Buying, selling and letting - Friday, August 24, 2007

De-cluttering expert Sue Kay found herself drawing on the advice she gives to clients as she traded her East Finchley home for a central London pad. Johnny Turner talks to her about the move, our shopaholic culture and the psychology of having too much stuff.

In this must-have, must-shop world it is worth stepping back occasionally and wondering why we have accumulated what we have. When I moved six months ago, I went through two culls of paperbacks and still had two copies of some novels; ridiculous as it sounds, I couldn’t decide which cover I liked better.
And a pile of VHSs when I no longer have a working VCR?
Which leads me to a catchphrase that, however inappropriate when considering the clutter of others, is very tempting to use when looking at my own: ‘How sad is that?’

Sadness, of course, cuts to the heart of why it is difficult to let go of things. For Sue Kay, de-cluttering expert and author of two books on the subjects, a degree in psychology is a useful tool when dealing with clients. ‘It is emotional,’ says Kay over the phone from her new Marylebone home. ‘You’re coming across things from your past – maybe you’ve lost someone or had a difficult breakup.’
As in the song ‘These Foolish Things’, mementos trigger longing for what was: ‘A cigarette that bears a lipstick's traces / An airline ticket to romantic places / And still my heart has wings …’
So why should we part with what makes us nostalgic? ‘You’re moving your life forward, and to do that you have to let go,’ she says. But this forward motion is not without a price, as we all know. ‘There’s a always a tweak – and a tweak for me may be a pain for someone else.’

Our homes have emotional power in our lives; the need to feel secure is, after all, one of our most basic driving forces. Sue is very aware of this and with her easygoing, friendly style she makes it easy to look honestly at your habits with regard to your possessions. ‘I’m not here to judge or bully you,’ she says. ‘I would never tell you to get rid of something that’s important to you.’ The key to the de-cluttering process, says Sue, is ‘standing back and looking at something and asking “why?”’
I wonder whether, in moving from quickly gentrifying north London to Marylebone, an area that boasts a peculiarly urban mixture of the cool and the chaotic, she found herself having difficulty living by her own teachings?

‘I could feel the piles of paper starting to build up for a while – that feeling of, where are things? It’s good to reconnect with that.’ Somehow I doubt those piles of paper got too high, for she is a true believer in letting go of things that don’t serve a purpose. Clutter, according to Sue Kay, is defined as ‘things you no longer use or love’. Many people have a mistaken idea of the process, she finds. ‘Sometimes they confuse it with being puritanical but it’s not that at all. Being organised doesn’t mean you’re not a free spirit.’
And just as hoarding ‘things’ is a habit, so is that reflexive feeling of being quite content to dispose of things that fit the above definition. And at the heart of this philosophy, says Kay, is the ability to take an honest look at ourselves and why we feel the need to ‘over-have’ if you will - not to mention investigate the modern mania for shopping, owning, collecting, three ways of validating ourselves in a way that rather misses the point of validity.
‘Were all struggling with the way we live,’ she says. ‘Fast, furious, constant consumption. It’s hard to stop, hard to say enough. I can’t do IKEA – I get muddled and buy the wrong sizes, then I have to go back, which is not what I want to do!’

She has found the property market has a bearing on her work. ‘We’re living in extraordinary times, when people have all this stuff and don’t have a bigger home.’ And it works the other way around as well – after all, clutter is a good way to drive away prospective buyers.
The green movement is a sibling of the Sue Kay philosophy – and surely the best way not to waste things is not to gather too many things to begin with. Surprisingly, however, in some ways she has found her work complicated, not eased, by the new green awareness. ‘I’m pro-green but it adds an extra level of stress to de-clutter ethically.’ She laughs, ‘I got an email about old pill bottles: “What do I do with these?”’

With her client visits she is very careful not to judge; rather, she acts on empathy and frames her work in terms of the good it can do. ‘It’s my job not to feel overwhelmed. You have to manage their expectations.’ The most difficult consultations are when people veer strongly to one extreme or the other. ‘Either they have to agonise over everything or they want to throw everything away.’
She treads lightly when helping a client with those possessions that trigger particularly personal or painful feelings and memories. ‘When you come across your dead husband’s bus pass – that can be agonising.’
It is natural to feel vulnerable when clearing away life’s detritus, she says – particularly in the presence of a stranger. ‘People get very defensive and worried. It’s like someone seeing your knicker drawer – your muddle and your mess. Things you hide from the outside world, like if you haven’t paid your bills for six months.’

Having written two books on de-cluttering, she would now like to dig deeper into the psychological basis of keeping things well past their use-by date, and how this ties in with the all-consuming consumer culture. ‘Everything’s so cheap, we’re living in this Primark culture. Is it making us happy? I’d like to look at that. If somebody gave you a great CD, you’d enjoy it. If they gave you three – that’s nice. But ten? You start thinking, God I can’t cope with this!’
For now, though, she has taken a month off and is getting to know her new neighbourhood. ‘It’s certainly lively. I’m down towards the Edgware Road part of it – it’s lively , it’s noisy. I’m between Marylebone High Street and Oxford Street.’ One of the most cluttered areas of the capital, I can’t help but think.

