Format: News

Boris Johnson has announced plans for a new "London Rental Standard" to be launched next year, aimed at promoting high standards and empowering consumers in the rental sector; 

Residential developer of the moment Native Land has been named by Property Week as the preferred bidder to purchase one of the most prominent office buildings in Covent Garden, for a reported £165m.

The government’s decision to scrap the VAT exemption on alterations to listed properties has made building works even more expensive.

Mortgage brokerage Enness Private Clients has appointed Dean Spendiff as Sales Director.

The Cadogan Estate has announced the appointment of Francis Salway as a Non-Executive Director, with effect from December 2012.  

Luke Morgan, formerly of Knight Frank's The Buying Solution, has joined Strutt & Parker's country department as a national partner at its offices in Mayfair, London.

The world's housing markets posted mixed signals during the full year to Q3 2012, according to the latest survey of global house price trends. The bad news is strongly concentrated in Europe.

Cordea Savills's first London Residential Development Fund has started buying, spending £40m on two adjacent properties in Chelsea.

The number of £2m+ homes being bought through the offshore company tax-dodge has plummeted by 80% since March's budget, according to the FT.

The new Draft Finance Bill includes, as feared, a bunch of new property taxes: there's a new annual levy for non doms with homes worth over £2m, and an extension to capital gains tax, at 28%, for "non-residential…

The Government's Finance Bill 2013, published today, confirms that the proposals announced in March this year are coming into force in April 2013.

Ed Vaisey, the architecture and heritage minister, is "very worried" about the impact that high-rise developments on the South Bank will have on London's historic landscape and buildings, including the…