alison: Feel free to call me at the office its 01423 817777 or you can contact us via our website which is www.lentinsmith.co.uk
Alex: That’s great Alison, really appreciate your time and thank you for coming in.
Get the inside track when it comes to architects – what do they actually offer and how do they go about it? What are the key tips and tricks to look out for according to experienced architect Nick Silcock of Townscape Architects.
Full transcript below:
Alex: It’s great to have Nick Silcock here from Townscape Architects in Harrogate. Nick thanks very much indeed for sparing the time to come in.
Nick: No problem Alex, delighted to meet you.
Alex: Thanks very much and just talk us through, again there’s a lot of confusion out there, you hear all these job titles and job terms, just sort of steer everyone in the right direction here. I hear sort of there’s the architects, the technologists and there’s the planning consultants. What do these people do, how do they all fit together on the architectural side of things and what you do?
Nick: So, there is vast differences between the architects, the architectural technologists and the planning consultant. Generally, the architect will have studied at university for seven years and will be very design focussed, he will study a Bachelor of Arts qualification and he will be there to open up your vision for a property, a piece of land for a development you have in mind and he will be able to pick up an idea and run with it, deliver that vision.
Alex: So, he is mostly the artist, if you like?
Nick: The artist, he’s the creative guy, he will also probably have the skill set to take that vision through the planning process, through the technical design process and be able to provide all the services that you need to deliver a construction project from that initial conception through to the last nut and bolt and sweeping up on site.
Alex: And that’s you?
Nick: That’s me.
Alex: So then on the technologist side, who’s that?
Nick: Generally, they will study for around four years. They study a Bachelor of Science qualification. So, they are far more technical in their skill set. So, a successful architectural practice is likely to employ a technologist to be able to deliver the technical aspects, the technical drawings and provide the fire power behind the scenes to actually do the drawings. So, it’s very much less or generally less design orientated but they’re and they have a very strong skill set than in a technical understanding of how buildings go together.
Alex: Yeah, so to do the most of the engineering, the build of it and how it’s actually all going to come together, the jigsaw part?
Nick: Absolutely.
Alex: And then the other bit as you said, was the planning consultant. What do they actually do?
Nick: Ok, so planning consultants, they’re often used, and we would work with a planning consultant on those sites where they are harder to achieve planning permission. Either that local residents are adverse to some kind of development on the site and so there’s lots of objections, or alternatively the site goes against planning policy as in the local council, the planning department will have a policy of saying how a piece of land should be used. If you then go against that policy, then a planning consultant can be used to interpret the policy and to out together a case to demonstrate that actually the proposal that is being put forward is fit for that site. So, an architect can often work with a planning consultant side by side, the architect would have the vision, the creativity and will do the drawings and designs, whereas the planning consultant is very much more policy driven, they are experts in the legal side of it absolutely. So, we work with a consultant to deliver on those more harder to achieve sites.
Alex: Great some great explanations there, thank you very much and finally there are a couple of architects in and around town. What do homeowners need to look for in a architect? I dare say it varies on the project type, that are the key differences, what are the pitfalls to avoid if you like?
Nick: Ok so when you’re picking your architect for your project bare in mind you’re going to be working with your architect for a year or two years depending on the nature of the project. So, the first thing is you need to make sure you get on with your architect, you need to trust him to deliver your vision to actually do what he says he’s going to do. So, first and foremost make sure you like the architect, make sure you get on with him, make sure he’s on your wave length. The next thing to do is to look at what the architect does, does he do a project like the one you want to undertake? So, for example if he only builds high rise apartments and you want a cosy extension on the back of your house, perhaps not the best match in terms of a architect so look at what the architect does, look at the types of projects he’s undertaken in the past. Does the style of how he designs meet your style, your vision of what you want to achieve on your project and then perhaps ask for references for the architect. A good architect will be willing to provide references from customers and clients they have worked with, speak to those references, check out this architect and also just check the architect’s qualification. Check they are registered with the necessary bodies. The architect registration board would hold details of that architect’s qualification to be called an architect, it’s a protected title and that architect will be registered on the ARB website.
Alex: Just talk through the process of getting planning and what it entails and surveys and costs. Just give people an idea of what to expect.
Nick: Ok, so in terms of the process, the process of design and the project would always start with the client brief. The brief is a vision of what you want to achieve, it can be a technical document, setting out a list of criteria of what you want to achieve on your project or it could be a series of images, a scrapbook almost of pictures of properties that you like, things you don’t like also because you want your architect to understand who you are and what you want to achieve. So, give him the pictures of things you like and things you don’t like, and he can quite, he or she, can quite easily pick up on your style and your preferred choice of design.
Alex: So, then you get the drawings made up and then when it’s time to go to, in this instance Harrogate Borough Council, what’s the process and the timeline involved there?
Nick: So, the next step in the process is, once you’ve got the brief defined and it’s a working document with your architect, it’s a very important document, that sets out where you see the project going, the architect can then start his process of surveying the property, because your architect would need a set of plans to work from in the first instance, to then be able to develop and design ideas with you, to then move the project forward through the creative design phase. The creative design phase is the really interesting part of the project, this is where we churn out the ideas, we work with you, we use our expertise and the vision for your property to actually push design to the absolute limits, and with you will work with you to design and develop the optimum layout for your house. That will then be used to prepare a planning application, a planning application for a typical domestic project is eight weeks.
Alex: Than after that eight weeks all being well, the council say, yes happy to approve that and you can get on with the building works as soon as that comes through.
Nick: There are a few more milestones to achieve. The next stages after that are to prepare the more technical drawings that you will need, that a builder would need to build from. So, he’ll need to understand how is the house built, what type of materials, what type of products, what type of insulation for example. That is called the building regulations phase. So, your architect or technologist will prepare you technical drawings at that stage and they are submitted to the council or to a building inspector for an approval of those plans. At that point you can then start to obtain quotes from builders based upon those drawings and when you’re ready to start work it’s about informing building control that you’re commencing on site 48 hours in advance.
Alex: Crikey, so it’s a bit more complicated than I think everyone first thinks. As I said in the first sentence, it’s all well and good thinking to go and get planning for that extension but it’s quite a lot of steps to go through.
Nick: There are other steps after it to go through but a architect will be able to guide you through those steps to make your life simple.
Alex: I suppose just flipping it back the other way, we’ve obviously seen the rise of George Clarke on Amazing Spaces for example and I suppose the obvious question is, well look Nick, it’s all well and good talking through all of that, do I actually need a architect at the end of the day for an extension again, I hear on TV it must be so easy, George Clarke says oh you know what let’s go and build, let’s go and do something and it’s all within this, new permitted development rules, where does George stop and you guys take over?
Nick: Ok so you’re in the industry Alex, you know that a well-designed property is going to be worth more, its going to sell quicker, it’s going to get more enquiries. So, a well-designed property is worth the investment. So a architect will go above and beyond your property, he will achieve that next level, it will be designed, it will be executed to the highest of standards, the space will be utilised in every direction, it will be a space you get enjoyment from.
Alex: And where do you stand with the permitted development? I know it’s beyond a certain size that you then have to go through the full planning process, but up until that point you can get away with it and I suppose sneak it in if you like, a lot of people think that.
Nick: No, you can’t sneak it in. The permitted development is a set criteria basically and you have to keep within a certain height, certain size, certain distance from the boundary and you can generally build a small-scale extension under permitted development.
Alex: A conservatory type thing?
Nick: Generally, yeah, some houses have their permitted development rights removed so be very cautious of that in that doesn’t apply to every single house. And it doesn’t or can’t be applied sometimes to very bespoke houses, that are developed over a number of years and have been extended previously so always tread with caution. The permitted development rights are great, it does give you an excellent opportunity to extend a house without having to go through the planning process, so they can be a great opportunity, however tread with caution. Now seek advice before you actually start building.
Alex: Some great thoughts there thank you and again you get the planning permission for example, you now want to build it out again, it’s a split choice decision, some people say well I want my architect, yourself, just to project manager and sort of oversee it all and other people sort of say, thanks Nick, thanks for doing that and then they chuck it out to the builders. What are the pros and cons of doing this? And I guess you guys drew the plans, you know what’s going on.
Nick: It goes down to your experience, if you have built something before, if we’ve prepared all the drawings and a competence test, the drawings could be passed to a competent builder to build from without a project management service. But, do you have that link with the builder? Do you have that relationship and trust with the builder that they’re going to do a great job for you? Are you going to be able to monitor the quality of the work on the site? Are you comfortable with what you’re getting from the builder? And are you comfortable that you’re paying them the right amount of money? So, your architect or your architectural practice will be able to guide you through the process in terms of the tender process, in terms of finding your builder, finding the right builder for that project and then to manage the payment so you’re never paying out more than you should be to the builder and also checking the quality of the work along the way.
Alex: So, it comes back to exactly what I’ve always been saying to people, it’s experience. You have the experience of what to look for, its exactly the same on the estate agency side, if you built up that time and experience within that and you know now what you’re doing, you’re fully able to advise clients because if you know, you know and if you don’t you’re going to be left out in the cold as they say. I suppose a lot of people think that architects, not particularly glamorous, you’re stuck in a back-office sort of thing. How would you counteract that?
Nick: Architecture is a wonderful business, we work with such a wide range of people, we get to meet a wide range of people, ranging from people who want to extend or renovate a house, up to we work wit charities, and working with charities is great because they need a guiding hand through the projects and through the charity projects we’ve worked on we’ve then got to meet quite a few celebrities and Royals at openings.
Alex: Go on drop a few names.
Nick: Ok I’ll drop a few names, Princess Anne opened a building last June, which we designed, had a really interesting 5-10-minute conversation with her on tarmac and what specification of tarmac was being used in the car park. AP McCoy was at the opening as well along with the racing celebrities and Sophie Countess of Wessex also opened a project for us in Cookridge a few years ago. So, met some wonderful people along the way.
Alex: Well look at you. Well some fantastic tips and tricks there for architects and if you want to I suppose drop Nick a line and hand out with some his royal clientele, what is the best way to reach you?
Nick: Website is townscape-architects.co.uk phone number 01423 505924.
Alex: Nick fantastic, thanks so much for coming on.
Nick: Thank you Alex.
When you undertake improvements to your home – whether it be window replacement, building, electrics and plumbing – we often completely forget to do this…
Alex Goldstein shares his top tips on what to do when you undertake any works at your home and how not to be caught out!
Full transcript below:
Alex: When you have any works done keep all invoices and especially any guarantees in a specific folder. This may well sound obvious, but I tell you the number of times I’ve had transactions renegotiated or even fall through because the homeowner was unable to lay their hands on some appropriate certificate never ceases to amaze me. Whilst you can often secure these retrospectively the amount of time this takes can be onerous. If you keep work invoices, guarantees, warranties, building regulations certificates, planning details etc. all together then you know you will never have an issue when you come to sell. You simply just hand over the entire folder to your conveyancing solicitor. Job done.
Get expert property advice and insight, with the Alex Goldstein Property Show (Part 9) educational podcast. Property concierge Alex Goldstein delves in to the world of removals and high end decorators with his two guests. Plus we answer if estate agents are worth their fees, what to be aware of with joint agents and lots more property insight and tips!
Full transcript below:
Alex: Welcome again to the Alex Goldstein Property Show, the only property show on Stray FM. We aim to answer all your property questions, queries and quibbles with a show that is chock full of useful tips, tricks and industry expert information. If you need that property fix, then connect with the Alex Goldstein social media accounts to get the very best property advice whenever you need it. In this months show we will be getting the inside track from Evans International removals and Gold Standard Decorators. We also discuss whether joint agency is the best option and of course we have the Alex Goldstein top tips. We’re brimming with top information as always so we’re straight on with it.
This month we’re discussing whether estate agents are actually worth their money. We constantly hear in the news today how an established business sector has succumb to the age of the Internet. The estate agency sector has obviously long been involved with the emergence of the internet. Alongside the established high street branches, are now a new breed of online and hybrid agents. These new start-ups market themselves as doing everything that the high street guys do but for a fraction of the price. Now, what’s not to like, they’re passing the saving onto you, the customer because after all, lets face it, estate agency is just about taking some great photographs, placing them on Rightmove and sitting back whilst the viewings pour it, right? That is completely wrong, putting a property online is only a small fraction of the story and let’s face it, anyone can upload anything to a website nowadays. So, what are you paying for when you go to a high street agent and why this price difference? As I think of it, it’s a common misconception that an estate agents fee is just put toward marketing and flash offices, which is what the online and hybrid agents would have you believe. But getting a property marketed and under offer, that is actually the easy bit. The real work and value comes once on offer is made, ultimately leading to what actually matters in that exchange of contracts. That is the key to great estate agency. Like myself many of the established high street agents have spent years on the job. We instinctively know how to read a situation, manage people’s emotions and predict what issues could occur before they actually crop up. Being face-to-face with a buyer or a seller is crucial in helping to avoid and pre-empt problems down the line. Property at the end of the day is a people business and good estate agents never lose sight of this, being proactive for their client, right up until the point of exchange. As a recent client of mine said to me the other week, online hybrid agents, they can find you a buyer, but after that you’re very much on your own. Your sale is passed to a large faceless call centre where conversations are scripted. Your file is flipped around between several teams and they don’t know who you are. So, if there’s a problem you’re probably going to find out too late and there’s very little on hand support to help you deal with it. And all this comes after you’ve already paid them because some online agents take their commission from you upfront, so their incentive to keep working on your behalf completely vanishes. For most of us, our house is our most valuable asset. We invest, time, love and energy creating a home that we treasure. We work tirelessly towards the day many of us dream of, that hallowed moment when we pay off our final mortgage instalment. And when we come to sell our homes, we hope our efforts are going to be handsomely rewarded. And while there’s certainly a market for the online hybrid agents, the key to great estate agency is being personally on hand, visible, experienced and proactive. Currently as I see it, high street agents have this corner covered but time will of course tell.
It’s great to have Robert Crossman from Gold Standard Decorators here in the studio with me. I often sum Robert up, he’s the only decorator I know that listens to dare I say Classic FM and that is all you need to know about the guy. Great to have you here Robert, thank you for coming in. I suppose getting straight into it, when it comes to selling your home I think a lot of thought goes into colour schemes, what is actually best, because I think the media say one thing, you’ve probably got a completely different angle on it all as well. Just talk everyone through your thinking.
Robert: Well you do have to go neutral. You might love aqua marine, you might love aubergine, but the chances are the people looking to buy your home won’t. So, if you’ve got a neutral colour my preference these days and it’s definitely on the upper curve of the designer chart is an off-white with a grey tint, looks chic, looks clean, doesn’t stand out as being yellow like magnolia might for example and people can see the size of the rooms much better in a lighter paint than a dark paint.
Alex: What’s the issue in your eyes with just going white? Because again a lot of the TV and the newspapers say take everything out, paint it white and away you go, what’s wrong with that in your eyes?
Robert: Right well, if you have a grand designs style contemporary home then you’ll probably already be white, so that would be good. If you’re a Victorian semi then white wasn’t and in my opinion generally has never been a colour of choice for people in period properties, and white all over might suggest that the owners have slapped on a quick coat of emulsion very quickly to hide all sorts of, goodness knows what rather than portray a sensible colour scheme as I’m suggesting.
Alex: You’ve obviously seen a lot of properties like myself, what do you advise in terms of presenting your room when it comes to selling? What would you say to homeowners?
Robert: Well you have to remember that somebody looking at your home isn’t going to comment on what a wonderful colour scheme you have or how gorgeous your furniture is, how super the carpets are in oatmeal or beige, they’re going to pick out the clutter, the untidiness the uncleanliness and any crack, crevice, hole or scuff mark they will definitely see. So, all of those have got to go, you’ve got to declutter, you’ve got to clean and although it’s time consuming a quick decorate throughout will resolve all of those issues and it won’t take you that much longer than a good deep clean and will probably add to the value of your property.
Alex: You mention about those hairline cracks and sort of plaster work defections sometimes you sort of get. What do you do from a decorating perspective, how can you get around this?
Robert: Well everybody will have heard of course, the secret to a good decorating job is preparation. That’s broadly true. I normally think that a decorating job you’re going to spend days on the prep and hours on the paint, so pitching has got to be right, cracks have to be gouged out, filled, sanded and if needed repeat the process.
Alex: And people often want to I suppose add value to their kitchens, very much something that’s a hot topic today, do they replace the kitchen, or can they add value to the kitchen in another way, what are your thoughts when it comes to kitchens?