Sue Kay’s books, No More Clutter and Hoarder To Order, are available at bookshops and online. Visit nomoreclutter.co.uk

Mary Anne Bowring, creator of Leasehold Support, advises leaseholders how to deal with rogue freeholders

The freeholder has a responsibility to the lessees and should comply with his schedule of covenants such as keeping the building insured, carry out necessary repairs to the structure and ensure that communal service are maintained.

However, leaseholders can be at the mercy of the freeholder who can take advantage by charging inflated prices for insurance and requesting unjustified service charges. Due to lack of awareness of their legal rights, leaseholders are often in a state of limbo and continue to pay the service charge and building insurance even though little is being done. If that isn’t bad enough, some freeholders simply cannot be traced – which makes it impossible to sort out maintenance issues such as communal areas not being cleaned or a leaking roof.

Leaseholders can claim their right to manage to take charge and stop poor management of the block. However, this is only possible if 50 per cent of the leaseholders in the block support a right to manage movement. The same applies to buying the freehold which again could solve the problem of an absent rogue freeholder. Provided two-thirds of the flats have long leases and 51 per cent of the ‘qualifying lessees’ participate you can force the freeholder to sell you his title.

Unfortunately, for a lot of leaseholders gaining support from the rest of the block is an issue. The recent buy to let trend means many flats are owned by investors who remain nonchalant when it comes to the repair and maintenance of the block or have passed the buck to a letting agent. For example, Ringley’s legal services team has just dealt with an absentee freeholder case where only one of the flats in a block was actually occupied by the leaseholder, with the rest rented out. This created a nightmare for the resident leaseholder as she couldn’t drum up any support from the other leaseholders about the state of repairs as they didn’t live there.

If getting 50 per cent of the block to support the right to self manage or buy the freehold is out of the question, don’t worry – there is another option. If you are concerned that the block is falling into disrepair and the freeholder isn’t managing the block effectively then you can apply to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to request they appoint a managing agent of your choice.
Before you apply, you will need to select an agent that has sufficient expertise to satisfy a tribunal that they are fit to fulfill the role of court-appointed manager, able to take over the role of the freeholder and abide by the schedule of covenants set out in the lease.

Requesting a court-appointed manager is different to claiming your right to self mange, as there is a need to prove the freeholder is at fault. In order to persuade the tribunal to appoint a manager, it is necessary to justify your reasons why such a course of action is reasonable and would be in the best interests of the block as a whole.
It is possible to present your own case at tribunal if you have a good understanding of your lease and can find the relevant clauses of which the freeholder is in breach. However, you will need to provide supporting material such as visual evidence of disrepair, works for which you feel you have been overcharged or unauthorized alterations and a record of all unresolved disputes. It is also necessary to produce copies of service charge accounts which do not comply with the Landlord & Tenants Acts.  
If you are not confident in presenting your own case then its better to enlist the support of a managing agent, typically a firm of chartered surveyors who have the necessary experience. To lodge an application with the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal costs between £150 and £350 depending on the number of dwellings in a block. At the tribunal, each party bears their own costs but if the tribunal feels that one or both of the parties is wasting their time or not following directions on the information and evidence to be heard it does have the power to award costs of that part of the hearing.

Mary-Anne Bowring is founding director of Ringley Chartered Surveyors and a member of the RICS and the Association of Building Engineers. The Ringley Group subscribes to the RICS ten- minute free consultation service on this topic. To get the ball rolling, feel free to call 020 7267 2900 and ask to speak to Mary-Anne Bowring or Teresa Tuck

Many of us are looking to make positive life changes. What some don’t realise is that the new homes market has many ways to make your dream a reality. Johnny Turner examines just a few ways people have improved their lot through property.   
  
As summer fades, we tend to get serious again, looking for things to do post-holiday. Holidays give us the chance to reflect on where we’re going in life, and it’s during this type of introspection that we begin to see new goals emerging.

When these goals have to do with financial security, or the desire to see a leap in your money fortunes, a lot of people in Britain rightly see property as the way forward. But where to look when you’re trying to build wealth in this famously expensive, potentially risky sector?

Of course, money is not the only goal worth aiming for. Many of us want to make a start in a new environment or embrace a different rhythm of life. In this, finding the right property can also be crucial.
The new homes market has a lot to offer the buyer who wants to move on in life. From very lettings-friendly investment apartments to homes that offer space and luxury, you’re bound to find something that will help you on the way to a new way of living.       
Get on the ladder

According to the Council of Mortgage Lenders the number of first-time buyers in 2006 dropped by eight per cent as soaring house prices and rising interest rates keep young people out of the market. With affordability at its lowest level in 16 years, new buyers are struggling to get on the ladder.
However this didn’t deter new purchaser Sarah Churchill in the quest to find her first home. Despite being a key worker and being offered government support, she wanted to own her first home. So she joined forces with her brother to buy a two-bedroom apartment at Crest Nicholson’s Market Quarter in Tonbridge.

