Action urged after record low in Q4 home completions - Business News - Business - WalesOnline

Action urged after record low in Q4 home completions - Business News - Business - WalesOnline:


Several times a month a Welsh person calls me to ask if I can remove a local occupancy restriction on a house they want to buy because the lender has said they don't consider these dwellings, in 90% of cases I can do so but increasingly the Welsh Government has allowed LPAs to impose even more onerous restrictions that the Planning Inspectorate have declared compatible with the Local Development Plan and which supported by Planning Policy Wales. Decision letters written weeks apart contain conflicting opinions from the same inspector, no declaration that it is lawful because the inspector isn't a lawyer!

Over the years I have taken a great interest in occupancy restrictions because in my opinion they are not enforceable in court and one LPA obtained a legal opinion that confirmed this, much to their surprise.

Over the last few months I have asked the Financial Services Authority whether lenders fully understood the complexity of Section 106 agreements which attempt to restrict occupancy, tenure and price. One lender's valuer said the banking group wasn't interested in the problems purchasers faced as long as the bank could sell on the open market following repossession, I passed this on to the FSA and I believe that lender has now pulled out of the market.

There are two cases before the EU courts which conflict with the Treaty of Rome, one in Ireland and one in Belgium, in the Irish case the planners appear to have side-stepped the issue by saying they now comply, I don't belie they do and nor do the EU who have been watching this since 2007. The Belgian case is very interesting because an opinion presented to the court shows the decree is not compatible with EU law in a number of ways, it also raises the question of whether the procurement rules have been breached because of the contract entered into by the public body and what is seen to be the private supplier of the dwelling, or something like that.

My point is that the housing market is in part being stifled by the political desire to have a proportion  of 'affordable homes' on a site (OR EVEN 100%!) and this is achieved by use of a Section 106 agreement but the agreement also attempts to restrict occupancy to locals who can't raise the finance because of the "Mortgage Risk" posed by the restricted resale conditions.

Something radical needs to be done or more people will be living in Granny's back bedroom, the situation would be even worse if so many of our youngsters didn't leave Wales to find work.


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