Robert: Well in the old days people used to say that the kitchen probably added more value to your home than just about anything else in the home. In my experience these days people will almost certainly rip out the kitchen whatever it is, whether it’s high end, middle end or low end so I certainly wouldn’t recommend replacing the kitchen. If it’s looking a bit battered and a bit worn you can certainly smarten it up, there are primers available today that stick to anything, glass, Formica, metal and then onto that you can paint whatever finish and whatever colour you like, and it’ll make it look clean and respectable. And the people who buy the house will almost certainly rip it out anyway.
Alex: Quite right but I suppose for initial presentation purposes.
Robert: Yeah it stops them being hit with a big negative.
Alex: It’s often a bit of a hot topic in the decorating world, dare I say, you’ve got the brands out there, you’ve got the Farrow and Balls at the very high end, you’ve got the Dulux’s and you’ve got the trade paints and the more value end. What is the actual difference? Is there much? You can obviously colour match but how do you see it?
Robert: In terms of quality of paint, I don’t suppose there’s much difference. Farrow and Ball make claims about the quality of their paint. Most professional decorators don’t particularly like using Farrow and Ball mainly because often you have to use three coats, super finish though it’s absolutely dead flat matte, which gives an almost chalky like appearance. Not practical if you have pets or children because it can’t be washed. The trade paints like Johnston’s, Leyland’s and Dulux are all good quality paints and as all your listeners will know Alex, paint is a solid suspended in a liquid, either solvent based or increasingly these days water-based. The liquid evaporates leaving the solid behind, the solids generally speaking these days are vinyl, plastic. So, when you see vinyl matte, the water in the paint will evaporate off leaving a thin skin of vinyl, which is durable, washable and protects the surfaces, dries almost completely flat matte, it doesn’t have a sheen. I would recommend to anybody who still thinks that a shiny paint on the walls looks good, it doesn’t, get a matte.
Alex: What about window sills and skirting boards because that used to be the fashion of doing gloss on it.
Robert: Those people still when they’re looking at a decorating scheme still think the ceilings have to be brilliant white matte emulsion, all of the woodwork has to be brilliant white gloss. It doesn’t, and it shouldn’t, depending on the colour scheme your going for you can paint all of the wood and walls the same colour, which will make the room look bigger. And on the wood my preference certainly and I think most homeowner’s preferences would be for eggshell. It’s a nice flat-ish finish it doesn’t put a spot light on all of the imperfections that you’re going to get, particularly in older homes where you’ve got dents and signs of decades and generations of repair and redecoration to the wood and it gives a nice matte finish. But I know your listeners should think about being adventurous here and forego the white gloss on the wood, go for the same colour as the walls, try one room and see what you think. Always looks fantastic in my opinion.
Alex: And people often I suppose go to all the big DIY shops, they think it’s all fairly straightforward, with your experience why would you disagree with that? What are you putting in with your time that you’ve done in the trade?
Robert: As opposed to people DIY-ing or getting a decorator? Well I mean some DIY-ers are perfectly competent. I see a lot of houses where the DIY work has been terrific, I’ve seen more where it’s terrible. You’ve got to get paint on the surface that it’s supposed to go on and nothing else, clean lines between paint colours for example, blemishes shouldn’t be visible, cracks, blisters, holes shouldn’t be visible. People looking to buy a house will see all of these things, a quick slap over of a paint to hide badly prepared surfaces wont fool anybody, you’ve got to do a decent job and it is worth getting a decorator in. It’ll be a few hundred pounds you might not want to spend but it won’t give your possible purchaser a opportunity to knock something off your asking price because they’re going to decorate when they get in.
Alex: Quite and yes that’s one of your sort of cardinal sins with your experience in terms of as you said don’t cut a corner with the decorations and as you earlier said it’s all about the preparation work.
Robert: Yep it is. I have done a number of houses for customers where the house has been on the market, they’ve not been able to sell, we’ve gone in and we’ve redecorated top to bottom and it’s sold within a few weeks after that. It does make a huge difference and for relatively speaking a minimal outlay, it’s definitely worth doing.
Alex: Out of interest what’s your biggest frustration with other decorators within the industry because I suppose it’s got a bit more of a mixed reputation if you like?
Robert: Generally, it is a sweeping generalisation here, tradesmen in the main can be pretty untidy and when you’re working in somebody’s home they do expect you to treat it with respect and tidying up as you go around is a simple thing to do.
Alex: Yep and when it comes to redecorating a room finally what are your, one of the Robert Crossman gold standard top tips when it comes to that?
Robert: Clear rooms out and if you’re looking to decorate in order to help the sales process then don’t be tempted to go for daft colours. Just pick a nice neutral as I say something in the grey spectrum is definitely in and is chic. You can be adventurous and paint the wood the same colour as the walls as I’ve said. You don’t have to go completely crazy and strip off every bit of paper and put another bit of paper and paint over that, but blemishes that are visible to you will be visible to your purchaser so make sure you deal with those. If you’re just doing a redecoration for yourself and you’re not looking to sell your house then when you’ve cleared everything out of that room, go for a different colour scheme and don’t put everything back, take that opportunity to de-clutter, maybe even look at changing a few bits of furniture. These days you can buy side tables, lamp tables, lamps, things like that because the furniture of the room isn’t just what you sit on, it’s what you put books in and lamps on and the lighting in the room is crucial as well and all of that is affordable.
Alex: Some great top tips there Robert, thank you very much. And if people wanted to reach you what is the best contact details for you?
Robert: RCrossman@btinternet.com or 07793807991.
Alex: Fantastic Robert, thanks very much indeed for coming in.
Robert: My pleasure Alex thank you.
Alex: The property hospital is all about me answering your property woes and worries when it comes to your experiences in the property sector. This week I’m answering a question from Nathan who had this to say.
Nathan: Alex, I’m currently on the market with my second agent and I’m contemplating moving to a third agent. Is this worthwhile doing?
Alex: Nathan, just be careful. It strikes me albeit on the face of it that there could be an underlying issue. Just question yourself if your home is presented, is it best priced correctly and the marketing material looks good? Now with experience, moving to a third agent can send out completely the wrong message to the market and with the age of the internet buyers can obtain a lot of sales history about a property instantly. Third agent move could indicate that you’re desperate to sell or indeed you can’t sell, neither of which you want to draw overtly to the markets attention. One possible option is whether you actually bring in a joint agent and this is a much more subtle way of getting in this third agent but do ensure this new agent is very different to the existing one. You don’t want to be doubling up on efforts but it’s more a case of filing in any gaps. Bring in a third agent or indeed a joint agent should be thought through very carefully indeed and I’ll touch base with you just to ensure it’s actually the right option for you.
Voiceover: Property Hot Seat
Name?
Val: Val Evans.
Voiceover: Business?
Val: Evans International Limited
Voiceover: Years experience?
Val: 12 years
Alex: Great to have Val here in the studio with me and just to get a real insight and feel for the home removals business sector. Val, just sort of kicking things off I mean a lot of removals is a very stressful time. What are you actually doing that’s different? There are a lot of removers out there but how do you set yourself apart?
Val: Yeah, well here at Evans International we actually pride ourselves right from the very first call we make to you on the pre-move survey is to make sure that we’re looking after your needs as the person who we are moving. We move people every single day so therefore the mechanics of the move to us are simple and straightforward but what I like to pride myself in is to take care of you, the person who is moving house, because your needs could be very different to the person that we moved yesterday or the person that we’re moving tomorrow.
Alex: So, in terms of if it’s a elderly couple or indeed a young family, I guess you will be a bit of a chameleon and react accordingly?
Val: Yes, we certainly do. We find that we get quite a lot of recommendations for families who now live quite a way from their elderly parents and if a significant person dies or they have to move into a care home then often the family could be either abroad or at the other end of the country, so they like to feel that there is somebody close to the family, that can actually help that person and be there for that person, to help them move house and look after their personal needs. We automatically look after moving the effects but what we also have to deal with is the emotions and the stresses and strains that that persons going through. And that’s where I feel as a lady in the industry I can actually really come into my own.
Alex: That’s a really valid point Val, I think because being a lady in the removal sector must be incredibly rare. Dare I say how many have you come across, ladies in the industry?
Val: Yes, we are quite a rare breed, especially a lady like myself, who prides herself being able to do all aspects of what happens within a removal. My philosophy in business has always been, I will never ask somebody to do something that either I can’t or I won’t do myself.
Alex: So, it’s a woman’s touch, which is unusual in that business. And what when people come to sell, what do they really need to be aware of when you’re looking for quotes from a removal company. It’s very easy especially on a estate agent side, you can get easily hoodwinked into sort of going one way or another. Is there things people should look out for when they’re getting removal companies out for the first time?
Val: Yes certainly, I think one of the most important things that you need to do when you are getting a quote from a removal company and this can start right at the first visit, the pre-move survey, when a member of the removal company will come out and visit your home and run through with you what it is that there is to move. That is an important part because we need to assess the number of staff and the size of the vehicles and also the service that you require from us. And I think the most important part for you as the customer is that you need to be comfortable with the person that is in your house, you need to have faith that what that person is telling you is that they are going to look after you and look after your possessions in a manner in which you want it doing.
Alex: How does it work? Because it’s not necessarily a case of pick up all the goods, throw them in a box or give them over to Alex and I pack it myself. What are the ins and outs and what do you sort of offer?
Val: Well as a removal company and especially Evans International, we can offer anything from just providing you with all of the packing materials and you do your own packing. There’s a very popular packing service which is what we call a fragile only service, that means that you pack anything that is not breakable, and we come in and pack everything that is. Or the one that I would always promote because it’s the one that takes the strain completely and utterly off the customer is just let us come in and do it all. It will take us maybe a day or two days to pack all of your goods, where as it will take you weeks.
Alex: What are your top tips when you come to move home, sort of getting the removals lined up, is there anything that you would advise people to do in advance or to be aware of?
Val: At the end of the day we need to remember that actually moving house can be a very stressful time. But, it is also one of the rare things in life that has to be done on that day, there is no movement, if you’re moving, you’re moving on that day. Everything else has to fall into place. So, what we need to do is we need to make sure that we’re ready. Because if you’ve packed yourself then basically that’s what you need to have done. You need to make sure that all your things are boxed up nicely and presentable and ready for the movers when they come in. If we do the packing service, then of course we will naturally do that, and we’ll make sure that we are clear of the house in time for the other removal to be able to come in and unload the truck that’s waiting outside. And you need to talk to the person that’s doing the pre-move survey and ask them at what level they are inured it because we all have different levels of insurance. Also, you need to make sure that there is things in place when accidents do happen because there is no removal company around that can ever say that they’ve never done something and that they’ve never damaged a piece of furniture or something hasn’t gone wrong, because accidents do happen.
Alex: That’s the way it goes.
Val: It does unfortunately so what we like to do is we need to make sure that we basically correct that, and we can either do it by repairing if it’s just a polished surface that has got a scratch mark on it, basically we can get that polished out or we can replace or just do whatever needs to be done.
Alex: Got you. And how, we’re moving on to I suppose the more international side of things, the clues in the name as they say with the Evans International, but how does that actually work in terms of logistics and shipping if I’m going to move say to Australia or Europe, how on earth do you actually bring all of those different threads together?
Val: Well it’s very different moving to Europe, well it is at the moment, the jury’s out on that one, but anyway we’ll move swiftly on. So, within Europe as it would be today then basically it would be our vehicle and our staff that prepare all of your furniture and move you to Europe. So, within Europe that actually stays in-house. If you’re moving to Australia as much as I would like to be that constant or consistent person, unfortunately I don’t want to travel in the shipping container all the way to Australia, but what we would do is we then work with a reputable shipping company and because we’ve been in business now for quite some time, twelve years, then we know who we like to work with. So, we work with the shipping company and we prepare all the goods for shipment in the UK, we then engage with the container and then the shipping company then takes over and appoints a reputable removal company at the point of destination and they take over from there.
Alex: Val, been really interesting indeed, thank you very much. If people want to sort of reach you and talk it through and all their issues with regard to moving, what are the best ways to get hold of you?
Val: The best way to get hold of me is to just pick up the phone, because I’m one of those people where I prefer to talk to you face-to-face than through emails. So, whatever you do just pick up that phone and call me on 01765 640882 and ask to speak to Val.
Alex: Fantastic Val, thank you very much indeed.
When you have any works done at your home keep all invoices and especially guarantees in a specific folder. This may well sound obvious but the amount of time I’ve had transactions renegotiated or even fall through because the homeowner was unable to lay their hands on some appropriate certificate never ceases to amaze me. Whilst you can often secure these retrospectively, the amount of time this takes can be onerous. If you keep work invoices, guarantees, warranties, building regulations certificates, planning details etc all together then you know you will never have an issue when you come to sell. You simply just hand over the entire folder to your conveyancing solicitor, job done.
That’s the Alex Goldstein Property Show (part 9) and yet again brimming with top tips and features, if you need expert information, videos and up-to-the minute property news then head over to the website alexgoldstein.co.uk The next episode is out in the first week of January so make sure you tune in for that. Until next time.
Join property authority Alex Goldstein in this fast-paced property podcast ‘The Alex Goldstein Property Show (Part 8)’ when we discuss the issues to avoid when letting out your property and as a tenant with property lawyer Mark Fagan from Winston Solicitors in Leeds.
We also discuss ornamental trees and how to add value to your home with expert Alexander Hunt.
What to be aware of when converting your attic and how emotions affect our decisions when buying and selling property, plus lots more!
Full transcript below:
Alex: Welcome to the Alex Goldstein Property Show. We are fast-paced, informative, insightful and push the boundaries when it comes to giving you the very best insider knowledge, know-how and expertise in the property market. We’re the only property show on Stray FM and our aim is to ensure you make the best decisions when it comes to your property. We’re available for podcast download on the first of every month, so sign up to Alex Goldstein social media accounts to get an earlier reminder or this and to get expert property advice whenever you need it. In this month’s show we’ll be speaking with a top Harrogate Lawyer on the pros and cons and tricks of the trade when it comes to renting out your home, a tree expert who supplies across Yorkshire and gives us insight into adding value to your home. Plus, of course the Alex Goldstein top tips. An incredible amount to fit in so let’s get straight on with it.
This month we’re talking about property and the emotions involved. It’s long been known that this is one of the most stressful things you can do in life and personally I think this is much because we’ve got to navigate through a series of time sensitive situations and this is often exacerbated by emotions running high and let’s face it sometimes to breaking point. Now property, if we think it through is probably the only deal we ever do in life where money, feelings and as a result stress all run equally high at the same time. So, let’s look at the property process itself. You come to sell your home, it’s a very big decision just to reach that decision, not only if you worked hard to secure the property first time around when you purchased it, that you’ve invested in improvement and had numerous highs and lows within it, the walls can talk as they say. As a homeowner you’ve invested emotionally in the property so when it comes to placing your home on the market you listen to the TV, the newspapers and the media and you get hoodwinked into thinking that making everything plain and white is the right way to go. Well that’s wrong because remember property is emotional, so play to these strengths, keep the photographs of the children on display, the log fire burning or perhaps some cookbooks out by the agar. People are buying into a lifestyle choice so present your home to a similar theme. You then invite a couple of estate agents to pitch for your business and whilst thoughts on guide price always rightly or wrongly seemed to be the defining factor in choosing the right agent, so does the way you feel about the agent personally. Do they love and infuse about the property as much as you would like and if they don’t I bet you’ll show them the door. If they do you’ve made more of an emotional connection with them. Now the very last step is as a seller. Once you’ve secured a buyer for your own property the tables now turn and you’re the one immediately under pressure trying to find that elusive right property and trying to bring all the different elements together at exactly the same time. You’ve also got to keep your own buyer happy and you’ve got to check everything is progressing smoothly, again it gets emotional. So yeah, buying and selling property is stressful. Our emotions play a huge part in how much we allow the anxiety pressure gauge to rise by. By taking a pragmatic approach and planning everything well in advance this will go a long way to ensuring that your next property deal is less stressful. Hopefully you may just surprise yourself and actually enjoy it.
It’s great indeed to have Alexander Hunt on the phone. You’ve got a couple of businesses actually, just talk everyone through, because they’re quite niche and very unusual actually.
Alexander: They’re two horticultural businesses here both in a village near Sevenoaks called St Mary’s Platt. Firstly, there is Potash Farm, where the cobnut and walnut are grown. I grow and pick about 40 acres of nuts here and we make a whole lot of specialist products and chocolates, biscuits, oils, a balm with the nuts. Then I’ve got the tree business which is the country’s leading nursery in the supply of fruiting walnut, timber walnut, almond, Kentish cobnut and sweet chestnut trees. And they go all over the country Alex as you well know.
Alex: Indeed, I mean you supply across the UK and Yorkshire. I mean whereabouts in particular, obviously we’re in Harrogate at the moment, so where in Yorkshire do you supply?