Churchill, a teacher in Otford, says, ‘Being a teacher classifies me as a key worker and makes me eligible for government assistance. However, I wanted to own 100 per cent of my property and the schemes I looked into only offered part ownership. So my brother and I decided to buy somewhere together. I have noticed the difference in property prices in the last few years. I looked into buying property in 2001 and comparing the prices then to now shocked me. Although the prices were daunting it didn’t put me off. By buying with my brother I knew I would be more able to find the ideal first home.’
Originally from Sevenoaks, Churchill first searched there. ‘Nothing caught my eye. I also viewed a property in Tonbridge but it didn’t meet my expectations.’ Spotting Market Quarter she viewed the show house: ‘I instantly knew that it was what I wanted. We then reserved a two-bedroom apartment off-plan. The apartment was ideal as it has two similar-sized bedrooms so neither my brother or I had to fight over who were to have the bigger bedroom. The flat also offered two bathrooms so we wouldn’t need to share.’

Buying off-plan also let the siblings have a home that suited their tastes. ‘I was able, among other things, to choose the worktops in the kitchen and the tiling in the bathrooms,’ she says.
With a straightforward commute to the school where she works in Otford, and a young, lively atmosphere in the town centre where Market Square is located, Churchill is sold on the location.
Besides two-bedroom apartments, the development also offers two- and three-bedroom houses. Every home includes large open-plan dining and living areas with a fully fitted Commodore designed kitchen including a selection of integrated appliances. Master bedrooms benefit from en suite facilities and a second bathroom serves the remaining bedrooms. Some properties feature an additional study/office area and all homes offer parking.
Apartments start at £245,000 and houses are priced from £340,000.
Call 0870 750 4890 or see crestnicholson.com.  
   
Follow your dream

After her divorce, Nina Stratford, a 51-year-old mother of two originally from Essex, decided to relocate from Devon to Chelmsford to start a new life – and to follow her dream of becoming an actress. And buying at Higgins Homes’ development The Hub was instrumental in this life change.
‘I really needed to find out what I wanted to do with my life and where I wanted to be,’ she says. ‘My children persuaded me to follow my heart and train to become a professional actress, so I needed to be near to London. I was born and bred in Essex, so it seemed a natural choice to come back here. I had viewed a couple of other properties but after viewing the show apartment at The Hub, I literally fell head over heels and I just had to have one.’

The type of home was also a change for Stratford. ‘I have never lived in an apartment before, so I was a little bit anxious about feeling hemmed in. However, due to the glass terrace that stretches across the front of the building, it feels extremely open and light.’
The location is absolutely fantastic; it is very easy to get into central London and the shops in Chelmsford are literally on my doorstep. Buying in Chelmsford also meant I could get much more for my money – 871 square feet to be exact, which is very spacious for a two-bedroom apartment. I really feel it is a great investment as well as a beautiful home and I cannot wait to move in and start my new life here.’

The Hub comprises 72 one and two-bedroom apartments and penthouses, a number of which overlook the River Chelmer. All apartments at the award-winning development incorporate spacious open-plan living areas with large windows, which provide a bright and stylish space for socialising. The tiled kitchens, designed by Urban Myth, incorporate Smeg appliances including a stainless steel electric oven, gas hob, integrated fridge/freezer, washer/dryer and dishwasher.
Only a short walk from Chelmsford Station, The Hub is an ideal location for commuters and those who wish to pop into the capital for shopping or a night out. There are regular direct trains which reach Liverpool Street station in about 40 minutes.
Prices start from £215,000 for a two-bedroom apartment and the penthouses are priced from £499,500. Contact Higgins Homes on 01245 493607 or visit higginshomes.co.uk.
     
Cut the commute

When David Kerr and Andy Pearce set out to buy their first home the commute had to be right. David needed to be close to Gatwick Airport, where he works as cabin crew, and Andy, who travels extensively as a regional retail manager, was looking for somewhere within easy reach of the M25.
At Barratt’s Woodfield Lodge, a small development of one- and two-bedroom apartments about a mile from Crawley town centre, they found the ideal location – and a great deal more!
Its location, near the town centre, around five miles from Gatwick airport and less than two miles from the M23, tipped the balance and David and Andy didn’t take much time to decide to buy the apartment. The icing on the cake was when they won a scooter in Barratt’s prize draw at the open day!
Kerr says, ‘Our parents are very impressed that we’ve managed to get on the property ladder in the south of England. It’s no mean feat!’

