UK Property Blog, Housing Market News and Articles

Tesco & Spicerhaart launches iSold.com

HIP-Consultant.co.uk — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:23:48 +0000

The much anticipated online estate agency offering from Tesco and SpiceHaart will be launched today in Bristol. Tesco’s previous attempt to enter the property market was adversely affected with legal challenges from the outset and eventually sold to their partner in this new venture SpicerHaart. It would be fully expected that Tesco will have learnt from [...] Related posts:

Grant Shapps to change Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) delivery?

HIP-Consultant.co.uk — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 08:55:23 +0000

Energy Performance Certificates are required before marketing can commence for both rental and sales of properties within the UK. Anyone who has recently sold their house would have had an EPC carried out as part of the Home Information Pack. The EPC graph summary has become synonymous with the quick and easy attribution of energy efficiency [...] Related posts:

Landlord Licencing – Why Residential Management Needs It

Sharon Crossland — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:28:59 +0000

There is currently plenty of opposition to the idea of private landlord licencing by their powerful lobby organisations with objections ranging from a blanket ‘we don’t need any more legislation’ to ‘it’s just a scheme to make more money out of landlords’. What we rarely hear about is how the lack of private landlord information is [...] Related posts:

New green strategy to overhaul Britain’s homes

HIP-Consultant.co.uk — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:02:04 +0000

Today the Department of Energy and Climate Change have released the following information on their green strategy. Paving the way for ‘pay as you save’ green finance to make energy efficiency pay from day one. Up to 7 million British households to benefit from eco upgrades by 2020 Up to 65,000 jobs in the green home industry Energy companies [...] Related posts:

NAEA reconciliation with HIPs as OFT report is questioned?

HIP-Consultant.co.uk — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 09:53:50 +0000

The recent OFT report into estate agency has led Gary Smith, president of the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA) to write an open letter to the Office of Fair Trading regarding possible loosening of regulations to further facilitate the involvement of Tesco in the property market. The letter expresses concern over issues of consumer protection [...] Related posts:

Estate Agents – Damned if you do and if you don’t

HIP-Consultant.co.uk — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:25:19 +0000

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has carried out a year long investigation into standards in the industry and reported largely positive findings, which has surprisingly been responded to with negative comments from the National Association of Estate Agents (NAEA)? Estate Agents have picked up an unenviable reputation over time which has stuck with them [...] Related posts:

Property Professionals in Administration – Next Steps

HIP-Consultant.co.uk — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:25:24 +0000

Since the ‘renowned’ training provider Property Professionals went into administration there has been a flurry of people and organisations offering advice, guidance and support. Initially, estimates calculated that there were approximately 800 affected prospective domestic and commercial energy assessors and home inspectors. The list of training courses that they provided does extend past energy assessment and [...] Related posts:

Is This What London Will Look Like in 2012?

HIP-Consultant.co.uk — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:07:07 +0000

On a global scale, the United Kingdom simply doesn’t compete with having any significantly tall buildings. In fact, the UK’s tallest building is not even a third as high as the world’s tallest man made structure (Burj Khalifa – Dubai). However, The City of London is planning to expand vertically into the skyline with a collection [...] Related posts:

Interview with Brian Scannell of NHER – part 2

HIP-Consultant.co.uk — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:03:21 +0000

Brian Scannell of NHER and managing director of National Energy Services (NES) Ltd continues with further thoughts towards our questions in part 2 of the interview. Q10 Do you support the current HIP legislation and if it was ‘scrapped’ what impact do you envisage it will have on your members? I certainly support the original aspirations of [...] Related posts:

Interview with Brian Scannell of NHER – part 1

HIP-Consultant.co.uk — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:46:21 +0000

Brian Scannell of NHER and managing director of National Energy Services (NES) Ltd joins us to answer our questions in a two part interview. Q 1 NHER produced some great research in relation to non-compliance of Commercial EPCs recently. Do you have any other similar research you are undertaking at present and when could we expect [...] Related posts: