Mishcon de Reya has one of the largest dedicated residential property practices in London; our core team members have worked together for over 10 years and have seen highs and lows over that period.
As far as we can see the high end residential market is still flourishing, with plenty of activity. Commentators expect a dip in property prices which is understandable given the uncertainty over Brexit, but we haven't seen any let up in our clients' desire to acquire London properties.
Admittedly, there are many new builds on the market and developers are seeing a slower up-take of off plan purchases, but as a team we haven't seen much reduction in the volume of luxury property purchases. Our clients see this as a market opportunity. There has been nothing to dampen their long-term confidence in London as a safe place for property investment.
Given the high percentage of leasehold property in London we await with interest the implementation of the government's proposals to regulate this type of property ownership. Will the promised ban on ground rents affect the ownership structure of new developments? The government is looking to reinvigorate commonhold ownership (similar to the Australian strata title or the US condominium). Commonhold has been available in the UK since 2003 but so far take-up has been extremely limited. If the incentive of ground rents is removed, will developers be persuaded to opt for a revised commonhold rather than leasehold structure? And what effect might this have on the value of existing leases burdened with high ground rents?
Liaising with our construction and planning colleagues, the team continues to advise on a number of complex property purchases providing strategy and advice to clients on matters ranging from sophisticated high-spec refurbishments to listed buildings and injunctionable rights of light issues. The implementation, in 2016, of the supplemental Stamp Duty Land Tax rate on residential properties has affected many of our clients. Working closely with our in-house tax team, we have been able to provide clients with proper advice with reagrds the structuring of their purchases.
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