Their new home is a two-bedroom apartment with a large open-plan living/dining area that has plenty of room for entertaining and opens on to a balcony. The apartment has two bath/shower rooms, one of which adjoins the master bedroom. The smart kitchen is fitted with a stainless steel oven, gas hob and extractor hood and also has a free-standing washer/dryer. ‘We’re really excited about our new home. We particularly love the large open-plan living space and balcony, and having two bathrooms means we both have plenty of space,’ says Andy.
Only 15 two-bedroom apartments remain at Woodfield Lodge, with prices starting at £194,995 for a one-bedroom apartment and £231,995 for a two-bedroom. Special incentives are available for first-time buyers.
For further information, and to view the two show apartments, contact the marketing suite on 01293 532771 or see barratthomes.co.uk.   
  
Find the perfect family space

Yes, moving house is stressful – but just consider how Debbie Studart felt. The 37-year-old and her family completed her move to a brand new home at Redrow's Kennet Heath development in Thatcham, Berkshire while continuing to work four part-time jobs: as a chef, cleaner, estate agent negotiator and checkout assistant at Tesco.
She says, ‘It's been real hard work making the move while working and we're still settling in. But myself, my husband Matthew and our two-year old-daughter Ruby-Mae are all really pleased with our new home.

‘As soon as we saw this house we knew it was exactly what we wanted, at a price that was within our range and in a great area. Plus Redrow allowed us to part-exchange our old home.’
The Studarts’ move, into a four-bedroom, three-storey Ribble home, went successfully – but Studart is not sure she would want to go through the strain again. ‘This is the third time we have moved now and I'm not sure if we will do it again. One thing's for sure though: if we do it won't be for a very long time. Luckily this home is the perfect place for us to stay put.’
She is very impressed by the layout of the home, she says. ‘Now that I have three floors I wouldn't swap back.’ And with four-bedrooms, the Studarts can have another child without worrying about space. ‘All in all I'm really happy that we've made this move, and I think Kennet Heath is going to be a perfect place for us to bring up our family.’

Kennet Heath consists of a variety of different properties to suit the requirements of many different home buyers. Currently available are two-bedroom Tunstall apartments priced from £194,950, and a variety of four-bedroom homes, ranging from a detached Ribble (similar to the Studarts' new home) from £294,950, up to a Walkham, priced from £334,950.
Thatcham, one of England's oldest towns, offers great transport routes to Newbury, Basingstoke and Reading, and with the M4 close-by, London and all points west are also very accessible.
Visit the development, located on Station Road and open daily 10am to 5.30pm, or call the sales consultant on 01635 863026. Go online to redrow.co.uk.  
   
Go back to uni

When your kids flee the nest to enter higher education, you can feather your own nest by investing in their uni accommodation. The competition for accommodation in university towns is strong, says Lee Grandin, managing director of Landlord Mortgages.

‘With stiff competition for rented accommodation in university towns, investors are faced with a captive audience, meaning that this type of buy-to-let investment can prove highly profitable.
‘Rather than fork out to line the pockets of other canny landlords, buying for your child’s higher education has three-fold benefits; potentially making a handsome profit; security in the knowledge your child is living in good accommodation; and choice over your child’s flatmates.
In Bristol, one of the UK’s most popular buying destinations, there are a number of high-style apartment schemes that are proving both investor- and student-friendly.
Major regeneration plans currently changing the landscape of both the city centre and outer suburbs, promising to create a premier place to live, work and visit. This fact is not going unnoticed by many home buyers who are keen to invest in the city.

Linden Homes’ Vibe on Waterloo Road in Old Market, is a vibrant collection of 108 one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments – and it is little wonder that it has already secured 43 off-plan reservations. Meanwhile, from the same developer, Zenith in St George is a trendy scheme of 67 one- and two-bedroom apartments, with 18 now reserved.
For further details on Vibe or Zenith call 0117 9458435 or visit lindenhomes.co.uk.    

House prices continue to rise and one of the major difficulties facing first-time-buyers is the high cost of properties in relation to teachers' salaries. Here one newly qualified teacher tells us how she broke the parent trap and found the financing to buy her dream home.

After six years of teaching, Susanna Pinkus had packed up her life in the South East and moved to Cambridge to take a masters degree and then a doctorate in special education. But when her studies came to an end she found the move back home a bit of a shock.
‘I was in my thirties and returned home to find all my friends had houses of their own and yet I was back living with my parents with £10,000 of student debt. I needed to do something about the situation quickly,’ she says.

