Tales from the Front Line
Team PV
by
Alison Loewe
on August 11, 2010 in
Service
A few weeks ago we all met up for a game of rounders in a hidden valley deep in the beautiful Somerset countryside. What? Yes, rounders, that cousin of softball and baseball without the gum shields, protective headgear and a lot less lycra. Something that we probably all played as teenagers back in the 20th century.
No captains and no picking your friends or someone who looked “useful” to be on your team. A tap on the back and number 1,2 or 3 would suffice, town and country mice thrown together, with a sheepdog happy to cover the outfield for whichever team happened to be fielding. What a roaring success. Shouting, screaming, tears of laughter, but most importantly teamwork. Something that Property Vision prides itself on.
Guess this was not the only one - but I've just heard of an exchange being rushed through last night ahead of the CGT midnight deadline. I am guessing the potential 10% tax saving is more than the extra solicitors costs for burning the midnight oil!
Changing Countryside
by
Charlie Ellingworth
on June 9, 2010 in
Service
The English countryside is at its jewel-like best at the end of May – leaves still fresh, wildflowers on the roadside banks and hawthorn blossom in every hedgerow.
Where I live in Somerset it is dairy country – small fields and hedgerows interspersed with woods, many of which are recently planted. Looking at it from the hill above our house I reflected that this is a landscape in transition and one that will look very different for our grandchildren than it did for our grandparents. For them, pre-war, it was a vale of hedgerows thick with trees – one every ten yards or so, mainly elms. Now the hedgerows remain, protected by law, but now largely denuded of trees. Elm disease cut the first swathe. The second has been more gradual but no less destructive: the mechanical hedge-cutter.
In our grandparents’ day hedges were cut by hand. They were allowed to grow out for a few years and were then cut and laid in the winter with thorn shoots growing up to form a stock-proof fence every bit as impenetrable as barb-wire. As the hedge-layer picked his way along and came across shoots of ash, oak or elm he would leave it be – to grow ultimately into the mature trees that we now see but which are at the end of their lives. The problem is that as they die they are no longer replaced. Instead the hedge-trimmer, the driver in a sap-spattered cab paid by the metre, simply flails the hedge into a uniform shape taking no account of the saplings fighting to get up and out. The result? Lots of hedges – but no trees in them. Instead plenty of new woodland planted in fields once considered to valuable for woodland. The countryside is being shaped differently - but at a pace that is too slow to be noticed in a lifetime, though if our grandparents returned they would surely remark on it.
What can you do if you own a mature hedgerow? I have found that a scaffolding pole placed vertically next to a potential oak or ash tree works wonders - elms only do twenty years or so before succumbing to elm disease again. Flails and scaffold poles don’t mix. Warn the contractor beforehand and you will see the fruits of your efforts in a handful of years.
What is value?
by
Philip Harvey
on March 25, 2010 in
Service
I received a bill recently from a builder who had come back to replace twelve light transformers and a faulty boiler valve. The cost: £660! I couldn’t believe it, and didn’t pay him for over a week in protest. No matter how much he justified it to me I just couldn’t understand how it could cost so much. What made it worse was that I had just bought a whole fully functioning, in tune, half ton piano for only £140, delivered 35 miles to me for only £75 more – what a bargain! On reflection, of course, I was out of line: the piano, however good, is at least 40 years old; the cost of components, travel and his time certainly justified the £660 bill but in the electrician’s case, I just didn’t ‘feel’ the value.
I was with an estate agent today who was feeling totally let down after a client had called him to try and reduce his fee. His justification was that the agent had sold the house to the second person through the door and therefore he hadn’t had to work too hard? Knowing the house I had more than a little sympathy with the agent who, in my opinion, had skilfully managed to get the buyer to pay well over the asking price (which was already 15% over my assessment of value!) by convincing him that he had a long list of potential buyers waiting in the wings. Perhaps the vendor would have felt the agent’s value more if the process had taken 6 months with a mass of advertising and 50 viewings, even if the end result was a sale price of 15% less.
Other professional advisers in our field who seem regularly to struggle to convince their clients of the value of their services are architects and lawyers. Lawyers are like the pilots of a plane, when everything is as it should be it’s sometimes hard to understand why they are so highly paid, but when a potentially disastrous situation presents itself, aren’t we all so glad that their remuneration reflects the years of study, training and experience they have been through. A pro-active lawyer will not see problems, simply issues that need to be explained and overcome, ultimately ensuring a buyer gets clean title and protecting their investment.
Architects are often seen as being expensive throughout the process. Before someone buys a house or plot they want sketches and ideas of how a house or extension will look, but as they have yet to secure the purchase they don’t want to suffer potentially abortive cost. When planning drawings have to be changed the original cost seems wasted, and when the full technical plans are produced before a brick is laid the costs are very significant due of course no architect can afford to wait until the project is completed to present his fee account, when the client may be better able to feel the value.
We are very lucky that, unlike estate agents whose fees are based on the sale price of a much loved asset, often being reluctantly sold, or lawyers and architects whose fees are a necessary but largely intangible cost. We have the opportunity to provide huge amounts of free advice, demonstrate significant performance and help in the acquisition of a much-wanted dream home prior to charging a final fee. The challenge for us though lies at the beginning of the process: most people do not see the value in paying someone to do things they feel they should be able to do themselves!