Alexander: We’ve got some very good garden customers, we split them up slightly into three categories here but the garden customers very much in the Harrogate area and the villages around Follifoot is a one that comes to mind. York, Richmond, Northallerton and these are people that are really sort of developing their gardens in a slightly specialist way and might be ordering one or up to half a dozen trees from us. And then we’ve got the larger sort of farmer and estate customer and one or two very well-known estates in Yorkshire that we serve near sort of Helmsley, Harewood, Barnard Castle, Ripon etc.
Alex: Wow, so you really are doing the prime points throughout Yorkshire, you’re mighty impressive. I suppose, depending on the amount of space because I know this is something we’ve always talked about, it doesn’t matter necessarily whether you’ve got an estate with a number of acres or indeed you’ve got a much smaller garden. I know you’ve certainly on the tree business side you’ve got sort of something that can help everyone.
Alexander: Very much so, I think for the smaller garden we sell a lot of cobnut and almond trees to those perhaps in Belgravia/Chelsea who have sort of gravel gardens and are growing nut trees in pots, to the small garden right up to the big estate or farm where they’ve got very much more space or houses with paddocks where of course sweet walnut or chestnut trees are very attractive to have as well, but they given time will be the height of the church tower of course.
Alex: What would the estates look to you for?
Alexander: I mean they are, they’re looking to possibly sort of grow them and increase their tree numbers in their very nice parklands or perhaps if they were redoing a avenue up to a house or the main house on the estate they would use our trees. But more oftenly or often than not it’s the timber selections that they’re after, and I’m one of the very few nurseries in the country that supply timber selections for the walnut timber which is used for furniture, veneers, inlays etc. And for some of these very big estates in Yorkshire a forestry and the sale of timber is very much part of their mixed income these day on modern estates.
Alex: Right ok and I mean what sort of things? Is it just purely on the forestry side that they look to you for or will they actually use the products that the tree produces or is it a mixture?
Alexander: Well I think it’s a mixture. I think a lot of people looking for advice whether the trees will grow well on a variety of soils etc. and then you know I give advice to the garden person who’s buying one tree to the farmer who perhaps wants to plant a block of fruiting walnuts, to the estate owner who wants to plant walnuts for Timber. We’re advising on all those and at the end of the day if there’s a bonus there where the family can pick some nuts and then make some nice dishes with them in the kitchen etc, particularly in the Autumn, the lead up to Christmas, so much the better that’s a really nice bonus.
Alex: Fantastic, and I know you also advise on new build development sometimes actually and in terms of softening the look of that.
Alexander: Quite a lot of new work now is often on the landscaping and design and planning with builders etc. I’ve got some very big clients, we’re doing some advisory work across the country and I’ve got no doubts that some of these schemes are greatly enhanced by the right planting of good nut or other trees. I think they’re adding value to the properties whether they be new or existing in quite a major way.
Alex: And I dare say all the different tree species that you offer, they have all different uses depending on what type of screening or otherwise that you’re looking for.
Alexander: We’ve got a very wide selection of freezing walnut trees and we do, I’ve just picked out two to talk about, one is the new one I’m introducing called the red Danube walnut which is a copper beech type leaf tree, most attractive with a sort of claret coloured nut that I think we should sell extensively with our purple filbert being one of the top nut species that we sell, that again has a reddish leaf, a reddish nut with a catkin, two are very attractive near a house or against the wall etc. Almonds of course can be trained onto any shape, or an espallia, lovely for a sort of cottage garden or perhaps a slightly enclosed or more sheltered space. And of course, you’re a little bit more frosty up there than we are in the South East, here we’ve got three particular selections of walnut that we recommend in Yorkshire going up to borders and Scotland, fernet and fern or franket which are later coming into budburst to miss some of those early or later frosts.
Alex: I know actually interestingly the BBC have been in touch with you and I know that you did a film feature with them. Just talk everyone through that.
Alexander: I was on Countryfile just three weeks ago with John Craven, they came and done a day and half’s filing here for the little slot on Country File. It was perfect timing for us in the nut world and the nut growers across the country to get the coverage as we did three weeks ago. Amazing with 10 million people viewing Country File and we’re also appearing at the beginning of December on a junior Country File programme called Down On Your Farm, which is going to be the early part of December at sort of 5:30, which is like a children’s version. We had a day filled filming here with the village primary school children and that will appear again at a very good time just for the lead up to Christmas.
Alex: Fantastic. I mean that’s the television side. What about, dare I say, you’ve been featured in Newspapers and magazines.
Alexander: We, I have a PR Consultant called Lisa, she’s extremely well known in the niche food business and she gets about six or eight national mentions a year, which is all part and parcel of the modern mix today and you know we’re heavily featured in one or two of the very popular food bloggers, with all their readers today. So not only have we got a bit of TV and radio coverage, we’ve got the basic magazines that pick-up articles and photographs of us, the social media side and of course all our range of direct customers, trade customers and website customers as well.
Alex: Fantastic. If anyone wanted to sort of delve into further detail, what are the best ways to contact you?
Alexander: I think the best way is simply on the farm office line which is a simple 01732 882734, if anybody Google’s Potash Farm near Sevenoaks we come up there and the tree business, if you Google in walnuttrees.co.uk that gives you the two websites, the main phone number or you look at my professional profile on LinkedIn, Alexander Hunt, you’ll find all those ways of communication.
Alex: Fantastic, Alexander great to speak to you and thanks so much for giving us an insight into your world.
The property hospital is all about me answering your property woes and worries when it comes to your experiences in the property sector. Now this week I’m answering a question from Lisa who’s got this to say.
Lisa: Alex, I’ve been into the estate agents to sign up to their mailings to get the brochures, but I’ve received so many that I feel irrelevant, why is this?
Alex: Lisa, interesting question there. Now, the simple answer is that as buyers we say and think we definitely want a specific type of property we’ve described to the estate agents, however as human beings we will also consider the grey areas when it comes to property. So, therefore estate agents are likely to send you properties that are going to push your boundaries as one might just tempt you. Don’t be put off by this and use it actually to your advantage and turn it around. Use the information they send to build up your own personal database to help you form a strong picture of what you definitely do want and what you do not want. As I mentioned earlier in the programme, property is about emotions and no estate agents will be able to know how you personally feel about property, unless they run it past you. I hope this helps.
Voiceover: The Property Hot Seat
Name?
Mark: Mark Fagan.
Voiceover: Business?
Mark: Winston Solicitors.
Voiceover: Years’ experience?
Mark: Seven years.
Alex: It’s great to have in the studio today Mark Fagan from Winston Solicitors. Mark, I hear obviously you’re very much a Leeds based company, but I hear you’re very much planned to foot at the moment.
Mark: Exciting times within the company, we are moving to Harrogate, it will be in the town centre, but I can’t say for definite as of yet.
Alex: Secret, all to look forward to but I know you’re an expert and lawyer on litigation. I thought we’d just sort of talk through the rental and the landlord and the tenant side of things, which I know you do a lot of and as you see it from a landlord perspective, what are the pitfalls that you really need to be aware of when you’re letting out your own property, your home at the end of the day?
Mark: Initially and surprisingly is the number of landlords that don’t actually enter into a written tenancy, even if you are renting to a friend or a family member its important that you do get the tenancy set out in writing. With regards to the tenancy itself the most common is a assured short hold tenancy of a residential property. Again, a problem which becomes common is whereby people are renting to employees or a company an assured short hold tenancy for a residential property must be in an individuals name as a tenant. You can’t name a company, if it’s a company it becomes known as a company let so a common law tenancy and then there are a whole world of problems that arise from that.
Alex: And I guess you also have issues if you’re renting to a friend of yours as well. You should get something in writing as a bare minimum but I’m assuming an AST, assured shorthold tenancy is the way to go.
Mark: Yeah definitely because it protects the landlord and also protects the tenant, so each party knows what their obligations are, what their liabilities are, so if there’s ever a dispute or an issue you can rely on the tenancy and what’s set out in that.
Alex: And what can you do? I mean often albeit it’s a lot of scaremongering out there but if for example you get unfortunately a rogue tenant, they do exist, they don’t pay for example, or they don’t treat the property particularly well, what can you actually do as a landlord to counteract that possibly in the first instance and B if it does happen what can you actually do about it?
Mark: With regards to rogue tenants, obviously it’s difficult to see who is a rogue tenant. You can carry out your reference checks etc, which you can do through your agent. With regards to if you’ve got a rogue tenant in the property, if they’re falling behind in rent, they’re not paying their rent, they’re in arrears, you can evict them within the fixed term of the tenancy, under what is known as the section 8 procedure. Now, that can only be used where the tenant is normally over two months in arrears. You serve the notice, it has to be in a prescribed format, you give the tenant two weeks to pay and rectify the issues, if they don’t pay then you can issue court proceedings to get them evicted.
Alex: But what are the costs involved, I mean if your drafting it yourself, you talk about lawyer costs and all of that, you’re going to court, I mean surely this is going to be quite a ordeal all round.
Mark: Well me personally I tend to do things on a fixed fee, so it will depend on the basis of the, you’re going for possession, so if it is purely rent arrears you’re looking at a couple of hundred quid plus VAT to deal with that. Court fee, unfortunately that can’t be avoided that’s £355. If you’re going on a section 8 procedure, providing the tenancy allows it, you can reclaim these costs from the tenant themselves, so they get added to the amount of the arrears which you’re claiming which is good. The downside is if the tenant has nothing and you can’t recover from them, then it’s possible you won’t recover any money at all.
Alex: But at least I suppose the flip side is you’ve got them out and can start afresh. I mean I suppose what you’re saying is there are no guarantees, you can sort of do the background check you can sort of gauge the type of individual the tenant is but at the end of the day, it is a gamble with your own home if you are going to let it out and the tenant lets the side down well, there are ways to get round it and get them moved on so to speak, but otherwise your taking a bit of a step in to the unknown, is that a fair comment?
Mark: Yeah definitely yeah. Obviously, you can’t tell just by looking at a tenant what they’re like. Also, a tenant they may have a great financial history in the past, things can happen, they can lose their job for example, if that’s the case and these are things that unfortunately a landlord cannot foresee.
Alex: True, I mean there tends to be a lot of confusion I think out there whereby someone’s looking to sell their property, they’ve got a tenant currently there, what rights as a homeowner, as effectively a landlord do you have to conduct viewings at the property to try and sell at as that’s your end game plan and indeed how can you go about exchanging contracts with a tenant specifically in the property?
Mark: Normally if the tenancy is well drafted it will have a clause in there that will allow the landlord to re-enter the property upon giving if normally 24 hours’ notice to the tenants and that will allow the landlord to go in obviously carry out viewings etc. but should also be a clause in there which will allow the landlord to put say a for sale sign or to let sign in the garden. When the landlord does enter the property, I advise that they always take a witness with them just in case there’s ever a issue over possibly missing items or whatever, at least the landlord is covered in that way. When it comes to actually selling the property, if you’re purchasing a property which has got a tenant in there and you don’t want that tenant to remain, you need to make sure that the seller has served the relevant notice on the tenant, otherwise the person purchasing the property is then stuck with the tenant and then has all the costs of dealing with it themselves.
Alex: Ok, now just I suppose to turn the tables for a moment, looking from a tenant perspective, you hear a lot about these new witty deposit schemes from the government and the new legislation surrounding them. Just talk everyone through what they are, how they work and whether they are actually worth while at the end of the day.
Mark: So, the tenancy deposit scheme was designed to safeguard a tenancy deposit. Now, just a quick point, what is classed as a deposit, obviously someone paid say £500 because that’s listed as the deposit then that’s fine. There has been a question over is rent which is paid in advance, is that classed as a deposit? If the rent paid in advance is used throughout the tenancy to pay rent then it isn’t classed as a deposit, however if it’s simply held as security, for example the rent isn’t paid then it will be classed as a deposit and a landlord has to apply with the rules of the tenancy deposit scheme. Now the rules themselves are pretty complex, they’re pretty severe for a landlord if they don’t comply with them. Now, a landlord has 30 days from the date that they receive the deposit, not the date of the start of the tenancy, the date they received the deposit in which to provide the tenant what’s known as prescribed information. Ok now, the prescribed information, it sets out things like where the deposit is held, how much is being held and how any disputes will be dealt with, how any deductions can be agreed etc. Now if a landlord doesn’t provide that information within 30 days, first of all a landlord cannot evict the tenant on what’s known as a section 21 ground which is the easiest route to get your property back, and also a landlord can be sued for the return of the deposit and three times the deposit amount. It does happen, I’ve dealt with cases where we’ve been successful suing a landlord because they haven’t complied with the rules. The rules have been in place since 2007 so this isn’t new but it’s still surprising how many landlords get it wrong and it can prove very very costly.
Alex: Absolutely yeah. And what do you do if you’re a tenant in a property and the landlord is not going to sort an issue? You often hear the boiler hasn’t been fixed for several weeks, there’s black mould here and here. What can you do from a tenant’s perspective, how can you actually get the landlord to pick up the phone and sort it out?
Mark: Yeah, you get a lot of what I call Google lawyers who will advise tenants to withhold rent and things like that. My initial advice is never withhold rent, as soon as you withhold rent as a tenant you’re automatically in breach of the tenancy agreement.
Alex: As you said you run the risk of getting kicked out of the property.
Mark: Exactly yeah. As with regards to repair, the landlord not carrying out repairs, this is quite common. This is one of the only ways you can withhold rent. If you write to your landlord and tell him that there’s a load of issues with regards to disrepair etc. and the landlord does nothing, you can serve him or provide to him estimates of the work that needs doing and the work that needs carrying out. If he still doesn’t do anything, then you have the work carried out, send the invoice to him or her, if the landlord then doesn’t pay you are then within your rights to withhold rent to the amount of the invoice. That’s the only time you could offset rent against any repairs etc. But, whilst I’ve made that sound pretty simple there is quite a rigmarole to go through to get to that point.
Alex: And would one of the deposit schemes that you mentioned, would they be able to help the tenant in that instance or not?
Mark: No because it’s not a deposit dispute, they’re only in play when you’re actually disputing how much of the deposit should be returned really. The landlords under an implied duty to keep the property in repair so if it falls into disrepair then they’re in breach on the tenancy themselves.
Alex: Fantastic. Some great top tips there actually and just dispelling I think some common myths at the end of the day. And also, what do you need to be aware of if I’m a tenant and I’m about to sign my AST, what things do I need to be mindful of?
Mark: Well first of all if you’re unsure of the terms that you’re signing up to then take advice. You don’t want to sign up to something where three months down you realise, I didn’t realise that, or I’m stuck in this etc. Other point, make sure you can afford the rent. Don’t go into a property and think well if I can’t afford it after three months I can leave. If it’s a 12-month tenancy you’re bound by the tenancy therefore your bound to pay the amount of the rent up to the end of the tenancy.
Alex: Yeah contractual law.
Mark: Yeah exactly. Make sure you’re happy with the property itself, have a good inspection of the property. You do get disputes where tenants will come along and say well there’s damp here etc. or I didn’t realise this, I didn’t realise that, all that does is cause a dispute between yourself and the landlord which again can go unresolved for some time and prove costly. So really, make sure you can afford what your going into, make sure you know what your entering into and most importantly make sure your happy with the property.
Alex: Yeah, go in with your eyes open.
Mark: Very much so yeah.
Alex: Fantastic, Mark really some fantastic tips and tricks and inside knowledge there. Obviously its very exciting about your move to Harrogate. Now if anyone on the landlord or tenant side wanted to touch base with you what are the best ways at the moment to reach you prior to the grand opening and new move?
Mark: Yeah well, they can get me on the telephone 0113 3205000 or if they want to drop me an email it’s maf@winstonsolicitors.co.uk
Alex: Mark, thank you so much again and look forward to catching up soon.
Mark: My pleasure, thank you very much.
Alex: On my travels seeing new and existing clients the one thing I often come across is the lack of building regulation approval especially when it comes to converted attics, whereby homeowners who have accidentally forgotten to inform building control at the council. Now, this is all absolutely fine until you want to sell. The buyer’s solicitor is going to find out and then it opens up a can of worms. They will be unable to insure your property correctly because they can’t be certain about the structure, or indeed what has gone on behind the scenes. This will also damage your buyer’s confidence in you and the property which more often than not will lead to a fall through in the transaction. Now if you are one of the people who have forgotten about this, my advice is to first of all speak with your solicitor. The advice is often probably going to be applying for retrospective approval, this will take a bit of time to do and maybe some minor costs involved but it’s going to be well worth it. The number of times in my career where I’ve seen deals fall through right at the last hurdle because of this, never ceases to amaze me. The best advice I can give is not to do it at all.