Pinkus's new job as an advanced skills teacher working in the London Borough of Harrow provided a comfortable salary; however the chance to have a house of her own was still a bit of a pipe dream.
With the average price of a home in England and Wales topping the £177,000 mark in 2007 and prices in the South East averaging £217,000, it is increasingly difficult for teachers to buy a home. ‘Most of my colleagues who are not married are either living with their parents or renting,’ says Pinkus.
Banks traditionally offer mortgages which total four times a person's salary. But in Bushey, where she wished to live, a mortgage of this type would only allow her to purchase a one-bedroom flat. With a big family who visit regularly, and the need for an office where Susanna could get on with finishing the book she was writing, a one-bedroom flat was simply not an option. ‘I had also been a little spoilt, living in the most beautiful setting in Cambridge and did not like the thought of moving to a basic flat with no garden.’

The chance to house-sit a friend's apartment while she was travelling helped Susanna to move out of her parents' home. It also provided a good opportunity to save for a deposit, but with house prices in the area increasing every month, the chance of finding something liveable in her price range seemed to get slimmer and slimmer.
‘It all came to a head one day when I went home and blurted out my frustrations to my parents. I felt that there were no options left for me to have a decent home of my own.’
Not the type of people to give up easily, her parents agreed to help in her search. Her mother is a teacher and knows the difficulties of buying a home on a teacher's salary. She and her husband were one of the first few couples to take a mortgage out with the Teachers Building Society when it was set up many years ago and they suggested Susanna should try talking to them.
Lenders occasionally allow a parent to guarantee their child's loan when their offspring's salary does not match up with current house prices. However, the parent is asked to guarantee the entire loan and this was not an option she wanted to consider. ‘I did not want to put that financial risk on my parents, no matter how small the chance of me defaulting on the loan.’
The Teachers Building Society offered a solution. Her parents could guarantee the part of the loan that crept above the total of four times her salary, rather than the whole amount –
an option that both Pinkus and her parents were happy with.
The mortgage repayments would be a tight squeeze so she did her sums and managed to reduce her outgoings in other areas to ensure she would be able to afford the repayments. By shopping around for a different gym membership, mobile phone and health insurance deal, she managed to reduce her outgoings by 30 per cent without having to give up any of her luxuries.

Much to her disappointment, the first house she put an offer on fell through. ‘It was a huge blow. After making all these adjustments to afford the right house, seeing the opportunity disappear was simply awful. Just afterwards, interest rates began to rise and with each hike I felt my chances of being a home owner disappear.’
However, the Teachers Building Society agreed to keep to the mortgage deal that she had secured before the interest rate rise and this enabled her to purchase her dream home which she found six months later.
Pinkus bought Lavender Cottage for £231,000. The property was in need of some serious renovation, so her newly-retired father, friends and relatives were all drafted in to transform the home in four weeks and within a £10,000 budget.
The two-bedroom cottage has the garden and study that she wanted, and with the added bonus of being only 15 minutes from work, she can get home in time to enjoy her evenings in her new surroundings.
Would she recommend the Teachers Building Society to other teachers looking for a mortgage? ‘Most definitely. What they did for me was beyond the call of duty. I was often on the phone to them two or three times a day and they were always happy to help. They understand teachers and they were very flexible in a way that other banks would struggle to compete with.’

Teachers Building Society provides mortgage and savings products to the education sector. Visit teachersbs.co.uk for more details

Lawrence Garry takes issue with the recently introduced tenancy deposit rules

Is the tenancy deposit scheme bad for landlords?

Just a few months ago the government introduced regulation requiring landlords to change the way they handle their tenants’ deposits. Those who rent out a property with a tenancy that starts after 6 April 2007 will have to either: place the deposit in an approved, ring-fenced tenancy deposit scheme (TDS) that is open to arbitration in the event that there is a dispute after a tenant leaves; or take out insurance so that in the event of a dispute their policy will be used to settle the claim for the disputed amount.

As a landlord I am in favour of a scheme which protects the rights of tenants and gives them greater confidence in the rental market – after all, they are our bread and butter. But is this scheme the right way to make sure tenants are not taken advantage of?

With such high property prices, especially in the South East, most landlords either break even or make a small loss on their rental income. If you are like me, the long-terms goals of capital appreciation far outweigh any short-term goals of earning a profit on your rent.

The deposit paid by tenants has historically offered some landlords a useful way of shoring up their reserves, especially after coming through a void period when they may have had to refund the last tenant’s deposit and pay an agent a letting fee of between seven and 15 per cent of their rental income for finding a new tenant. As most agents collect their commission at the start of a new tenancy, some landlords were previously tempted to call on their tenants’ deposits to manage their cashflow even though it is clearly not allowed to be put to this use.

With rental yields falling, anything that saves money is to be encouraged. I decided to join a tenants’ deposit scheme to avoid having to fork out on insurance premiums. At least if I cannot hold the tenant’s deposit I also would not lose any money on insurance premiums.

