Stamp Of Disapproval - Tuesday

‘So basically the Chancellor is trying to shaft grannies.’ Pronounces assistant manager T, with an image I’d rather not have.

‘I saw a website about that.’ Say trainee F, not exactly helpfully.

‘You are disgusting.’ Snaps negotiator S, eyes blazing. F looks crestfallen, then adds quietly.

‘It was about taxes on property…’

S looks embarrassed, her flushed cheeks quite fetching, as I think about how inept legislators can screw up the housing market with ill-thought out, clunky attempts to control market forces, yet not come up with a coherent construction policy for the last three decades.

The latest law with unintended consequences, is a hurried amendment to stamp duty, the iniquitous tax that penalises people for moving home. In a clumsy attempt to stop disgruntled pension holders - who were screwed over by another chancellor’s raid on their retirement funds - from buying second homes to let, for some meagre income in their dotage.

No doubt the puffed-up pontificators in Parliament thought it a great vote-winner to add a 3% levy for second home buyers, on top of the already punitive taxes for changing your home. Now they are hauling small fry in to the tax net; like separated couples with a home, each starting a new relationship, and two generation families trying to secure a property with a granny annexe, to avoid the £40,000 a year charges to put your aged parent in to a rest home. Meanwhile the big fish have off-shore tax avoidance schemes.

That won’t help us sell Mr and Mrs Hall’s home.’ Says S, trying to move on from her assumption that all males spend their spare time looking at dodgy websites. Most of them are blocked on our system, anyway…

S is referring to a pricey mistake, made by the aforementioned Halls, when they bought a sprawling home with separate annexe to accommodate Mr Hall’s ageing mother, last year. These moves need to be thought out in full - then probably discarded - as in my experience, using Mum’s money to buy a property you couldn’t normally aspire to, without actually waiting for her to die, often ends in tears.

‘The family aren’t going to like the fact the place will be harder to sell now.’ Suggests T. As we all nod in agreement, or at least I think we do. F tends to nod randomly anyway, the soundtrack in his head is something I’d rather not listen to.

Mrs Hall wanted to kill her mother-in-law after four weeks, then she did actually die there months later. The other beneficiaries, promptly fell out with their brother as their share of the inheritance was tied up in a sprawling house with, effectively, sitting tenants. An extra 3% on the price for prospective buyers isn’t exactly going to speed the process.

‘The thing with homes with a Granny Annexe,’ pontificates T. ‘Is when you haven’t got any on your books you get a stream of people wanting one. Then when you do get instructed to sell one, nobody is interested.’

‘Even less, if they have to pay a stupid tax on top.’ Adds S.

Nobody said the property market was easy. Too many people, restrictive planning controls and not enough homes being built, against a backdrop of Green Belt campaigners and not in my back yard complainers, who invariably, already have their own home and want to pull up the drawbridge. You’d think there would be a joined-up UK housing policy. You’d think…..

‘Surely they’ll have to change the rules.’ Says S, applying reason where none has been found to date.

Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. By the time you read this, perhaps common sense will have prevailed, but I wouldn’t bet your house on it.

“Oh for f**s sake.’ Exclaims T, later.

‘What now?’ I ask, as he slams his phone down angrily.

‘Another buy-to-let purchaser wants to pull out of a deal because the tax has changed.’ Answers T. I predicted this outcome when the meddling was announced. If only I could nail the lottery numbers with such accuracy. A few million and I’d be out of here.

Home free. Tax free.

---------

They charge VAT on digital e-book downloads - but still cheaper than a Costa coffee, links on the right.

Let's Do The Timewarp - Wedneday

Stuck in traffic again. If I’m not gridlocked I’m dodging aggressive traffic wardens, determined to not rest until every town is a wasteland of boarded up units interspersed by charity shops and coffee outlets. I have idiot trainee F alongside me so there’s not a lot of intellectual stimulus and the local radio presenter – only allowed as an auditory intruder in case he can pre-warn me of any further traffic blockages – is vainly trying to plug some absurd competition to guess three celebrities from a trio of nano-second clips. The hook is tens of thousands of ‘life changing’ pounds that won’t even buy you a studio flat round here. God, I despair of humanity.

‘Who do you reckon they are then?’ Enthuses F, nodding at the radio. ‘We could ring in.’

‘You might as well try and guess the lottery numbers.’ I tell F wearily, spotting an opposition for sale board and bristling uncomfortably - even after all this time.

‘Yes but it’s a huge amount of money.’ Continues F. It’s not. I point out the cost of housing stock and then remind the fool that to call in you need to ring some pumped-up price phone number that is in all probability funding the ‘giveaway’. F looks crestfallen. He has to learn sooner or later.

Finally we move and I take a rabbit-run short cut through some 1930s housing stock. The roof tiles have been replaced, on some, with unsightly concrete interlocking pieces that will be throwing up survey problems in years to come, as they’ll be too heavy for the existing struts and purlins.

What sort of vintage do you think these are? I say, nodding towards the spec-development semis, while squinting at the unaccustomed sun and tugging out my sunglasses.

F frowns. I wait, then bump over several sleeping policeman. My back winces ahead of F’s pearl of wisdom. He hasn’t a clue.

‘It’s hard to tell.’ He eventually ventures.

‘Look for styling cues.’ I tell him, seeing, through my tinted vision, bay windows, tile hung elevations and cast iron guttering.

‘Uhm, are they like original Ray-Bans?’ F finally asks.

Think I’ve mentioned no minimum qualification for estate agents before...

‘That development.’ I say to F as we pass a mock Tudor cul-de-sac of identikit executive homes, all with double garages but still not enough parking for the two teenagers, four car families, now living there.

‘They’re kind of modern’ Ventures F timidly. They were when I first started in estate agency, I think gloomily. Now the Energy Performance Certificate assessor will pick holes in the loft insulation levels, the lack of cavity wall filling, then condemn the wheezing boilers with crappy energy ratings and no condensers.

‘They’re 1980s.’ I tell F, as I swing back out on to the main road then use my local knowledge to dodge more road works, darting down a road containing some rare 1950s bungalows.

‘These.’ I say to F, as we exit past the temporary traffic lights and I get a rare shiver of pleasure as I spot the van we had been following still stuck on red, some three hundred yards back. No sign of any workmen, needless to say.

‘Well these are old.’ Posits F staring at the last bungalow on a corner plot that might just take a planning application for in-fill, if it wasn’t for the tricky access back on to the main road.

‘How old?’ I press. ‘Pre or post war?’

F shrugs then asks.

‘Is that the Falklands war?’

‘Here we are.’ I tell F as we turn onto a sprawling housing development with virtually no architectural merit. The gardens are open-plan as will be the downstairs accommodation. Crazy paving paths and matching chimneybreasts are hardly complemented by huge, single-glazed, picture windows that drip with condensation nine months of the year.

‘These are cool.’ Enthuses F as I take a sideways glance at the imbecile and almost mount the kerb.

‘The energy assessor might think so, but that’s for a different reason.’ I carp.

‘1960s like Mad Men, you mean?’ Asks F after I’ve tired of waiting. I nod and he looks at me hesitantly. Eventually he speaks.

‘Is that, like when you were born?’

I preferred it when he was wrong.

------

Decades' of property wisdom for pre-decimal price in the ebook on Amazon, here:

http://amzn.to/ttGZ4j

US Readers: http://amzn.to/vXpFJf