That’s the Alex Goldstein Property show. We really have crammed in some top tips and features yet again this month. If you really want some top expert advice come to my educational talk at the property investors network in Leeds in mid-November. This is going to be to about 150 people and is the largest meeting of it’s type outside of London. Full details are on my website alexgoldstein.co.uk The next episode is out on 1 December so make sure you tune in for that. Until next time.
Tune in to property expert Alex Goldstein who this month gets expert insight into the world of estate agency, when he interviews one of the leading trainers of negotiators in the sector on The Alex Goldstein Property Show (Part 7)! We get the low down on what to pay estate agents, mortgage broker vs banks and lots more!
Full transcript below:
Alex: Welcome again to the Alex Goldstein Property Show (Part 7). The only fast-paced property radio show on Stray FM, which aims to give you up-to-the-minute property expert advice from a wide range of related businesses, insider knowledge and know-how, all jam packed in, so you can make the best-informed decision when it comes to buying or selling your home. We’re available for podcast download on the first day of every month, so make sure you sign up to the Alex Goldstein social media accounts to get an early reminder of this and get expert property advice whenever you need. Now, in this month’s show, we’re going to be having one of the most interesting conversations to date where we’re getting inside track information from Boyd Mayover, now this chap is a specialist trainer who actually teaches estate agents. We also put Mark Edwards from House of Harrogate in the hot seat to better understand the kitchen and interiors business. We also discuss mortgage brokers versus banks when getting mortgages and of course we have the Alex Goldstein top tips. So much to cram in, so let’s get straight on with it.
This month we discuss the property market post-Brexit. As we saw and as I predicted there was a dip in property transactions and general activity just after the Brexit result. What I also predicted was that the market would bounce back. Now, I never like to use the phrase I told you so, but it’s always good to know that my forecast about the property market has proven to be correct. Now, only today according to Rightmove, within the last month the average asking price of new listings has rebounded and increased by 0.7% and that’s a inquivalent to £3,000. Visits to the Rightmove site were also significantly up by almost 8% when compared with the same period last year. So, what we know is that activity is back up, viewings are getting right up to speed and there’s more traction in the market. However, in this flurry of activity prices of homes for first-time buyers have all greatly increased and this proves the continual difficultly they face when trying to get on the housing ladder. On this point I spoke a few months back about government intervention in the marketplace with the introduction of the new 3% stamp duty levy, curtailing of mortgage interest relief and toughened up buy-to-let criteria and that was with the aim to put brakes on property investment and wealthier individuals. Well what its really done and what I actually forecast is it’s pushed those looking at more valuable properties, whether it’s for personal or buy-to-let purposes now they’re looking to buy property at lower price points in the market because it makes more financial sense for them and what this has done is it’s pushed up prices for first-time buyers and it’s flooded the market with a new type of buyer. So, what do my predictions and forecasts really show? What it means is that whether you’re a first-time buyer, up-sizer, down-sizer or buy-to-let investor, now it’s never been more important to get advice from a experienced property professional. There are gaps in the market and it’s really how you play the game. Play your cards right and not only will you get the property you want but one which will be a great investment as at the end of the day, that’s why the bulk of people buy into property as it remains one of the safest investments you can make over the medium to long-term.
Very excited indeed to be interviewing a chap called Boyd Mayover. Now he has a company called Sale Doctors and what’s so incredibly interesting is he actually teaches estate agents behind the scenes. So, Boyd, fantastic to have you on the phone this morning, thank you very much indeed for spending the time with us.
Boyd: That’s great, thanks for asking me.
Alex: Not at all. Now just sort of getting straight into it, just talk me through how from your perspective from the effectively the sales teaching point of view how you feel estate agency as a business sector has actually changed over I suppose the last 10 years or so.
Boyd: Well I think there’s a few things that have changed. I think some of the estate agents have started to realise that they’ve got to be far more consultative, the hard sells gone unfortunately, I’m sure there’s a few oddballs out there but by and large the hard sells gone. The estate agents are realising they have to offer a world class service now, otherwise they are not going to keep and retain business and when I say that I mean to everyone to the tenant, to the landlord, to the vendor and to the person buying, and that service has to be from the moment somebody calls them, to the moment that they’ve moved in.
Alex: And you feel this is one of the key areas that estate agents really need to get better at, if not the only reason that they need to get better at in terms of keeping their clients?
Boyd: Absolutely, I think they forget sometimes, and what happens is, you know Alex, there’s times where estate agents are very busy and life for them is pretty easy and what I find happens then, they get lazy. And if they have a lot of enquiries they don’t treat each enquiry with the respect it deserves.
Alex: Why is that Boyd? Why do you feel agents don’t, I suppose that’s partly why they get a bit of a bad reputation is the handling of calls and returning of calls? Do you feel that’s the case?
Boyd: Yeah, I think it’s because they cherry pick and sometimes the culture within the agency. I’ve heard they can say things like they’re just tenants. Think about it, the person who’s renting today might well be renting to scope the area and then have a absolutely enormous budget to buy so it’s a very short-sighted attitude Alex, and they are changing and they are getting better but there’s still too many of them treating the customer, I call it the George Clooney effect, I say if George Clooney walked into your estate agency office tomorrow would you treat him any differently to your normal clients, and unfortunately over 80% of agents say yes they would.
Alex: Yeah, I’d probably agree with that having been that side of the fence as you know. I mean I guess a lot what’s changed over the last 10 years or so is very much we’re now of this target type culture and key performance indicators and that sort of grindstone mentality and I suppose from your perspective which is almost very much the insider with estate agency, do you feel this has changed the business sector for better, for worse, or do you feel that it’s just had no effect whatsoever?
Boyd: I think it’s changed it for worse with corporates. There are many companies I know that built up very nice businesses, they might have had seven or eight branches or maybe, got taken over by a corporate and within a year their staff turnover was almost 80%, because they changed from what made that company special and why they bought them to just a sales machine, where the only thing that was important was the number of calls you made and it just doesn’t work. Let me tell you Alex unless estate agents are careful, the likes of Purple Bricks and Easy Property are coming over the parapet with it with their bayonets fixed, unless they’re careful they’re going to lose the war and it will be their own fault.
Alex: I know it’s a valid point and I mean it’s very much sort of seen as the insurgency so to speak at the moment these sort of pure online agents like Purple Bricks, you’ve got the hybrid agents such as You Move for example. Why are they making such a hit within the estate agency sector? Why does their business seem to be growing at the moment and they’re taking more of the properties on?
Boyd: Well I think its simple, if the customers perception is that he’s not getting a good service and in fact sometimes getting a bad service, no follow up, no calls etc. he might as well pay for the cheapest service. Now my experience Purple Bricks, some of these hybrids, their service is not good, you know people that when you buy a property or you’re selling a property, you need the agent to have a great deal of expertise because it’s not the fee you pay, its what you get and in what time line Alex. It is not the fee that’s important to the customer, I urge vendors, don’t just look at the fee, look at what you’re going to get because some of the hybrids they have no sales progression whatsoever. So, what I mean by that is from the moment the customer makes the offer they’re on their own. Now how could the customer know about surveys, about conveyancing, about the fact that his buyer if he was able to get another 1% reduction on his mortgage would easily be able to buy his house rather than struggle. This is what a good, a world class estate agent knows and does and that’s the value in the fee.
Alex: It’s a very very valid point and I suppose it’s also been in the news and while we’re not saying anything untoward but as an example Purple Bricks, just talk everyone through this, because they’ve had a bit of controversy recently just in the way that they sort of get their fee.
Boyd: Yes, absolutely, they get their fee in advance. You pay them your money; therefore, what incentive is there for Purple Bricks to do a wonderful job selling the property at the right price for the vendor – zero.
Alex: Indeed, they are not motivated as soon as you instruct them you pay your money, in effect in advance and that goes straight into the Purple Bricks account and then I suppose they just leave you out there to dry. That’s one of the biggest issues out there but I suppose if you are a homeowner or a seller you don’t find out about it until it’s too late.
Boyd: Well that’s right. If I was selling my property, the agent I want to choose is an agent that can demonstrate to me that they’ve sold properties like mine at the price I want but most importantly, they will hold my hand from the moment the offers in and I want the right offer. There could be two people offering the same amount or similar amounts, one could be in a chain of ten and one could be a cash buyer. Which one would you prefer to buy your house?
Alex: Exactly it’s a cash buyer every time and it’s having the, as I always say Boyd, correct me if I’m wrong, it’s all about the agents experience i.e. the number of years they’ve actually done in specifically estate agency and obviously the front of house team as they are the guys and the girls that tend to take incoming enquiries and walk-in enquiries.
Boyd: Absolutely, it’s the hard yards they’ve done. You know the truth is anybody can go and be Purple Bricks tomorrow, there can be a franchising of Purple Bricks tomorrow and many of these hybrids. Now what experience have you had in selling houses, what experience have you had? Zero in most cases. Not sure that helps the customer.
Alex: Well what, we’ve talked about agent experience, where do you feel that agent experience comes into your own? Why is it not akin whereby someone just in insurance sales for example feels they’re in a sales role and they feel estate agency is very sales led but they don’t have any property or estate agency experience. Where do you feel that they will be let down as individuals and agents?
Boyd: Well, I think what happens is there’s a lot of chunks in the chain and in the journey of selling your house or buying your house. It takes up many different components and someone who’s running a franchise, the master book of how to run the franchise will not tell them how to deal with the mortgage advisor, how to deal with the conveyancing solicitor, how to understand what a survey means, how to ensure that he’s in control of the chain. These are things that only an experienced agent will understand and will have the experience and more important Alex, the history of success. Now, if you and I were looking for an agent tomorrow, we don’t necessarily want the most experienced or the least experienced but would want the one with a history of success who sells properties at the right price in the right time.
Alex: I was about to say, you mentioned the other week to me, you’re also going in behind the scenes to these companies who say we’ll buy your house now for cash. Just talk everyone I suppose on the inside track on those sorts of companies.
Boyd: Well yeah, I was absolutely shocked. I worked with one of these companies and my perception before I got there would be people phoning them would be people who were saying I’m in arrears, the bailiffs are due, I’m behind with my mortgage, I’m desperate to sell please help me, and you know Alex I was shocked, over 65% of their enquiries were from people who just got fed up to the back teeth with bad service from agents.
Alex: And that was their main driver, it wasn’t a fact that they were sort of being into a forced situation, it was just down to customer service at the end of the day.
Boyd: Just down to customer service, I want someone to sell my property for me.
Alex: Well there’s an extremely strong figure and as you said it’s not what you first think from first impressions. I mean how are you actually helping? What do you actually do behind the scenes with estate agents and by the sounds of it you help both the pure online agent, the hybrid and indeed the high street agents in your line of work but what is it you’re actually teaching them and giving them insight on?
Boyd: I think what we’re saying to the high street agent is this, that you have to be world class in everything you do. So, when somebody phones in, what I don’t want to hear an estate agent saying is the first question, what’s your budget and have you got anything to sell? It’s selfish, it’s stupid, it doesn’t help a customer and if I was a potential buyer, I’ve just rang up your agency and virtually the first thing you’re asking me is have I got anything to sell. Too many agents have gone through that formula for too long. What we teach them is show an interest in your customer, find out what’s important to them, why are they looking to move to Fulham, where do they live at the moment, what made them chose the house they live in at the moment, whereabouts do they live, what’s going to be important to them? I always tell a story about a lady that was looking to move and she lived in a four-bedroomed house and she approached five agents and they all asked her how many bedrooms she wanted and she said four, and most of the agents said would you accept three bedrooms, she said absolutely not, the last agent, world class, said to her can I ask you why is four bedrooms so important, she said I believe that four-bedroomed houses always have a bigger downstairs than a three-bedroom and the downstairs is the most important thing. The agent said that’s fine, if I can show you a property with a downstairs in a three-bed is as big as a four-bed would you look at it? She said of course I would and she ended up buying three.
Alex: So, it’s all about asking the right question isn’t it.
Boyd: Absolutely and don’t under promise and over deliver, if you tell someone you’ll ring them back Tuesday, ring them back Tuesday. You know I always say to people when someone walks into your office and depending on the area they could have from let’s say a quarter of a million, to well in excess of a million in their pocket, that’s what they’ve got in their pocket to spend. Now of you were selling diamonds, how well would you treat the customer who came in with a quarter of a million pound – very well. Why on earth aren’t they being treated exactly the same and it has to be from the beginning to the end. You know I always say I hear agents say thank you for looking at the property, I’ll ring you next week and I say but hang on a minute this is someone who has an enormous amount of money to spend it’s very important to them, why aren’t you making an appointment to speak to them next week. Don’t get me wrong Alex there’s some very good agents out there but too many are still trying to take what I call the easy route.
Alex: Absolutely, I think it’s down to you and I Boyd to save the estate agency sector and I have to say thank you very much indeed for coming on. Probably one of the most powerful interviews we’ve had on the show to date. Just remind everyone your contact details and the website if they want to get in touch.
Boyd: The website is www.salesdoctors.co.uk please have a look at the website, I think you’ll find it very interesting. You can always email me at boyd@salesdoctors.co.uk and we’re very happy to take enquiries from anyone and as I said our business is all built around the world class customer service should be the minimum you’re delivering. Thank you for inviting me.
Alex: Not at all Boyd, its great to have you on. Thank you so much indeed for a fantastic sort of talk through and real sort of insider tips and tricks and look forward to speaking to you soon.
Every month I’m here to answer your questions, queries and quibbles when it comes to the property market.
Cat: I’m looking at buying a larger property and I’m trying to get the right mortgage. I have been into my high street bank who have offered me something however, how can I check this is a good deal for me please and how should I go about getting a mortgage?
Alex: Great question Cat. When it come to mortgages the market is changing the whole time and most of the time its an absolute minefield when you’re trying to navigate through it all. My advice is only to ever get a mortgage via a whole of market broker, now these are individuals or companies that are independent, they search the entire market as the name suggests and they ensure that the mortgage you’re getting is right for you. Remember a bank is a business and they are there to sell you a product and one which may not necessarily always be right for you. Many also operate via computer so having a person or broker to speak to and discuss the finer detail of your application really can be worth its weight in gold. Depending on the size of your mortgage involve and the broker you go to you may not actually need to pay them anything as they get what’s called a procurement fee or an introducers fee from the eventual lender. So overall go with a mortgage broker as they will search the entire mortgage market for the right deal for you and they will look at lenders that you may not even have heard of. Mortgage lets remember is a very sizeable loan and you really must get it right and if you’re unsure who to speak with just drop me a line.
Voiceover: The Property Hot Seat
Name?
Mark: Mark Edwards
Voiceover: Business?
Mark: House of Harrogate
Voiceover: Years’ experience?
Mark: 35 years.
Alex: Very excited indeed to have Mark Edwards here in the studio with me. Now, he’s got a fairly impressive department store I think it has to be said, House of Harrogate right here in the centre of Harrogate. Mark thanks for popping by and I suppose a lot of people have passed by the showroom, what does House of Harrogate actually do?
Mark: We do everything to do with the house, so we do kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms and everything associated with that. So, we do lighting, we do flooring, we’ve built an extension downstairs, so we have bi-folding doors, we’ve got a lantern roof, so what we’re trying to give customers is an experience of the whole house. So, instead of just seeing a particular product like a kitchen, like a lot of our competitors will do, is just have a kitchen showroom, what we’re trying to do is offer the full house experience.
Alex: For everything and I mean if no one’s ever been in there and I mean when I say department store I genuinely mean it and most people don’t appreciate you’ve got this huge lower ground floor and it’s almost you’ve set up a house within a house so to speak. You’ve got a actual house created downstairs virtually with all the rooms in the whole setup.
Mark: Yeah, the reason for that was so people could experience like taking walls down, so what typically might be a normal kitchen, we’re trying to show people if you take a wall out we can extend it out, so you’ve got the kitchen and the dining room experience. Take the back of the house out, put bi-folding doors on so you can see the garden, appreciate it, we also got awning down there that comes out, it’s got heaters on and lamps, we put a garden boom in down there as well for another company, a home office seems to be quite a good thing to have in these days so rather than extending you just have a little pod in the garden that’s a home office.
Alex: Sounds great and I suppose you often hear a lot of kitchen shops and the likes of say selling their wares but as a buyer you’ve always got to be a bit careful. If you were buying what would you want to say to someone to sort of watch out for? What are the sort of tips and tricks just on kitchens?