The use of tenancy deposit schemes is a corrective measure to close a loophole which gave landlords access to extra funds and bank interest. However, as a result of the direct loss of this privilege landlords like myself are compensating by increasing our rents – within reason – to improve our cash flow and profitability. You may want to consider this method providing it works in your particular market.
Lawrence Garry is a director of Milestone Financial Services. Email him your questions for future columns at lawrence.garry@milestonefs.com. Also call 020 7719 0171 or visit milestonefs.com

Mary Anne Bowring, creator of Leasehold Support, advises leaseholders how to deal with rogue freeholders.

The freeholder has a responsibility to the lessees and should comply with his schedule of covenants such as keeping the building insured, carry out necessary repairs to the structure and ensure that communal service are maintained.
However, leaseholders can be at the mercy of the freeholder who can take advantage by charging inflated prices for insurance and requesting unjustified service charges. Due to lack of awareness of their legal rights, leaseholders are often in a state of limbo and continue to pay the service charge and building insurance even though little is being done. If that isn’t bad enough, some freeholders simply cannot be traced – which makes it impossible to sort out maintenance issues such as communal areas not being cleaned or a leaking roof.

Leaseholders can claim their right to manage to take charge and stop poor management of the block. However, this is only possible if 50 per cent of the leaseholders in the block support a right to manage movement. The same applies to buying the freehold which again could solve the problem of an absent rogue freeholder. Provided two-thirds of the flats have long leases and 51 per cent of the ‘qualifying lessees’ participate you can force the freeholder to sell you his title.
Unfortunately, for a lot of leaseholders gaining support from the rest of the block is an issue. The recent buy to let trend means many flats are owned by investors who remain nonchalant when it comes to the repair and maintenance of the block or have passed the buck to a letting agent. For example, Ringley’s legal services team has just dealt with an absentee freeholder case where only one of the flats in a block was actually occupied by the leaseholder, with the rest rented out. This created a nightmare for the resident leaseholder as she couldn’t drum up any support from the other leaseholders about the state of repairs as they didn’t live there.

If getting 50 per cent of the block to support the right to self manage or buy the freehold is out of the question, don’t worry – there is another option. If you are concerned that the block is falling into disrepair and the freeholder isn’t managing the block effectively then you can apply to the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal to request they appoint a managing agent of your choice.
Before you apply, you will need to select an agent that has sufficient expertise to satisfy a tribunal that they are fit to fulfill the role of court-appointed manager, able to take over the role of the freeholder and abide by the schedule of covenants set out in the lease.
Requesting a court-appointed manager is different to claiming your right to self mange, as there is a need to prove the freeholder is at fault. In order to persuade the tribunal to appoint a manager, it is necessary to justify your reasons why such a course of action is reasonable and would be in the best interests of the block as a whole.

It is possible to present your own case at tribunal if you have a good understanding of your lease and can find the relevant clauses of which the freeholder is in breach. However, you will need to provide supporting material such as visual evidence of disrepair, works for which you feel you have been overcharged or unauthorized alterations and a record of all unresolved disputes. It is also necessary to produce copies of service charge accounts which do not comply with the Landlord & Tenants Acts.  
If you are not confident in presenting your own case then its better to enlist the support of a managing agent, typically a firm of chartered surveyors who have the necessary experience. To lodge an application with the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal costs between £150 and £350 depending on the number of dwellings in a block. At the tribunal, each party bears their own costs but if the tribunal feels that one or both of the parties is wasting their time or not following directions on the information and evidence to be heard it does have the power to award costs of that part of the hearing.
Mary-Anne Bowring is founding director of Ringley Chartered Surveyors and a member of the RICS and the Association of Building Engineers. The Ringley Group subscribes to the RICS ten- minute free consultation service on this topic. To get the ball rolling, feel free to call 020 7267 2900 and ask to speak to Mary-Anne Bowring or Teresa Tuck

De-cluttering expert Sue Kay found herself drawing on the advice she gives to clients as she traded her East Finchley home for a central London pad. Johnny Turner talks to her about the move, our shopaholic culture and the psychology of having too much stuff.

In this must-have, must-shop world it is worth stepping back occasionally and wondering why we have accumulated what we have. When I moved six months ago, I went through two culls of paperbacks and still had two copies of some novels; ridiculous as it sounds, I couldn’t decide which cover I liked better.
And a pile of VHSs when I no longer have a working VCR?
Which leads me to a catchphrase that, however inappropriate when considering the clutter of others, is very tempting to use when looking at my own: ‘How sad is that?’
Sadness, of course, cuts to the heart of why it is difficult to let go of things. For Sue Kay, de-cluttering expert and author of two books on the subjects, a degree in psychology is a useful tool when dealing with clients. ‘It is emotional,’ says Kay over the phone from her new Marylebone home. ‘You’re coming across things from your past – maybe you’ve lost someone or had a difficult breakup.’
As in the song ‘These Foolish Things’, mementos trigger longing for what was: ‘A cigarette that bears a lipstick's traces / An airline ticket to romantic places / And still my heart has wings …’
So why should we part with what makes us nostalgic? ‘You’re moving your life forward, and to do that you have to let go,’ she says. But this forward motion is not without a price, as we all know. ‘There’s a always a tweak – and a tweak for me may be a pain for someone else.’
Our homes have emotional power in our lives; the need to feel secure is, after all, one of our most basic driving forces. Sue is very aware of this and with her easygoing, friendly style she makes it easy to look honestly at your habits with regard to your possessions. ‘I’m not here to judge or bully you,’ she says. ‘I would never tell you to get rid of something that’s important to you.’ The key to the de-cluttering process, says Sue, is ‘standing back and looking at something and asking “why?”’
I wonder whether, in moving from quickly gentrifying north London to Marylebone, an area that boasts a peculiarly urban mixture of the cool and the chaotic, she found herself having difficulty living by her own teachings?

