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UK property demand slides 44%

Richard Donnell, Zoopla’s executive director for research, said the company expected house price falls of up to 5% in 2023…reports Asian Lite News

Demand for U.K. residential properties has nearly halved following September’s government budget that spooked financial markets and toppled the prime minister, research Monday showed.

The fiscal package, announced Sept. 23, caused a sell-off in bonds and led to predictions of a potential housing market crash as interest rate expectations rose sharply. In the wake of the budget, a record number of mortgage deals were pulled and many lenders paused offerings as they assessed the volatility.

Buyer demand fell 44% year-on-year in the four weeks to Nov. 20, according to property website Zoopla, while new property sales declined 28%. The stock of homes for sale was up 40% over the same period.

Zoopla said demand had fallen to levels usually seen over Christmas — among the quietest time for property markets — as buyers waited to assess the outlook for mortgages, along with their own jobs and wages.

Richard Donnell, Zoopla’s executive director for research, said the company expected house price falls of up to 5% in 2023.

“But the number of sales going through will remain buoyant for a range of structural, demographic and economic factors,” he said, including ongoing housing scarcity, with the average number of homes on offer per estate agency still a fifth lower than before the pandemic.

Although a fall in house prices is widely predicted, the company’s predictions are less bearish than others.

Economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics forecast a decline of 8% over the next year, while Nationwide, one of the U.K.’s largest mortgage providers, said earlier this month that house prices could collapse by up to 30% in its worst-case scenario.

In contrast, the U.K.’s Office for Budget Responsibility has said it expects house prices to drop 1.2% next year and by 5.7% in 2024.

It comes after a desire for different kinds of property during the pandemic, the suspension of a purchase tax on homes under $500,000 from July 2020 to July 2021 and ongoing supply shortages saw house prices rocket to record highs.

Zoopla said there was currently a “widespread” repricing of homes occurring, but that it was modest in size. It puts U.K. house price growth at 7.8% year-on-year.

Its report described market trends as a “shake-out rather than a pre-cursor to a housing crash” and said the mini budget had “delivered a shock” to sellers and buyers.

“All the leading supply and demand indicators we measure continue to point to a rapid slowdown from very strong market conditions. We do not see any evidence of forced sales or the need for a large, double digit reset in U.K. house prices in 2023,” its report said.

Meanwhile, private rental costs in Britain have risen to record highs amid intense competition for properties, according to separate data published by the website Rightmove last month.

It found rents in London were up 16.1% year-on-year, the highest growth of any region on record.

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Daughters to inherit fathers’ properties, to get preference over others: SC

The judgment came on an appeal filed by the legal heirs of Arunachala Gounder, as it set aside the verdicts passed by Madras High Court and the trial court…reports Asian Lite News

The Supreme Court on Thursday held that inherited property of a female Hindu dying issueless and intestate, will either go to the heirs of her parents or husband.
Explaining the provisions of the Hindu Succession Act, a bench of Justices S. Abdul Nazeer and Krishna Murari said: “The main scheme of this Act is to establish complete equality between male and female with regard to property rights and the rights of the female were declared absolute, completely abolishing all notions of a limited estate.”

It further added that the Act brought about changes in the law of succession among Hindus and gave rights which were till then unknown in relation to women’s property. “The legislative intent of enacting Section 14 (I) of the Act was to remedy the limitation of a Hindu woman who could not claim absolute interest in the properties inherited by her but only had a life interest in the estate so inherited,” said the bench.

The judgment came on an appeal filed by the legal heirs of Arunachala Gounder, as it set aside the verdicts passed by Madras High Court and the trial court. “Unfortunately, neither the trial court nor the High Court adverted itself to the settled legal propositions which are squarely applicable in the facts and circumstances of the case,” said the top court.

“Since the succession of the suit properties opened in 1967 upon death of Kupayee Ammal, the 1956 Act shall apply and thereby Ramasamy Gounder’s daughter’s being Class-I heirs of their father too shall also be heirs and entitled to 1/5th share in each of the suit properties,” it said.

The bench noted that the right of a widow or daughter to inherit the self-acquired property or share received in partition of a coparcenary property of a Hindu male dying intestate is well recognised not only under the old customary Hindu law but also by various judicial pronouncements.

It said if a female Hindu dies intestate without leaving any issue, then the property inherited by her from her father or mother would go to the heirs of her father whereas the property inherited from her husband or father-in-law would go to the heirs of the husband. “The basic aim of the legislature in enacting Section 15(2) is to ensure that inherited property of a female Hindu dying issueless and intestate, goes back to the source,” said the bench.

It added that the Act lays down a uniform and comprehensive system of inheritance and applies, inter-alia, to persons governed by the Mitakshara and Dayabhaga Schools and also to those governed previously by the Murumakkattayam, Aliyasantana, and Nambudri Laws.

“The Act applies to every person, who is a Hindu by religion in any of its forms including a Virashaiva, a Lingayat or a follower of the Brahmo Pararthana or Arya Samaj and even to any person who is Buddhist, Jain, or Sikh by religion excepting one who is Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion,” it added.

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