Mark: Well with kitchens it’s a really difficult thing, when you’re coming out to buy a kitchen I always use a scenario with my customers when the walk in regarding buying a car as an example. So, when you’re buying a car you know which garage to go to and you don’t have the embarrassment of walking into the wrong garage, so if you’re looking for a Mini as a example, you’ll go to the Mini garage, if you’re looking for a Bentley or a Ferrari, you go to the Bentley or Ferrari garage so when you go down there you know you can afford that particular product, whereas with kitchens there seems to be a bit of a sort of myth about it, it’s really difficult to know which kitchen showroom to walk into so what we try and do is to give people a full array of prices of different types of designs and what we do is we explain to the customers when they come in, price points, there’s the kitchen units, there’s the work tops, the appliances and then there’s the fitting, so all of those things can make a massive difference to your budget. I don’t sell to them, I’m trying to help them out on the basis that I give them the full education as to how and where and what to buy, what’s expensive, what’s not expensive, so for example if you had laminate worktops, you might be spending £300/£400 on those, if you had a top of the range dekton worktop, which is a new worktop now, you might be paying £4,000/£5,000 so your prices can change massively depending on what your priority is.
Alex: Yeah depending on what box effectively you tick so I suppose you’re offering more of a design service in that regard, you’re not sort of selling things off the back of the van you’re actually sort of leading people and actually designing for them.
Mark: Exactly, what we do, we aren’t selling boxes to people, we want to be as far away from that as possible. People appreciate the fact that you’re spending time with them because you know why would you not use somebody with the experience of 35 years, when you could go somewhere down the road say possibly you might have a young lad that’s designing kitchens that’s got 2 or 3 years’ experience. At the end of the day it’s a free service so why not use the experience of myself?
Alex: Absolutely that, and I suppose as with all these things you’ve got varying budgets and varying needs, how can you I suppose sensibly cut a corner, I mean people especially just on our kitchens, just for a moment, people sort of say well keep the shelves and you can change various aspects of it. Just sort of talk people through what you would advise if you’re trying to do things but more of a budget.
Mark: Right so, the obvious thing is like you just said, is to just put new doors on. The only trouble with that is if you just put new doors on you’re going back to a design that might have been 20 years old so chances are it’s not got drawers in it and things like that so space saving ideas, so by time you’ve just replaced the doors and you put drawers in you put in the pull out larders and you put all the gadgets in, you might as well have started from scratch. So, I always say the carcass is not the expensive part of the kitchen and I’m a big believer that if you can save money, I will you know but the way that I try and do that with my customers is like the worktops I was talking about, the type of door that they have. So, we’ve got all sorts of ways that we can keep the cost down on the doors. You can do a lot sort of joinery work and building work before we start, which can make it look really expensive but actually it’s not as expensive as having a full kitchen put in.
Alex: No, I bet it does, so some good thoughts there and I know everyone is sort of into the latest technology in the kitchen, you guys there evidently at the forefront of it but what are the things that are really striking a chord with people out there at the moment?
Mark: On the kitchens themselves as far as the appliances are concerned, AEG has just brought out their standard oven has a steam function in it which enables you to bake without burning while making bread or your cakes moist inside but not actually burning them, so it just adds another dimension to the cooking and that’s like an entry level service. There’s also when you’re watching MasterChef you’ll see they use a water bath sometimes and then they’ll use a vacuum packer, and that combination is called sous-vide cooking and that’s coming into the domestic market quite a lot now. So what you have is a steam oven, then you have a drawer below it, so the drawer below it is a vacuum packer and then you put say your piece of steak in there, a piece of fish and you put all your herbs in with it and it seal all the goodness into the actual meat or the fish and then you put it into a steam oven and it just comes out like you’ve just eaten restaurant food.
Alex: With this sort of technology Mark, am I going to see you on Bake Off with your perfectly risen, steamed sponge cake, or MasterChef, you’re going to take them all on?
Mark: I don’t think so, but I have been on enough courses trying to learn about it that I would be alright on it I think.
Alex: I’m coming round to yours for dinner. I know you do bathrooms as well, and from a buying perspective what do you need to look for when you’re looking to get the entire new bathroom or to make some changes. What would you advise?
Mark: Well you need to decide ideally before you start looking around for a bathroom whether you want a contemporary type of bathroom or traditional type of bathroom. There’s so many products out there it’s a bit of a minefield really. We’ve tended to pick sort of an entry level, which is a big book full of different products, then we have a higher end product brochure that we use. So, what we tend to tell our customers is to sort of give them an overall idea as to what we can do, put your different lighting in there, put glass shelves in there, so it’s not just about putting a toilet, a wash basin, a bath or a shower in there. Yeah, it’s just trying to make what can be quite a boring room into something a little bit more interesting. So, it’s all about the design rather than just selling a product. We put it onto cards, so people can see the different colours, what type of tiles they want to put in there and try and be a bit creative really.
Alex: So again, it’s all about as you said it’s the design element and not just selling things out of a box and just simply plumbing it in.
Mark: Exactly.
Alex: Just talk everyone through, I know you’ve just done this fairly big joint venture I suppose, with Express Bi-Fold Doors in Leeds and you’ve got a fairly impressive I suppose warehouse over there. Just talk everyone through what you’ve been up to.
Mark: Ok so the concept downstairs in our showroom in House of Harrogate had the express bi-folding doors, it had the lantern roof and it had the windows and we knew that concept worked. The owner of Express Bi-Folding doors is a friend of mine, we got to know each other over the last 2 or 3 years, he saw how the House of Harrogate worked and he was building a new showroom in Leeds anyway because they were relocating for Garforth and he has gone for it in a big way. He’s built three full size houses and what he’s done he’s brought myself in to do all the kitchens and the interiors, he’s got partners doing coving, he’s got people doing flooring, people doing resin driveways, doing the grass, doing the whole house experience.
Alex: So just so I’m clear, this is a giant warehouse and within that warehouse you guys have just gone and built three demonstration show homes basically within this warehouse, showing everything from the driveway through to the grass, through to the taps and the bathrooms that you’ve just discussed.
Mark: Exactly yeah.
Alex: Crikey, so yeah you better pop along to that and how did the launch go because that was only the other week wasn’t it?
Mark: Yeah really well, we had Phil Spencer down from Location, Location, Location, we had Dominic Littlewood and I invited down Lucy Parteger from Emmerdale, I did her kitchen last year for her. People were blown away by the whole kitchen showroom experience because it’s the only one in the UK, possibly Europe of this sort of size so it is a completely new concept.
Alex: Good grief, so it’s been an absolute pleasure to have Mark on the programme in that case, I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s got next for the Bake Off and MasterChef with his fancy tech behind the scenes. Now if anyone wants to pop buy sort of House of Harrogate or the new warehouse actually in Leeds, what’s the best way to get in touch with you?
Mark: I mean we’ve got both of them on the website, got all the locations there, you know exactly where, well in Harrogate we’re in the bottom end of town there and in Leeds we’re just off the ring road, just up from Elland Road down from the White Rose shopping centre. www.houseofharrogate.co.uk or www.expressinthehome.co.uk
Alex: There you go it’s been fascinating talking with you and thank you so much for coming in.
Mark: Thank you very much.
Alex: This month we’re discussing estate agent fees. Now we’d all like to think we’re getting a deal when it comes to this so when you nail an estate agent to the floor you feel great. However, is there another side to this story? By reducing the agents fee right down ask yourself is the agent is now motivated to sell your property for the most amount of money and to push that extra £5,000 or £10,000. No, of course they’re not, they just want your property straight off their books because every week your property remains unsold you are now costing the agent money and therefore they want to sell it quickly. My advice is to actually pay the agent the on the fence amount when it comes to fee, not excessively under or indeed over. In other words, something that is fair to both sides. By keeping your agent on side and motivated they will push a buy for that extra money. The alternative option is also to look at something like a staggered fee, so again you can ensure that motivation levels remain extremely high.
That’s all for this month from the Alex Goldstein Property Show (Part 7). What a programme it’s been. If you really want some top expert advice, come to my educational talk at Leeds business week in mid-October were I’m speaking alongside none other than Price Waterhouse Cooper. It’s free and full details can be found on my website alexgoldstein.co.uk And don’t forget my new Saturday Yorkshire Post property column, which was out the other week and the full article is on my website too. The next episode is out on 1 November so make sure you tune in for that. Until next time.
Join property expert Alex Goldstein this month when we meet Harrogate’s equivalent of Phil Spencer, insurance broker expert Mark Robinson, plus top tips when buying a property and lots more on The Alex Goldstein Property Show (part 6).
Full transcript below:
Alex: Welcome again to the Alex Goldstein Property Show (part 6). The only fast-paced property radio show on Stray FM, which aims to give you up-to-the-minute expert property advice from a wide range of related businesses, insider knowledge and know-how, all packed in, so you can make the best-informed decision when it comes to buying or selling your home. We’re available for podcast download on the first day of every month so make sure you sign up to the Alex Goldstein social media accounts to get an early reminder of this and to get expert property advice whenever you need. In this months show we will be getting the inside track from Harrogate’s very own answer to Phil Spencer, specialist insurance broker Mark Robinson and discuss the merits of open viewings, of course also have the Alex Goldstein top tips so much to cram in so let’s get straight on with it.
This month we’re discussing the property portals or the property search engines I’m sure you will have all heard of, Rightmove and Zoopla which are the UK’s most well-known, high-profile property search portals. However, there is a relatively new contender in town and it’s called On The Market. Now On The Market, this was launched in January 2015 by a consortium of estate agents and they have the sole aim to wrestle control from the two market leaders, Rightmove and Zoopla, by only allowing estate agents who wish to use their site to list their properties on only one other major competitor’s portal. So, in other words for an agent to advertise on On The Market, they could only then advertise on either Rightmove or Zoopla and at the time many agents gave up Zoopla. The other significant difference about On The Market is that it’s only full-time office-based estate agents that are allowed to list their properties. So, no online agents and no private listings so that’s a bit more unusual and being owned and run by estate agents their aim is to be in control of their website presence and to do this at a more modest cost then Rightmove, which is quite honestly viewed by many agents as having them over a barrel due to the very high monthly costs and arguably in turn this is passed on to you the consumer. Now, as this is an agency-owned website, the On The Market logo appears across the agents marketing materials and the offices, which is probably why you’ve seen it. Now, together with a lot of their TV advertising campaigns the site has speed and simplicity on its side. Of course, no adverts to confuse you and it’s a lot clearer on the eye. The other significant factor is that some agents who subscribe release their properties first onto On The Market and that is before the likes of Rightmove. So therefore, if you’re looking to stay ahead of the competition, which we all are when we’re buying this is a very lucrative option. Greater competition within this marketplace an only mean better news for you the consumer or homeowner as lower costs will hopefully in due course be passed on to you. The greater the online exposure when selling the better off you’re going to be. Time will tell of course if On The Market proves to be the significant challenger to Rightmove and Zoopla but so far, it’s arguably made solid ground in one of the most competitive estate agency related sectors.
This month I thought I’d turn everything on its head and I thought I’d give you an insight into my world, so I’ve invited in guest host for the time-being, Michael P Cotler who is Harrogate’s equivalent of Jeremy Paxman. Michael it’s over to you.
Michael: So, this opportunity is for everyone to understand what Alex is all about and really how he got to do what he does so well, so first question for you Alex I suppose is, what’s your background? How did you get into this sector?
Alex: I suppose it was just by sheer chance many years ago when I was at university I got some great work experience and from there, doors start to open, you get an insight into the estate agency world, got a great job with Cluttons who are a big name in the South East and London and sort of worked up the rankings and quite a lot of experience over 13/14 years.
Michael: A really big company, you must have gotten a huge amount of experience looking at it from both sides of the fence I suppose?
Alex: Yeah, very much, I mean you really have seen sort of all sorts of properties ranging up to stuff you see in the press on a national scale so some stuff that you’ll remember for the rest of your life dare I say on some of them.
Michael: So, what made you start up on your own then? I mean you’ve got a pretty good job, you’re working in some pretty big organisations, you’ve got some real kudos there. What’s the reason you decided to pack it all in and start your own business?
Alex: Yes, great question. I suppose I became disillusioned with the way that estate agency was being run, it was very different to when I first started. A lot of businesses nowadays and especially estate agents, it’s all run on targets, it’s key performance indicators, its daily targets and it’s all about how many calls you’re doing, how many deals you’ve got and it’s almost that you’ve got this big stick mentality from head office and I just felt that your almost incentivised I suppose not to look in client best interest at time and it didn’t quite fit true with who I am, and I suppose morally didn’t quite feel right.
Michael: Ok, I suppose, when you say from a moral perspective, what do you mean?
Alex: Well as an estate agent nowadays, and a lot of these guys it’s all about I suppose the short-term. It’s all about short-term targets, get it in and bill it. So, I remember very well that you went to see, say you’re selling your property, I’d go to see you and before I’d even stepped through the door in the back of my mind I’ve just got to think I’ve got to get Michael to sign that terms of business, I’ve got to get his instruction. It may be conversely that the best advice to you to maximise the value of a property could be, Michael you know what, let’s go and get outline planning permission for that big extension, let’s add value by doing that, then let’s put it on the market. You’ve got to look in client best interests and now I don’t have targets, or KPI’s or anything like that, its genuinely looking in your best interests as a homeowner to get the best buyer.
Michael: It’s almost like one of those programmes that you see on television isn’t it, where you have an expert, people often call you the Phil Spencer of Harrogate. It’s a bit like that sort of situation where you have somebody like Phil Spencer who’s an expert in property, comes in, looks at the property and gives them an objective perspective. From that objective perspective people then start to build trust and understand where you’re coming from. From your point of view, why do you think that’s going to be beneficial for the client?
Alex: A lot of it nowadays is the fact that you’ve got an expert like myself, who’s got a lot of years under his belt and experience I think is absolutely key, critical on dealing with let’s face it your most important asset on this planet.
Michael: People say that it’s also the most stressful thing to purchase as well, a house.
Alex: I think divorce is just behind it and I think death probably just behind that, it is still one of the most stressful things in your life and actually the biggest key to it is actually predicting problems before they’ve happened and to nip them in the bud so again you can keep the process very smooth.
Michael: Proactivity I suppose as opposed to reactivity.
Alex: It is that but also it comes down to experience and for me it’s one of the biggest frustrations out there at the end of the day. Estate agency isn’t licensed anyone can start up, you could start up tomorrow your own estate agency and just start going and as long as you tick the right boxes legally you’re absolutely fine. The biggest problem I have to say is a lot of these online guys that sort of buy franchise opportunities. Yes, they are amazing sales people, they’re from car sales or I used to be insurance sort of thing, dealing with property is something very specialist and shouldn’t just be sort of glibly sort of thrown away and very often they get caught out because they haven’t got that foresight and knowledge and experience to see through a problem and it’s very often where I have to get involved because a sales gone completely off kilter and it’s down to someone like me to come in objectively and just get it back on track.
Michael: And the other thing of course which must be a huge issue is that it affects the confidence in the individual and in the world of estate agents selling property that they think that everybody’s tarred with the same brush.
Alex: Unfortunately, yes, I mean it doesn’t matter whether you’re an estate agent, a politician or dare I say a traffic warden, I think every sort of sector in this world you’ve got a tarnishing of sorts. Estate agents used to be I think the most hated role out in the UK, I think that is topped by the bankers and the politicians at the moment, but it is a great pity because there really are some superb estate agents and negotiators and actual team setups and it’s just knowing what to look for, with experience behind the scenes to guide a client through those sort of fairly tough times.
Michael: Ok, so let’s look at it from a slightly different perspective now, let’s look at it from the consumers perspective. What is the advantage and what do you do for me having decided that I want to sell my property, what exactly is the process that you follow and what would you do for me?
Alex: So, if you’re looking to sell your property and I go as you know I cover Yorkshire and London, as I’ve intimated already it’s about where you can maximise value. Now this could be going through planning, it’s sorting the cosmetics out, it could be the finer details but also as with a lot of these it’s planning behind the scenes and actually getting the agent out is one of the last things you actually do. So, it’s sort of making sure you’ve got the solicitors lined up, it may be that we call on a surveyor to check for the roof, so we’ve got that absolutely nailed down.
Michael: So how do you get paid from the selling perspective, how does that work?
Alex: Well once I’ve sort of bought in and advised on independently the most appropriate agent, I sort of, I link in with the agents on a weekly basis, I remain proactive. So, I would ring said agent once a week on behalf of Michael who’s selling the property, get the latest from them, it takes me sort of 30 seconds to a minute to understand where they’re going because I’ve been there and done it myself and then I can report back to Michael. Twenty minutes / half an hour, Michael this is what’s going on, this is what it all means, proactively with my experience we need to, I don’t know change the online advert, agreed, great, agent please can you get on with it. So, all of a sudden, you’re now speaking weekly with the estate agent, you’re being proactive because you’ve got me on board. The key to it is the appointed agent, who’s been instructed independently of me, charges you their standard commission rate in the market, the agent pays me a cut of their commission. So, if you are selling a property you have absolutely nothing to pay me at any point to have me on board, so I suppose it’s into a no-brainer type category.
Michael: So literally the agent will pay you so the house owner, the homeowner who’s selling has got no cost for all that objective perspective?
Alex: No, the cost remains exactly the same, it just means that you’ve got extra expertise and knowledge and guidance. The agents like it because in effect I have, forgive the analogy, packaged up you and the property. We’ve got the planning, we’ve got the solicitor, we’ve got the right marketing strategy lined up, you’re ready to go. It’s win-win situation, the agent still retains a good proportion of the fee, I get paid a percentage of that, it’s win-win, and that’s where I can link in with a lot of the solicitors, the private banks, I’ve done stuff with Google in London as well because again it’s a very unusual service.
Michael: Ok, fantastic. The other week I was out and about speaking to a solicitor and the solicitor was raving about you and saying how you actually helped one of their clients. How does that one work?
Alex: That’s very kind you know thanks for mentioning it and this was actually on the buying side of things and this was actually for a client of theirs who was getting very frustrated. They were in a good position to proceed but they weren’t getting any traction with the agent, they weren’t getting tipped off early and they were very fortunate, they were all cash, there was no mortgage, they were in rented but they just weren’t being taken seriously.
Michael: Ok, so just one thing I just want to make clear here, so this is the other side of the business, where you’re actually going into the market and purchasing properties for clients. So just rewind a tad and just explain how that part of the business works. So, you’ve got the selling side that you’ve just talked about and this is the other side of the business.
Alex: It is, and again very often people get frustrated or they don’t have the time or very often they don’t know what they’re doing. It’s all well and good you hear on the TV and in the media, this is how to buy a property, this is what you do but actually putting that through into real terms. If you’ve ever done it before it’s actually incredibly daunting. So again, adding value through there and I do a lot of relocations as I said I cover Yorkshire and London so people moving between the two, I can effectively hold their hand and guide it through. But, again it’s with experience I am an ex estate agent at the end of the day and you know how the system works, you know how to get your client to the very front of the queue and sometimes and again it’s a big trend at the moment, what’s called the off-market sector. And this isn’t necessarily with estate agents and if it is it’s not on the open market, it’s not online, very often you’re going direct to the developers that have just finished a new project or because I’ve been in the business a long time I know the homeowner so if you give me your criteria, we’ll go out and search for whatever specification you’re after, we negotiate and we secure on the right terms and see it all the way through and I act on behalf of you, the purchaser, in that instance and you just pay me a fee for that service.
Michael: So, this is a service where you’re paid a fee but again you give a completely objective perspective and from what you say to me then you actually have access to properties that are probably not on Rightmove or not on other websites that most people would look at when they’re trying to buy property.
Alex: Probably just over half the purchases I have done have been completely off markets, no one really knows about it, and you are just placing the buyer, my client with a specific type of property and it’s guiding them through that. It’s also then bolting on a lot of connections that I’ve got. Again, I don’t get anything for it and I always say to everyone up front, if someone moves into a property, they buy a property and I don’t know they want to do the extension, they need the roof sorting, or they want some really nice carpeting to go through, who do you know, who do you go to, who is trustworthy?
Michael: Well that’s a whole ballpark on its own, getting tradesmen in and knowing who you can trust and getting the best price and all that.
Alex: Absolutely and again just I’ve been round the block as they say, a lot of years, I know a lot of these guys, they are completely trustworthy, and I don’t charge for it, they don’t charge any more. Again, it’s looking at the bigger picture which I wasn’t always allowed to do in the corporate world is that if I can help you, as a buyer and indeed as a seller, if I help you and the general cause, again it helps you, it helps me, everyone wins as I see it. It’s not about getting a lot of businesses to do sort of backhanders in brown envelopes and all that, I’m not into that at all and keep it very simple.
Michael: So, it’s all about really adding value to the client in every respect whether it’s from a purchasing perspective or from the selling perspective, it’s all about adding value.
Alex: Yeah very much so that’s exactly what it’s about.
Michael: So, the other night reading through the Yorkshire Post and you’ve got a column.
Alex: Yeah, I do, Yorkshire Post Property Column, I think the next ones out in about two weeks’ time, and again that’s giving you an insight into my world. It’s not selling anything as you may sometimes feel, it’s just giving really good advice and expert opinion and experience that’s what it’s about.
Michael: Well fantastic. So, in summary your buying properties, your selling properties, you’ve got 14 years’ experience, you basically have the majority of your stuff is not the kind of stuff that you would see on Rightmove, it’s something that’s offline so if people are interested in properties that they probably don’t even know that are for sale, you’re the man to speak to.
Alex: Yeah, I very much put it like that.
Michael: Fantastic, thanks very much for your time Alex.
Alex: My absolute pleasure, thanks very much Michael.
The property hospital is all about me answering your questions, queries and quibbles when it comes to your experiences in the property sector and this month I’m answering a question from Sam who’s got this to say.
Sam: Yeah so, I hear a lot about viewing days and how they’re quite beneficial because obviously you just have to have your house clean for one day, a lot of people come in at once. I just want to know what your take on it is really because I wanted to know what the best thing to do is with regards to making sure the house sells.
Alex: Sam, interesting question here. As I see it open viewing days can be very useful if you’ve got an unusual property in the market and one that’s likely to create a lot of instant interest in it. It’s a very fair way to get a large number of people through the door in the most time-efficient manner. This situation often applies to properties that need extensive refurbishment because they don’t often crop up in the market. Now, open viewing days are a useful option if your property falls into this category or as part of a overall marketing strategy. However, don’t think for a minute that you’re going to get a barrage of viewings with 30 odd people storming through your home in an afternoon. This really very rarely nowadays happens, more often than not you just get a small handful of people all coming to view. The key with open viewings is to keep the timeframe for people to view quite tight, such as a couple of hours and not a whole day or afternoon, as this will now focus their efforts. Ensure that the agent can ideally accompany the viewers around and that all viewers are signed into the property, so they can be followed up down the line for feedback. Personally, it’s usually best to have viewers shown around individually as you often get more out of them in terms of what they like or dislike about the property. Always try this route first then revert to an open viewing opportunity if the need arises. I hope that helps.
Voiceover: The Property Hot Seat
Name?
Mark: Mark Robinson.
Voiceover: Business?
Mark: Henderson Insurance Brokers Limited.
Alex: Mark thanks so much for coming in.
Mark: No problem.
Alex: I suppose it’s a phrase often thrown around, an insurance broker. I mean what do you guys actually do at the end of the day? What does an insurance broker actually entail?
Mark: Very very good question. One of the big things people tend to forget about insurance brokers are that we are actually a professional advisory service, we are advisors. So, it’s best to think of us as a lawyer, or an estate agent. We’re here to act for the client. The common myth is that we’re there to act for the insurance company, in fact we’re not it’s the other way round entirely. So, it’s our job as a broker to advise you, A – what cover you need, B – why you need that cover and C – make sure that you get the right price for that cover, to make sure that you get the best deal in the market, and that you’re speaking with the correct insurers for that.
Alex: The obvious question which I’m sure will come as a result of this is how are you paid? How does that side of things actually work and come together?
Mark: Again, very simply, two methods really, depending on what type of insurance policy it is. So, if we’re looking at household insurance, private car insurance, the personal lines type insurance, brokers will 9 times out of 10 be paid via a commission, so that’s where the insurance will pay us as the broker for arranging that insurance.
Alex: So, sort of an introductory fee or procurement fee as the finance authorities refer it to. So as a client Alex, buying said premium from Mark, I’m not paying anything extra on the bottom line, it’s the fact that you’ve advised me and said you need to go with ABC insurance ltd, and ABC turn around to you Mark and say thanks so much here’s a fee towards bringing Alex on board. Is that effectively how it works?
Mark: Exactly. Now if we were looking at the corporate side of insurances, the commercial business type of insurance, again we can either take a commission as payment from the insurer or for large premiums we would look to net that down, go commission free and charge an agreed fee dependant on the service.
Alex: So what sort of lines of insurance do you cover? Obviously, you’ve got the obvious ones such as homes and insurance, you can then think of all sorts of quirky things. I know there’s sort of the, sort of the salary side of things, you can get insurance against that, there’s all sorts of weird and wonderful bolt ons. What do Henderson’s really specialise in, what’s your forte?
Mark: Well we are a general insurance broker so it’s a tough question to nail down to any one particular thing we specialise in because we do everything as a general broker. However, as a group we do have various divisions, so we have a large credit insurance division, we have a large high net worth division, we have a large bonding division for contract construction bonds and what have you, so yeah difficult one to nail down so we will look at the general business insurance and the household insurance.
Alex: So basically, if I can think of it, Henderson insurance, have probably got someone within their office team hat can actually sort of point me in the right direction and help me out.
Mark: That’s it exactly. I mean we’re a Lloyd’s broker, so we place business into Lloyds of London so as you say anything that you can think of that can be insured, we will find a way to insure.
Alex: That’s all you need to know. I suppose everyone always says why don’t I go to one of these comparison websites, so Money Meerkat so to speak. What are the issues of doing that, why would I not go to one of the online providers and why would I want to go to a general insurance broker like you?
Mark: Well the first thing to remember is online insurance providers aren’t authorised to provide advice. They are basically there to provide a service of I want to buy X product, this is X product for you to buy. Therefore, if you use an online provider, you’re basically paying your money and taking a chance that you’ve decided that the product that you’re buying is correct. The providers aren’t likely to give you any huge support in the event of a claim and where they do give advice, 9 times out of 10, this is going to be call centre type advice, which isn’t specifically tailored to the requirement of that particular question.
Alex: So you’re taking effectively more of a punt, bit more of a gamble as you said, you’re running through a huge list of possible options but as with all of these things and I know insurers are well known for it, its all in the small print isn’t it, and there’s sort things that are omitted sometimes, whether accidentally or not but you guys are well versed and can see through all that.
Mark: Certainly and on the subject of claims, if you go to a online provider, a direct writer and you have an issue with a claim, when you go into challenge that, you are one person challenging a claim, whereas if you go via an insurance broker, its likely that that broker has millions of pounds with that particular insurer of placed business, therefore we’re not then just approaching that insurer to resolve an issue as an individual, we’re going in as a buying group so to speak. And also, on top of that we’ve dealt with pretty much every claim, every type of claim there is going so we have the precedent to say ok well, this is how you resolved this type of claim last time around and this is the way we want to go with this claim again. So, it’s entirely down to the service and the advice and that’s harking back to what I mentioned earlier, we are a professional, brokers are a professional service.
Alex: As a generalisation with your experience, what are the pitfalls that say the buying public need to be aware of when getting involved into the insurance world, whether it’s for cars or houses. What are the pitfalls you need to be really careful of?
Mark: The biggest one really is under insurance, so this is obviously not valuing your possessions correctly, or buying a poor policy that has abnormal exclusions in just because it was the cheapest one available. Also, paying for cover that’s not required is another big one we see, especially when we look at direct policies. Again, it tends to be a one size fits all type arrangement. We look at, on the subject of properties, we look at rental insurance and a lot of people that rent don’t tend to buy insurance because they think well I’ve only really got contents cover and the landlord will look at the rest of it. What they don’t realise is that a policy gives them more than just contents cover and one of the big issues for them is liability or negligence that would damage other people’s property. So, for example you, your renting a property, an apartment and you flood your flat then great you’d be covered but what about the people in the flat below.
Alex: Isn’t that covered by landlord insurance?
Mark: If it’s you that’s done it as the tenant, then it’s your liability so it would come against your liability.
Alex: Well I tell you, you learn all sorts on this show, I had assumed that the landlord cover may have sort of covered that under the landlord cover.
Mark: It would cover the damage to their property but not necessarily damage to other people’s property.
Alex: Great top tip there. Some great insight there into the insurance and brokerage world and some real great insider tips. I suppose just as a parting thing I always like to ask something a bit more amusing. What’s the most expensive possession you’ve ever had the pleasure of insuring?
Mark: As a group we routinely insure extremely high value items and I think that the most expensive and exciting item I’ve ever seen insured was a vintage Patek Philippe watch and we insured recently for just over a million pounds. That stands out in my mind.
Alex: I think it would in most peoples.
Mark: Yeah as a group we insure several classic cars, we insure a few racing teams who have some fairly sizeable vehicles and again recently we’ve insured an engagement ring for about 2.2 million so cross the group there will be more stories to tell that I’m not aware of, but we certainly have some fairly sizeable toys.
Alex: No kidding, very nice to hear and I suppose if anyone wants to talk through their £2.2 million engagement ring or any other insurance matters, how can people reach you and chat it all through?
Mark: Well we’ve recently opened a new office in Harrogate so the best number for us is the office line which is 01423 200000.
Alex: Fantastic Mark, thanks so much for coming on and talking it all through.
Mark: Thank you.
Alex: When you’re looking to buy there are three key top tips to get right every time. Firstly, you need to get yourself into the best possible position. I know people often think they know what this means but ideally this actually means you’re in rented accommodation. Being under offer is still considered relatively risky by the estate agents as there’s an additional chain involved which they don’t have much control over. Going into rented when you sell means you are chain free for this part of the transaction. When you go on to buy it means that you are purchasing from a position of strength and this is seen as very low risk. Overall, it also takes the stress completely out of your sale and purchase. Appreciate look, I know it’s two moves but honestly it really is well worth it. The other point when buying is to have your mortgage lined up. Due to the current financial regulations getting mortgages through takes so much longer and to prove that your part way down the line and more reliable than most, go through your lender and get what’s called an agreement in principal or a decision in principal lined up. This is effectively just a signed paper saying that your lender is going to give you a mortgage for such and such amount subject to a couple of conditions. To get this will mean a bit of work for you and your lender but it really does show good intent from your part when you’re buying. The third and final point is to have your solicitor instructed and ready to go, and this means getting them to open a file for you, sign off client identification checks and possibly have some minor funds on account to get the searches undertaken ASAP. You really would be amazed how long these couple of points can take, so it’s best as I see it to get underway when you’ve got time on your side and you’re not under intense pressure from the seller, estate agents and their solicitor pushing you for answers on other matters. If you need to talk these points through further, you only need drop me a line.
That’s all for this month from the Alex Goldstein Property Show (part 6), and what a programme it’s been. If you really want some top expert advice, come to my educational talk at Leeds Business Week in October where I will be speaking alongside no other than Price Waterhouse Cooper. It’s free and full details can be found on my website alexgoldstein.co.uk There is also my new Saturday Yorkshire Post property column, which is out in the next couple of weeks. The next episode is out on 1 October so make sure you tune in for that. Until next time.
Join property expert Alex Goldstein for the Alex Goldstein Property Show (Part 5) on StrayFM. This month we are getting the inside track from Nick Silcock – a highly experienced architect on what to look out for in this sector. Plus Ben Thornton – a professional photographer with various tips and tricks. We also have the “property hospital” and “alex’s top tips”. Listen in now to keep at the sharp end of the property market!
Full transcript below:
Alex: Welcome again to the Alex Goldstein Property Show, the only fast-paced property radio show on Stray FM which aims to give you up to the minute property expert advice from a wide range of related businesses, insider knowledge and know-how all jam packed in so you can make the best-informed decision when it comes to buying and selling your home. We’re available for podcast download on the first of every month so make sure you sign up to the Alex Goldstein social media accounts to get an early reminder of this and get great property advice whenever you need it. In this month’s show, we will be getting the inside track from Nick Silcock a specialist architect in Harrogate on the pitfalls to avoid in this sector. We also discuss how best to present your home with property photographer Ben Thornton. We of course also have the Alex Goldstein top tips. So much to cram in so let’s get straight on with it.