‘I could feel the piles of paper starting to build up for a while – that feeling of, where are things? It’s good to reconnect with that.’ Somehow I doubt those piles of paper got too high, for she is a true believer in letting go of things that don’t serve a purpose. Clutter, according to Sue Kay, is defined as ‘things you no longer use or love’. Many people have a mistaken idea of the process, she finds. ‘Sometimes they confuse it with being puritanical but it’s not that at all. Being organised doesn’t mean you’re not a free spirit.’
And just as hoarding ‘things’ is a habit, so is that reflexive feeling of being quite content to dispose of things that fit the above definition. And at the heart of this philosophy, says Kay, is the ability to take an honest look at ourselves and why we feel the need to ‘over-have’ if you will - not to mention investigate the modern mania for shopping, owning, collecting, three ways of validating ourselves in a way that rather misses the point of validity.
‘Were all struggling with the way we live,’ she says. ‘Fast, furious, constant consumption. It’s hard to stop, hard to say enough. I can’t do IKEA – I get muddled and buy the wrong sizes, then I have to go back, which is not what I want to do!’

She has found the property market has a bearing on her work. ‘We’re living in extraordinary times, when people have all this stuff and don’t have a bigger home.’ And it works the other way around as well – after all, clutter is a good way to drive away prospective buyers.
The green movement is a sibling of the Sue Kay philosophy – and surely the best way not to waste things is not to gather too many things to begin with. Surprisingly, however, in some ways she has found her work complicated, not eased, by the new green awareness. ‘I’m pro-green but it adds an extra level of stress to de-clutter ethically.’ She laughs, ‘I got an email about old pill bottles: “What do I do with these?”’

With her client visits she is very careful not to judge; rather, she acts on empathy and frames her work in terms of the good it can do. ‘It’s my job not to feel overwhelmed. You have to manage their expectations.’ The most difficult consultations are when people veer strongly to one extreme or the other. ‘Either they have to agonise over everything or they want to throw everything away.’
She treads lightly when helping a client with those possessions that trigger particularly personal or painful feelings and memories. ‘When you come across your dead husband’s bus pass – that can be agonising.’

It is natural to feel vulnerable when clearing away life’s detritus, she says – particularly in the presence of a stranger. ‘People get very defensive and worried. It’s like someone seeing your knicker drawer – your muddle and your mess. Things you hide from the outside world, like if you haven’t paid your bills for six months.’
Having written two books on de-cluttering, she would now like to dig deeper into the psychological basis of keeping things well past their use-by date, and how this ties in with the all-consuming consumer culture. ‘Everything’s so cheap, we’re living in this Primark culture. Is it making us happy? I’d like to look at that. If somebody gave you a great CD, you’d enjoy it. If they gave you three – that’s nice. But ten? You start thinking, God I can’t cope with this!’
For now, though, she has taken a month off and is getting to know her new neighbourhood. ‘It’s certainly lively. I’m down towards the Edgware Road part of it – it’s lively , it’s noisy. I’m between Marylebone High Street and Oxford Street.’ One of the most cluttered areas of the capital, I can’t help but think.

Sue Kay’s books, No More Clutter and Hoarder To Order, are available at bookshops and online. Visit nomoreclutter.co.uk

REITs show potential

Real Estate Investment Trusts (or REITs as they are known), have received a substantial amount of publicity since their introduction into the UK market in January 2007, according to Datamonitor. REITs represent an area of particular growth potential, given the fact that they give investors an opening in which to invest in physical land and buildings across all property sectors and all commercial, industrial and residential structures. Furthermore, investors can take-up a REIT proposition via their pension fund, which is now the only route at an investor’s disposal to invest in property and has been a booming area of the market in recent years.
However, the UK REIT market is a young and nascent one, so some prominent issues still need to be ironed out and this would explain why UK REITs have been affected by slightly adverse performance of late.

The fact that REITs are still in their formative years is a short-term hindrance but like the other investments mentioned, they continue to serve as widely known buzzwords in the savings and investment market.

