Ian Duncan Smith
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Latest property news
Industry gathers for The Negotiator Conference & Expo in London
Over 500 sales and lettings agents, proptech innovators, portal senior staff and industry regulators packed the Hilton on Park Lane, London, hotel on Tuesday for the annual The Negotiator Conference & Expo. Highlights of the day’s presentations, panel debates and speeches included time on the podium from The Rt. Hon. Iain Duncan Smith – who talked candidly about the missteps the government has made over Brexit and the housing market. Leading the debates was BBC Radio 4 presenter Justin Webb plus there were appearances from many high profile figures including ARLA’s David Cox, Sir Peter Bottomley, The Guild’s Iain McKenzie, Richard Donnell from Hometrack, Kate Faulkner, Ombudsman Katrine Sporle, Adam Walker, Jeremy Tapp and, at the end of the day, a keynote speech from Countrywide CEO Alison Platt. During that, Alison made the case for a robust property market in the future despite the current headwinds, and also revealed how Countrywide’s digital hybrid roll-out is progressing. There were also lively sessions at the day’s proptech sessions, at which Zoopla Chief Strategy Officer Paul Whitehead said the next 12 months will be a crunch-time for many proptech start-ups. He said it that it was time for many of them to start delivering…
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Latest property news
Are the Tories (finally) turning against Stamp Duty?
The campaign to reform the current Stamp Duty system and have recent increases for landlords and owners of high-value homes reversed is gaining momentum as a raft of the Tory MPs, think tanks and media line up. Yesterday the free-market supporting Adam Smith Institute said current Stamp Duty system is costing the economy over £9 billion a year because it prevents people moving to the homes they want near to their place of work, and that they must commute long distances instead. The Telegraph newspaper has also been running a campaign to reform the duty, which it says taxes too unfairly those who through no fault of their own have to pay high prices to move up their local property ladder. This week the right-wing MP Jacob Rees-Mogg (pictured, left) said the UK should move to a ‘low taxation’ home ownership model and that, in the same way a cut to business taxes helped stimulate economic activity, so a cut to Stamp Duty would achieve the same thing. And former Tory party leader Ian Duncan-Smith (pictured, right) said in July that that the government should be using Stamp Duty to encourage landlords, not put them off investing. “It is time…
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