This month we are discussing the outcome of Brexit and to put the record straight. Now come on, let’s face it when we heard the UK was leaving the EU what happened? Panic set in. Whilst one half of the UK were revelling in their success the other half were going into meltdown. The stock exchange was all over the place, sterling fell off a cliff, political resignation went around like wildfire and let’s face it the doom-mongers had a field day. People then started buying into this psychological panic about the economy and they actually lost sight of what was going on. What we’ve got to remember is that leaving the EU is not an on/off switch type scenario. From the point the UK government invokes article 50, there are 2 years from that point of detailed renegotiations. So, in other words it’s going to be 2019 before we know the full extent of the detail. The key to all of this whether you are Brexit or Bremain is mindset. By staying positive and keeping calm you will start to see the new economic and property landscape in a brand-new light. Now, mortgage lending rates, they are at an all-time low and money’s never been cheaper to borrow. So therefore, if you’re thinking of moving home you can go up a couple of rungs on the ladder. The Bank of England have held the interest rates at half a percent, however there’s talk that that’s possibly going to come down. Again, good news if you’re borrowing. Supply and demand are kings when it comes to property. In Yorkshire supply’s always been weak but demand very high and this has led to prices holding firm in comparison to other parts of the country. So therefore, if you’re a homeowner looking to sell, demand remains good and as long as your guide price remains realistic there are answers out there for you as well. Investing and buying in property has rarely been about short term flipping, so therefore any changes in the house price index is likely to balance out over the length of ownership. That is why property has always historically proven to be the best investment over the medium to long term. International investors have also plagued on the current exchange rates and are increasingly keen to buy. So, the actual conclusion of Brexit is way down the line and everything in the media currently is on the most part, educated speculation. So, after all no country has ever been in this position before. What we do know is that the UK and the EU wants a clean break on the best terms for both sides. We need them and vice versa. So, when you look at the world in a positive frame of mind keep calm and always take a medium view point, the outlook is not so bad after all. Yes, of course there is some current short-term turbulence but that’s not a surprise, we knew this was going to be the case anyway. Here’s a parting thought for you, will we actually leave the EU in the end? Either way, all the white noise about going in, staying out, meeting in the middle, it’s all talk. Am I going to put my life on hold for a minimum of the next 2 years? No, of course I’m not and I suggest you may wish to do the same.
It’s great to have Nick Silcock here from Townscape Architects in Harrogate. Nick thanks very much indeed for sparing the time to come in.
Nick: No problem Alex, delighted to meet you.
Alex: Thanks very much and just talk us through, again there’s a lot of confusion out there, you hear all these job titles and job terms, just sort of steer everyone in the right direction here. I hear sort of there’s the architects, the technologists and there’s the planning consultants. What do these people do, how do they all fit together on the architectural side of things and what you do?
Nick: So, there is vast differences between the architects, the architectural technologists and the planning consultant. Generally, the architect will have studied at university for seven years and will be very design focussed, he will study a Bachelor of Arts qualification and he will be there to open up your vision for a property, a piece of land for a development you have in mind and he will be able to pick up an idea and run with it, deliver that vision.
Alex: So, he is mostly the artist, if you like?
Nick: The artist, he’s the creative guy, he will also probably have the skill set to take that vision through the planning process, through the technical design process and be able to provide all the services that you need to deliver a construction project from that initial conception through to the last nut and bolt and sweeping up on site.
Alex: And that’s you?
Nick: That’s me.
Alex: So then on the technologist side, who’s that?
Nick: Generally, they will study for around four years. They study a Bachelor of Science qualification. So, they are far more technical in their skill set. So, a successful architectural practice is likely to employ a technologist to be able to deliver the technical aspects, the technical drawings and provide the fire power behind the scenes to actually do the drawings. So, it’s very much less or generally less design orientated but they’re and they have a very strong skill set than in a technical understanding of how buildings go together.
Alex: Yeah, so to do the most of the engineering, the build of it and how it’s actually all going to come together, the jigsaw part?
Nick: Absolutely.
Alex: And then the other bit as you said, was the planning consultant. What do they actually do?
Nick: Ok, so planning consultants, they’re often used, and we would work with a planning consultant on those sites where they are harder to achieve planning permission. Either that local residents are adverse to some kind of development or the site and so there’s lots of objections, or alternatively the site goes against planning policy as in the local council, the planning department will have a policy of saying how a piece of land should be used. If you then go against that policy, then a planning consultant can be used to interpret the policy and to out together a case to demonstrate that actually the proposal that is being put forward is fit for that site. So, an architect can often work with a planning consultant side by side, the architect would have the vision, the creativity and will do the drawings and designs, whereas the planning consultant is very much more policy driven, they are experts in the legal side of it absolutely. So, we work with a consultant to deliver on those more harder to achieve sites.
Alex: Great some great explanations there, thank you very much and finally there are a couple of architects in and around town. What do homeowners need to look for in a architect? I dare say it varies on the project type, that are the key differences, what are the pitfalls to avoid if you like?
Nick: Ok so when you’re picking your architect for your project bear in mind you’re going to be working with your architect for a year or two years depending on the nature of the project. So, the first thing is you need to make sure you get on with your architect, you need to trust him to deliver your vision to actually do what he says he’s going to do. So, first and foremost make sure you like the architect, make sure you get on with him, make sure he’s on your wave length. The next thing to do is to look at what the architect does, does he do a project like the one you want to undertake? So, for example if he only builds high rise apartments and you want a cosy extension on the back of your house, perhaps not the best match in terms of a architect so look at what the architect does, look at the types of projects he’s undertaken in the past. Does the style of how he designs meet your style, your vision of what you want to achieve on your project and then perhaps ask for references for the architect. A good architect will be willing to provide references from customers and clients they have worked with, speak to those references, check out this architect and also just check the architect’s qualification. Check they are registered with the necessary bodies. The architect registration board would hold details of that architect’s qualification to be called an architect, it’s a protected title and that architect will be registered on the ARB website.
Alex: Just talk through the process of getting planning and what it entails and surveys and costs. Just give people an idea of what to expect.
Nick: Ok, so in terms of the process, the process of design and the project would always start with the client brief. The brief is a vision of what you want to achieve, it can be a technical document, setting out a list of criteria of what you want to achieve on your project or it could be a series of images, a scrapbook almost of pictures of properties that you like, things you don’t like also because you want your architect to understand who you are and what you want to achieve. So, him the pictures of things you like and things you don’t like, and he can quite, he or she, can quite easily pick up on your style and your preferred choice of design.
Alex: So, then you get the drawings made up and then when it’s time to go to, in this instance Harrogate Borough Council, what’s the process and the timeline involved there?
Nick: So, the next step in the process is, once you’ve got the brief defined and it’s a working document with your architect, it’s a very important document, that sets out where you see the project going, the architect can then start his process of surveying the property, because your architect would need a set of plans to work from in the first instance, to then be able to develop and design ideas with you, to then move the project forward through the creative design phase. The creative design phase is the really interesting part of the project, this is where we churn out the ideas, we work with you, we use our expertise and the vision for your property to actually push design to the absolute limits, and with you will work with you to design and develop the optimum layout for your house. That will then be used to prepare a planning application, a planning application for a typical domestic project is eight weeks.
Alex: Than after that eight weeks all being well, the council say, yes happy to approve that and you can get on with the building works as soon as that comes through.
Nick: There are a few more milestones to achieve. The next stages after that are to prepare the more technical drawings that you will need, that a builder would need to build from. So, he’ll need to understand how is the house built, what type of materials, what type of products, what type of insulation for example. That is called the building regulations phase. So, your architect or technologist will prepare you technical drawings at that stage and they are submitted to the council or to a building inspector for an approval of those plans. At that point you can then start to obtain quotes from builders based upon those drawings and when you’re ready to start work it’s about informing building control that you’re commencing on site 48 hours in advance.
Alex: Crikey, so it’s a bit more complicated than I think everyone first thinks. As I said in the first sentence, it’s all well and good thinking to go and get planning for that extension but it’s quite a lot of steps to go through.
Nick: There are other steps after it to go through but a architect will be able to guide you through those steps to make your life simple.
Alex: I suppose just flipping it back the other way, we’ve obviously seen the rise of George Clarke on Amazing Spaces for example and I suppose the obvious question is, well look Nick, it’s all well and good talking through all of that, do I actually need a architect at the end of the day for an extension again, I hear on TV it must be so easy, George Clarke says oh you know what let’s go and build, let’s go and do something and it’s all within this, new permitted development rules, where does George stop and you guys take over?
Nick: Ok so you’re in the industry Alex, you know that a well-designed property is going to be worth more, it’s going to sell quicker, it’s going to get more enquiries. So, a well-designed property is worth the investment. So a architect will go above and beyond your property, he will achieve that next level, it will be designed, it will be executed to the highest of standards, the space will be utilised in every direction, it will be a space you get enjoyment from.
Alex: And where do you stand with the permitted development? I know it’s beyond a certain size that you then have to go through the full planning process, but up until that point you can get away with it and I suppose sneak it in if you like, a lot of people think that.
Nick: No, you can’t sneak it in. The permitted development is a set criteria basically and you have to keep within a certain height, certain size, certain distance from the boundary and you can generally build a small-scale extension under permitted development.
Alex: A conservatory type thing?
Nick: Generally, yeah, some houses have their permitted development rights removed so be very cautious of that in that doesn’t apply to every single house. And it doesn’t or can’t be applied sometimes to very bespoke houses, that are developed over a number of year and have been extended previously so always tread with caution. The permitted development rights are great, it does give you an excellent opportunity to extend a house without having to go through the planning process, so they can be a great opportunity, however tread with caution. Now seek advice before you actually start building.
Alex: Some great thoughts there thank you and again you get the planning permission for example, you now want to build it out again, it’s a split choice decision, some people say well I want my architect, yourself, just to project manager and sort of oversee it all and other people sort of say, thank Nick, thanks for doing that and then they chuck it out to the builders. What are the pros and cons of doing this? And I guess you guys drew the plans, you know what’s going on.
Nick: It goes down to your experience, if you have built something before, if we’ve prepared all the drawings and a competence test, the drawings could be passed to a competent builder to build from without a project management service. But, do you have that link with the builder? Do you have that relationship and trust with the builder that they’re going to do a great job for you? Are you going to be able to monitor the quality of the work on the site? Are you comfortable with what you’re getting from the builder? And are you comfortable that you’re paying them the right amount of money? So, your architect or your architectural practice will be able to guide you through the process in terms of the tender process, in terms of finding your builder, finding the right builder for that project and then to manage the payment so you’re never paying out more than you should be to the builder and also checking the quality of the work along the way.
Alex: So, it comes back to exactly what I’ve always been saying to people, it’s experience. You have the experience of what to look for, it’s exactly the same on the estate agency side, if you built up that time and experience within that and you know now what you’re doing, you’re fully able to advise clients because if you know, you know and if you don’t you’re going to be left out in the cold as they say. I suppose a lot of people think that architects, not particularly glamorous, you’re stuck in a back-office sort of thing. How would you counteract that?
Nick: Architecture is a wonderful business, we work with such a wide range of people, we get to meet a wide range of people, ranging from people who want to extend or renovate a house, up to we work with charities, and working with charities is great because they need a guiding hand through the projects and through the charity projects we’ve worked on we’ve then got to meet quite a few celebrities and Royals at openings.
Alex: Go on drop a few names.
Nick: Ok I’ll drop a few names, Princess Anne opened a building last June, which we designed, had a really interesting 5-10-minute conversation with her on tarmac and what specification of tarmac was being used in the car park. AP McCoy was at the opening as well along with the racing celebrities and Sophie Countess of Wessex also opened a project for us in Cookridge a few years ago. So, met some wonderful people along the way.
Alex: Well look at you. Well some fantastic tips and tricks there for architects and if you want to I suppose drop Nick a line and hand out with some his royal clientele, what is the best way to reach you?
Nick: Website is townscape-architects.co.uk phone number 01423 505924.
Alex: Nick fantastic, thanks so much for coming on.
Nick: Thank you Alex.
Alex: Every month I’m here to answer your questions, queries and quibbles when it comes to the property market, and this month we’ve got Beth and she’s got this for me.
Beth: Alex, the estate agent feels putting up a for sale board at my house will help the sale. I’m not so sure I feel they’re just using it for profile, plus I’m mindful that the neighbours may now look my house up as they’re not currently aware it’s for sale. What’s the best thing to do?
Alex: Great question there Beth and one actually very commonly asked. Now, for sale boards are a very useful tool in the range of marketing options at an agent’s disposal. Firstly, you never know who’s going to be driving or walking past the property and of course this is free to you because the agents pays for it. Secondly, for viewing purposes it clearly states where your property is and the last thing you ever want is a viewer running late due to traffic and then can’t find your house. You need to be waving from a distance where you are, so they can see it and start to relax before they come through the door. Now, regarding your neighbours, I would simply say that look everyone nowadays is actually connected online and therefore in fairness your neighbours probably already know about the sale, especially if they’ve got an automated website search set up. So, look overall, I would certainly say go for it initially and if you feel it’s been up long enough then just ask the agent to take it down but at least at that point you’ve been able to make an informed decision and I hope this helps.
Voiceover: The Property Hot Seat
Name?
Ben: Ben Thornton
Voiceover: Business?
Ben: Planpics.com
Voiceover: Time in property?
Ben: 10 years.
Alex: Very exciting indeed to have Ben Thornton here in the studio with me. He really is a very experienced property photographer. Ben thanks very much for coming in. I suppose one of the main questions that you come across and certainly I come across, is why people feel that it’s necessary to use a professional photographer when at the end of the day, a lot of estate agents nowadays, they’ve got the, say professional looking digital camera kit, what’s the difference between an agent just doing a point and shoot camera versus someone like yourself at Planpics?
Ben: Well I think the most important point is an estate agent has got 101 things on their to-do list, whereas a property photographer has one thing and that’s to take images that will sell the house. Firstly, they’ve got the latest and the best kit, lighting, cameras, lenses, whereas the estate agent possibly won’t so just in most cases using their iPhone or point and shoot camera. The professional photographer will also advise on room layout, you know presentation, also revisit when the weather is better possibly.
Alex: You mentioned about sort of presentation of a room and I know this is a very much a hot topic. What do you feel are the key points you want to I suppose convey to people? Because often it’s something that they get het up about, they’re not quite sure what to do, with your experience what are the key points you need to look for?
Ben: The advice I usually give is to declutter everything, that’s the first bit if advice I’d give. For example, look at a sitting room, we’d normally pull all the sofas out as far as possible, to make the ground space look as big as possible. What we’re not trying to do is distort the truth by using fish eye lenses but by moving the furniture to the edges of the room will make it feel lighter, brighter, airier.
Alex: Is it true that you want to be taking internal photographs on a bright day or a rainy day or how do you actually fit that in?
Ben: In the ideal world, it would be brilliant if we could have sun throughout the whole year in England but, in the majority of cases an overcast day for internal photos is an advantage because with the lighting kit we use internally, we can control the lighting and create some really fabulous pictures.
Alex: I guess it’s a case of when you sometimes see that you’ve just got that big flash of white light against the windows, with what you use you can actually see straight through into the garden as your eyes would see it?
Ben: Yes, that’s right. It’s down to a number of things, it’s down to the actual cameras we’re using, the techniques we’re using and the lighting but getting all those things right makes the shots that we provide the agent essentially look like what you’re seeing, if anything better.
Alex: Yeah I know and I think it’s, correct me if I’m wrong, it’s a common misconception whereby people almost get confused because what your very sensitive eyes see versus lets face it, sadly a bit of plastic camera kit sees, then it’s got to be printed out, I think it’s two very, well I think extreme opposites and it’s how you sort of work the room and get the best presentation out of it.
Ben: Yeah exactly. I think it’s just getting the balance exactly right. Everything from the colours to the room presentation, the lighting. We put a lot of effort, I would say probably over half of the time is in the editing, which again is over and above what your agents would do with a point and press camera.
Alex: Again, it’s a real hot topic because I often see, again it’s two extremes, you often see these very heavily edited, evidently, it’s done through on photoshop, we’ve got the Mediterranean skyline that we’ve had today but hold on the original picture was taken in winter or it’s actually pouring with rain. Where’s that fine line for you?
Ben: As we talked about, the internal pictures it’s not always a beautiful day but with the external pictures and blue skies, for about 80% of the time we replace and add blue skies, but we do it in a very very subtle way so to the untrained eye it’s not noticeable.
Alex: I know there are alternatives such as mast photography and just talk everyone through that because I know again it’s a term widely thrown around but what does that actually entail?
Ben: So, we use portable elevated masts and basically what they do is they give us the camera sensor on a telescopic pole around 40-50 feet. In most cases we only use elevation probably about 20 or 30 feet max and what it is to straighten the perspective of the property rather than looking up at it. It worked just as well for a terraced house as it would do a £5 million country house. And the advantages of the ones we’ve got, they are portable, so rather than driving a van through somebody’s garden we can jump into the neighbouring field or tuck ourselves into a very tight space.
Alex: So, it’s handheld and goes where you go rather than if you like, there are a few of them in and around the area whereby its actually bolted on physically to a van or a car, you are restricted by where that vehicle can go at the end of the day.
Ben: Yes, exactly and the convenience is brilliant, we can go into the likes of neighbouring gardens and get the perfect shots.
