5 big property announcements to end 2023

Late autumn and early winter saw the Government make a flurry of property sector announcements. Here’s our round-up of the big-hitting property news that may affect your home buying or investing plans in 2024.

  1. Details of Parts B and C Material Information revealed

The amount of information on property listings is set to increase after the National Trading Standards Estate & Letting Agency (NTSELA) team shared a comprehensive list of what constitutes Part B and Part C of Material Information.

Agents are being encouraged to gather in-depth details from sellers and share them with buyers at the start of the sales process. In the near future, it may become impossible for agents to list properties on Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket without completing Part B and C information fields.

Part B is information that should be displayed for all properties, covering the physical characteristics of the property, the number and type of rooms, utilities present and how reliable they are, and parking details.

Part C information should be displayed if the property is affected by building safety restrictions, rights and easements, is at risk of flooding or coastal erosion, has accessibility adaptations, is affected by a coalfield or mining area, or is subject to any planning permissions at the address or in the locale.

  1. Converting a house into two flats to become easier

The Autumn Statement contained a number of property-related announcements and one that caught the eye was the Government’s desire to make it easier to convert a house into two flats. It wants this type of conversion to be possible without planning permission. Instead, the work could be carried out under ‘permitted rights’, as long as the house’s façade remain unchanged.

  1. Pledge to build more new homes

The Government’s housebuilding target of 300,000 new homes every year was set in 2019 but it has failed to meet this figure since the pledge was announced. To rectify this, the Autumn Statement also featured a set of measures designed to stimulate the new build sector. These include an extra £32 million to kick start construction, fast tracking some planning decisions, restarting stalled sites and extending the Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme.

  1. Rate increased for Local Housing Allowance

Private landlords who accept benefits as rent will find they are better remunerated. The Autumn Statement provided a boost in the form of an increase to Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates. This will be raised to the 30thpercentile of local market rents from April 2024. The rate had been frozen since 2020.

  1. Leasehold and Freehold Reform Bill introduced

It has long been the Government’s aim to overhaul the leasehold system and its latest Bill outlines what changes may lay head. Although the contents are currently under discussion by those in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, many of the headline reforms should pass into law in 2024.

These include banning leaseholds on new build houses (not flats); increasing the standard lease extension term from 90 years to 990 years; scrapping the requirement that leaseholders must have owned their property for two years to qualify to extend or buy their lease, and making it easier and cheaper for all leaseholders to extend their lease or buy the freehold (or a share of).

A reform of existing ground rents is also on the cards and these may be capped, reduced or nullified, depending on the outcome of a consultation. Proposals also include greater transparency over leaseholders’ service charges and better access to redress schemes for leaseholders.

What might be announced in the Spring Budget?

The Chancellor has repeatedly stated he wants to reduce the tax burden for people and with a General Election on the cards, Mr Hunt could win votes by making some changes that affect movers, homeowners and landlords.

A change to stamp duty could create the goodwill the Chancellor is looking for. A stamp duty holiday can’t be ruled out but there are rumours that stamp duty may be scrapped for downsizers, or the thresholds at which the property tax is paid could be favourably altered.

Other changes being considered include a halt to the planned hike in corporation tax due in April 2024 (a tax payable by landlords who operate as a limited company), an increase to the inheritance tax threshold and an increase to the capital gains tax threshold.

If you would like to know how any of the announcements may affect a property move you have planned, please don’t hesitate to contact White & Brooks.

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