New buy-to-let mortgage incentives

Standard Life Bank has introduced free legals and no valuation fees to its Freestyle buy-to-let remortgage range.
The latest changes, which became effective on last week, follow previous product developments from the Bank. These include: half-price arrangement/booking fees for any landlord purchasing more than one buy-to-let property with a Standard Life Bank mortgage (fees for the first mortgage at standard rate, all subsequent mortgages up to a maximum of nine additional properties in a 12-month-period following AIP of first application, reduced by 50 per cent, up to a total loan value of £1.5 million); a reduction of the rental yield requirement to 110 per cent from 120 per cent; verification of income not be required for loan-to-value of up to 85 per cent (increased from 75 per cent).

Jackie Moran, Head of Sales for Standard Life Bank, said: ‘This ongoing enhancement further strengthens our buy-to-let offering and makes it even easier for advisers to recommend Standard Life Bank for all their client's buy-to-let needs.

‘With the new enhanced range of buy-to-let products, clients will be able to save even more, especially when buying or remortgaging multiple properties,’ she said.

For further information, and to use Standard Life Bank's buy-to-let calculators, landlords should log onto www.freestylemortgages.com

Further information for advisers can be found at www.standardlifebank.com/adviser or by calling 0845 845 8451.

Would-be landlords should follow these simple rules for a successful let.

Know your market If looking to buy a property to let, ask your local agent what kinds of properties tenants are looking for and possible rental values before buying.  

Keep it clean and modern Neutral interiors with unfussy décor, as well as a modern kitchen and bathroom, will always be a hit with prospective tenants. Have the property professionally cleaned (including carpets) and carry out repairs.

Target the tenants who will want your property Think about the property and its area: what type of tenant will it appeal to. Also consider what kind of tenants you are looking for. What you want is a long rental period with the same tenants, so try to match your property with people who are likely to be comfortable there and be inclined to stay.

Furnished or unfurnished? Decide if you will let the property furnished or unfurnished. Remember that being flexible may secure a tenant more quickly. If letting furnished, any upholstered furniture should comply with safety regulations or be removed.

What’s included? A professional inventory should be prepared detailing the condition of the property and contents. This is particularly important now the new Tenancy Deposit Scheme laws are in force.
Keep your lender in the loop You must obtain your mortgage company’s permission to rent out the property. Also, inform your insurer that the property will be rented – otherwise future claims may be invalid.

Someone you can trust It is vital to choose a trustworthy lettings agent. You may want to make sure that the agent is a member of ARLA. Invite them to carry out a free market appraisal.

Courtesy of Anthony Stuart Estate Agents in Edgware. Visit anthonystuart.com.

Property prices increased by 0.7 per cent in July, the fourth consecutive month that house prices have grown by less than 1.0 per cent. This confirms that house price inflation is slowing, according to the latest Halifax price report.

Housing market activity also continues to ease. Mortgage approvals to fund house purchase in the three months to June were four per cent lower than in the preceding quarter. This continues the downward trend since last autumn with approvals in the second quarter of 2007 being eight per cent lower than in the latter part of 2006.

The level of new buyer interest in purchasing a house fell for the seventh successive month, indicating that potential buyers have become more cautious. Completed property sales also fell in the second quarter of 2007 and were six per cent lower than a year ago.
The increase in the proportion of borrowers taking out a fixed-rate mortgage in recent years appears to have affected the timing of the housing market's response to interest rate changes. As a result, house price inflation and activity are likely to take longer to slow as interest rates rise because many borrowers are only affected when their fixed-rate deal matures. Over the past 18 months nearly 70 per cent of new mortgages have been taken out on fixed rate terms; this is substantially above the average of around 40 per cent since 1993.

Homeowners who took out a fixed-rate deal two years ago face higher payments when they remortgage, but most borrowers will be able to absorb the rise in payments. Most people's earnings will have risen since they took out the mortgage – average earnings have risen by seven per cent over the past two years in monetary terms – providing more income to finance the higher interest payments. In addition, most borrowers facing higher payments will have accumulated a significant cushion of housing equity as a result of house price inflation since they took out their mortgage.

A healthy economy and strong labour market continue to underpin housing demand. The annual rate of house price inflation has edged up in the past two months, from 10.6 per cent in May to 11.2 per cent in July, despite smaller monthly rises. This increase in the annual rate is due to the weakness in house prices in mid 2006 when prices fell by 0.3 per cent between April and July. The modest recent pick-up in the annual rate is likely to be short-lived. Halifax expects house price inflation to ease over the remainder of the year as the impact of higher interest rates is increasingly felt.

Martin Ellis, chief economist, said: ‘We expect the downward trend in house price growth to continue as the five interest rate rises since last summer have an increasing impact on household spending and housing demand. Sound economic fundamentals, high levels of employment and a shortage in the number of properties available for sale, particularly in London and the South East, will, however, continue to support house prices.’