Alex: Where does is stand once you’ve taken the images and you’ve finally given them to the estate agent, who actually I say owns those photographs? Is it done on a licence? Is it copyright? Does the agent own them? Does the actual homeowner own them? Where does the land lie with you?
Ben: Well usually the agreements that we have with the agent is that we own the photographs, the instructing agent can use that photograph for whatever purpose they see fit, whether it be for selling the house, for general presentation on their website, other marketing. If a homeowner instructs us directly, they’ve got full use of the pictures and if they swap instructing agents, they can take those pictures with them also.
Alex: So, if for example the agent instructs you but it’s the homeowner that’s effectively is paying you directly rather than the agent, what happens then? Do the photographs belong to the homeowner or do they belong to the agent?
Ben: Well in that case where the homeowner is paying us directly then yeah, the homeowner gets the full use of the pictures and they can do whatever they want with them. It’s only when the instructing agent pays that it’s for their use only.
Alex: It all comes back to effectively who’s paid you, whether it’s the agent, in which case its over to them or if it happened to be the homeowner albeit could be through the agent then they own it.
Ben: Yes, that’s right.
Alex: Got you. Just in summary what should people who are thinking of coming onto the market, what do they actually need to look for because again it’s a fairly competitive sector, property photography, there are quite a few people that do it. What are the key elements that homeowners need to look for in a professional photographer such as yourself?
Ben: Well firstly I think when looking for a photographer is to well for property, is to find somebody who only takes pictures of properties rather than moonlights as a wedding photographer, as a portrait photographer, you know someone whose speciality is property photography. And then secondly, looking at the experience, what they’ve done because anybody can buy a camera from Jessops and call themselves a professional photographer, but you need to see examples of what they’ve done. Whichever agent you ultimately go with they should be able to provide you with plenty examples of what they’ve done, you know internal / external pictures, elevated shots. Obviously with using a specialist property photographer they’ll be able to give you the time to you know discuss property presentation and you know if the weather is poor to revisit.
Alex: Now that’s really great Ben thanks very much indeed. Just tell everyone if they want to reach you just tell them the website and your contact number.
Ben: Yes, if you would like to contact me please go to www.planpics.com and my number is 07968445329.
Alex: Ben that’s great, thanks very much indeed for coming on.
When you come to buy or sell a property please always ensure you use a good quality conveyancing solicitor. People sometimes think this is a easy way to cut a corner and save a bit of money when actually it’s the very thing that will cost them personally down the line. So, one side of things, when you come to sell, a good quality solicitor will prepare everything in advance, remain proactive and most importantly will be the single point of contact throughout the process. Going through a mass volume, conveyor belt type solicitor is really not the way to go. I recently came across a situation, it was a small chain, it involved this very type of solicitor, and what happened was that it took just over three months to exchange contracts. By comparison the other solicitor would have seen it through in under two months. That’s the difference. When you come to buy a solicitor needs to check all the legal options on a property. Again, the number of situations I’ve come across where a mass volume, low experience solicitor was used, historically when they’ve bought, they’ve failed to see the right of way at the back or the worst one I’ve ever seen, it’s an historic footpath coming right the way up the driveway to the front door of the property. So, the lesson is pay only a smidge more but get a good quality solicitor as you have to personally live with the consequences if they forget about that historic footpath. If you’re unsure who to use just drop me a line.
What a show. That’s all from the Alex Goldstein property Show (part 5). More details, tips, tricks and industry insight can be found on the website alexgoldstein.co.uk and of course all my social media channels. Alternatively drop me a line on email. Make sure you look out for my new Saturday Yorkshire Post property column which is out in the next few weeks. The next episode is out on 1 September, when we have Harrogate’s answer to Phil Spencer plus lots more property tips and tricks. Until next time.
Join property expert Alex Goldstein with Chris Etherington from Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC) of Leeds in this highly topical interview based around what PwC do, tax planning, structuring and understand their thinking behind the controversial accountancy practices in the news!
Alex: It’s great here to have Chris Etherington from Price Waterhouse Cooper in Leeds. And Chris, getting straight to the heart of it, I know everyone’s really heard of PwC and Price Waterhouse, and it’s one of those massive UK names, but what underneath it all do you actually do?
Chris Etherington: Thanks for inviting me on, Alex. So, yeah, PwC, it’s one of those words that you see bandied around in the press being…we’re just a large accountancy firm. We work with huge, global conglomerates and things like that. And it’s actually, like you say, it’s a bit impenetrable as to, what do we actually do. So in terms of getting down to the nuts and bolts of it, we are essentially problem solvers.
We do a whole variety of things. I can list a whole different load of different services that we do. I do tax advice, we do legal advice, we do investment advice, we do deals to help people buy and sell companies. We do the boring stuff like the accountancy. Now, my colleagues in accounting won’t thank me for saying it’s boring, but that is what we’re known for. But we do so much more. We help people get debt funding, a whole host.
Alex: So sort of numbers and a bit beyond?
Chris Etherington: Absolutely, yeah. Obviously, it’s numbers-based, but we’re not all just mathematicians.
Alex: Possible common misconception is the types of clients that you help. And I know you’ve mentioned that you do help some of the UK’s best names out there, but just give people a feel, because obviously you’ve got those people, but I picked up that there was actually a bit of a slant and a change.
Chris Etherington: Well, I…to tell you what I do, I just work with individuals, and most people would be surprised to hear that, probably. I’ve spent the past decade of my life sitting at the same desk, helping clients of all shapes and sizes, if you like. So I’ve got clients who are guys in their bedroom with an internet business to 98-year-old grannies. So there’s all, sorts and it’s not just your high-net-worth Russian oligarchs, or what you might think it might be.
Alex: Again, yeah, a common misconception, it’s great to clear that one up. And what about companies? On the company side, because, again, you’re often seen to be acting for some of the big guys out there, but I think it’s fair to be said, at the moment, you’re quite interested, as a company, in the SMEs of this.
Chris Etherington: Yeah. I mean, if you just took what we call it as private business, and what that basically means is working with individuals, typically owners of managed businesses and privately owned businesses. And if you took that out of PwC in itself, that would probably be the fifth-largest accountancy firm in the country, just that bit of PwC. We do a lot. If you look at how many FTSE 100 companies are there in Yorkshire, there’s some, but there’s not a huge amount. So over two-thirds of what we do is working with entrepreneurs and their businesses. And that’s not just huge ones. It’s tech startups, to very large, privately-owned businesses. So it’s everything in between.
Alex: If you are a small or medium-sized businesses, why would you look to the PwCs rather than, say, accountancy firm down the street, so to speak? What is the difference? What are you actually getting?
Chris Etherington: At the end of the day, you’ve got the benefit of having somebody that is focused on the SME market but has the benefit of having a global firm behind them. So we can help you from day one as you grow and invest our time, we’re quite happy to invest time to start with certain businesses. So I’ve got a lot of guys who are tech startups, and there’s not a huge amount I’m going to be doing for them, but I just spend time with them on a day-to-day basis to help them grow with them, and in the future there might be an opportunity for me to help them with something.
Alex: And I suppose, from what you previously said, it’s the fact that you’ve got all these different departments and sub-divisions and all different types.
Chris Etherington: Yeah, say somebody’s trying to export to a European country, for example, never done it before. Well, we’ve got offices all over the world. I can pick up the phone to somebody and find someone over there that can help move…
Alex: Yeah, so you’re getting the PwC network, which you can’t obviously get from your high street guy, and you are the one stop sort of financial [crosstalk 00:03:59].
Chris Etherington: That’s why I said basically we’re problem-solvers. So if you have a problem with your business, generally I can find an expert, because it’s such a big firm. There’s usually somebody who does an everything, a little niche expert. I mean, I’ve been in the firm over a decade, I still don’t know what we do. It’s so much there, but usually if you pick up the phone, there’s somebody I can turn to or something.
Alex: And just talk us through, because it’s very much a hot topic at the moment, this whole sort of tax avoidance. You’ve obviously got all the Panama papers. You’ve got David Cameron supposedly being caught out, according to some of the papers. Emma Watson, the actress, she again bought it through the Panama company. What’s the viewpoint on this? Because, again, I think it’s very much a misconception when people sort of talk about taxation and the different structures. Talk us through. What is legal, what’s illegal, what’s the grey area?
Chris Etherington: Yeah, it’s a hot potato. They have a mine field to go through. It obviously sells papers and that’s why it’s been all over the press for the last five or so years. Before then, I think the tax world was very different. Broadly, the important point to know is tax evasion. That’s the really bad thing. That’s illegal now. Tax avoidance, that’s legal, so one is a criminal matter. If you’re doing tax evasion, there’s still plenty of people out there doing that. I mean, if you look at what the budgets and things when the chancellor stands up with his little red box and so on, he says how much I’m going to recover from tax evasion, there’s plenty of people out there doing it.
Alex: And that’s effectively money laundering…
Chris Etherington: That’s criminal. Yes, it can include money laundering, just people not paying their tax, basically defrauding the government.
Alex: Yeah, and then the difference, flipping over to…
Chris Etherington: Obviously, we don’t do any of it. Tax avoidance is, yeah, a much broader term. And, again, that is brandied around and becoming more of a dirty word in itself. It comes down to confusion. You mentioned it. How do people understand what is genuinely just financial planning and what is avoidance? And if you look at what the law says, there’s case law basically going back donkey’s years, which goes along the lines of, and I probably paraphrase badly, that somebody is entitled to arrange their affairs in a way that helps minimise their tax exposure. That’s perfectly legitimate. But if Parliament didn’t intend this to happen, are you manipulating the rules, are you finding a loophole and exploiting it, that’s tax avoidance in their view and they don’t like that, for obvious reasons. It’s not what they want. Whereas they are obviously happy with financial planning. Tax avoidance is so broad, you could say you’re investing in [inaudible 00:06:37]. That, in a sense, is…Yeah, you are arranging your circumstances to pay less tax because there is a government-sponsored tax relief that you can invest [inaudible 00:06:50] like that.
Alex: So effectively it’s your role to take and do the tax advice and take you, your clients, and their pot of money, no matter what it is, and take it up to the line, but it’s set out effectively by HMRC, but you don’t cross it because then, as you said, you’re getting into serious, sort of nitty-gritty territory and you’re bound to be caught out. And that’s where, if you like, the Daily Mails of this world and the media have picked up on it and arguably twisted the facts slightly?
Chris Etherington: Ultimately, it comes down to there are thousands of pages of legislation now. It’s impossible for the layman on the street, ordinary citizen, to understand really what the tax rules are. It’s so complex now. When I started, you had a couple of books, and it’s now 12. It’s impossible. I can’t read all of that. You have to have specialists in each individual field. And just doing stuff like a tax return for some people was impossible because there’s absolutely no way you can self-assess without some help. So a lot of what we do is actually to try and help people understand what the rules are.
Alex: It brings, as some might suppose, nicely, in terms of, again, another term that’s sort of bandied around, predominantly by the media, in terms of offshore funds, whereby you say, “Well, I’ve got my pot of money and it’s held in the Channel Islands or it’s over in the British Virgin Islands and all of that.” And, again, it’s tarnished with a similar sort of brush. Are those sort of setups legal, illegal? What are the advantages, what are the disadvantages? Again, it’s a term possibly misunderstood. But where are we at, at the moment, in terms of legislation and what’s possible?
Chris Etherington: Yeah. Like you say, there’s a lot of potential in things like Panama. Before then, there was non-doms that came up in the election campaigns and stuff, and a lot of these terms are thrown out into the press and it’s like, oh no, non-doms are bad, Panama is obviously bad, offshore structure, that’s awful. And the trouble is, a lot of people aren’t really interested in the detail. I love tax. A lot of people don’t. Yeah, I know. I’m fairly unique and I chose to do this. Most people fall into the profession. Unless you get really into detail, and that’s not gonna sell papers, is it, if you’re going to get really into the detail of it.
So it is quite easy for things to get misconstrued. I mean, just turning to the Panama situation and David Cameron’s. So he invested in, essentially, shares in an offshore vehicle and it was set up by his father. I don’t know all the details. I haven’t looked at it that much in all the specifics, but broadly it was an entity which paid UK tax. It was distributing its income each year and David Cameron would have had to declare that on his tax return. That is the same as you investing on a blue chip company on the stock exchange as anybody else would. You could do that in an ISO or whatever. If it’s paying the same amount as UK tax, as it would be in a UK entity, then what’s the problem? But people say offshore and tax evasion and tax avoidance…
Alex: All together.
Chris Etherington: Yeah, you just read the headline, don’t you? There are things to be uncovered and it’s perfectly legitimate for people to look at Panama and things like that and see if there is…I’m sure there will be untoward things that are in there to be uncovered. It’s 11 million documents, I think. It’s gonna take somebody with a fine-toothed comb to go through it all, but…
Alex: Time will tell on that one, time will tell. Bring it back ’round. In terms of property investment, again, the buzzword is how you structure it for tax efficiency, capital gains, inheritance tax, company structures, how do you actually sort of structure purchases nowadays? Because, again, there’s so many obstacles of their sensible ways, obviously above board, as we’ve said, that you can actually structure that to purchase. What should one actually look out for as a property investor?
Chris Etherington: Okay, ultimately, it’s a bit [inaudible 00:10:38] a little bit. It really comes down to your personal circumstances. There’s not a one set of rules. This is the right thing for a property investor to do. One person’s situation may be completely different to another person’s. You might have somebody who’s married and in a property partnership, say. You might have somebody who’s just doing it by themselves. You have to take all of that into account. I mean, if you’re married, you might think about things like who’s earning more. A lot of the changes at high level, some of the bigger ones that were announced were around restricting the amounts of relief you can get on your mortgage payments. So that’s gonna be restricted to basic rate, 20% relief essentially, whereas in the past you would’ve got 40%, or if you’re an additional rate tax payer, if you’re lucky enough to be one, 45% relief. So that’s a big dip in terms of how much…It’s coming phased in, so over the next couple of years it’ll become 75%, 50%, 25%. I won’t throw numbers around.
But in those circumstances, you might think, “Well, okay, if my wife isn’t earning anything, well, maybe she should own some of the properties. If we’re going to acquire some more, maybe she should do it rather than me.” The issues with Stamp Duty Land Tax are interesting. I mean, you’ve got obviously this new 3% surcharge. From people I’ve spoken to, it’s not necessarily something that will change the behavior that they’re looking at. It’s more a case of, “Oh, this is an extra cost we’re gonna have to incur.” It’s like a business expense. It’s just something we have to take into account when we’re setting our events and so on to try and get the right sort of profit in the long term. So, unfortunately, I think whilst the idea is to disincentivize, I guess, the landlord [inaudible 00:12:14] market, I suspect it will just be passed on to the tenants in due course.
Alex: That’s my fear, but again, we will see, because it’s very early days. Talk us through, Chris, because I know a lot of people are bandying around ideas of if we’re looking to buy property, we’ll put it in a limited company structure. And there’s limited liability partnerships and all of that. If one is looking to acquire properties, what are the things you actually need to think through in the structures as well?
Chris Etherington: Yeah, well, I mean, you’ve got to think about what’s commercial first, what’s good for you. I mean, there are benefits to being in a company, there are benefits of being in a partnership, things like limited protections, one, but there’s also things like who’s gonna lend money to me. It’s easy to obtain finance when you’re an individual. If you buy to let mortgages it may start to get harder, but it’s my understanding is it’s harder to do it through a company even it is. The tax things to think about are, well, yeah, there are some tax changes and not all of those tax changes apply to the companies. In particular, that mortgage interest one’s a big one.
So there’s a distinction there. If you can get lending through a company…and actually some people are so worse off that after these tax changes come through, in earnest, once they’ve been phased in, you could end up making a loss after the tax cost. That, in itself, could mean that basically there’s no point in being in business, frankly. So what are you going to do about it? One of the considerations might be, well, can I incorporate? Well, that might be one [inaudible 00:13:43]. You’ve got to think about what the other implications are, the Stamp Duty Land Tax issues and so on. Like I said before, what you’ve got to do is look at your individual circumstances and then decide which structure is best from the outset.
Alex: Yeah, and take some pretty specialist advice as well, because, again, the great thing with PwC is just so many different departments and areas of expertise. You’ve just got to declare everything from your personal circumstances and really, I think, hand it over to you guys for you to navigate.
Chris Etherington: Obviously, I’d be happy to do that. The key thing is taking that sort of advice earlier on rather than later. It’s much easier to plan for the future than it is trying to unravel something from the past.
Lovely feedback from satisfied clients in Ripon: "Thank you so much in helping with the sale. I know it wasn’t easy but we both appreciated all you did."
Hello Alex,
