Flats in the news...

With major reforms underway and uncertainty surrounding lease extension costs, 2025 presents both risks and opportunities for flat owners with short leases. This guide explores whether now is the right time to sell, examining your options in light of market conditions, legal changes, and personal financial circumstances.

Thinking of selling your flat with a short lease? This guide weighs up the pros and cons of selling now versus waiting for leasehold reform to come into effect.

Explore the fascinating history of flats in the UK - from 18th-century tenements to modern eco-smart homes. Learn how housing policy, architecture, and social change shaped Britain's skyline.

A groundbreaking new housing development in Acton, west London, will become the UK’s first residential block exclusively for women. Currently under construction, Brook House will offer 102 genuinely affordable social rented flats, replacing an outdated 39-home estate.

Residents of the Chalcots Estate in north London were shocked to discover replacement windows had been installed inside out after years of disruptive safety works to remove dangerous cladding similar to that used on Grenfell Tower.

The UK Government plans to abolish leasehold ownership for flats in England and Wales, replacing it with commonhold as the standard form of ownership. Following the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act (May 2024), which banned leasehold for new houses, the upcoming Leasehold and Commonhold Reform Bill will prohibit new leasehold flats and promote commonhold ownership.

Fed up of living in your ordinary flat, why not treat yourself in 2016 to a “breathtaking” four-bedroom flat overlooking Regents Park? Keep your sunglasses at the ready though! A unique apartment which is among Britain’s most flamboyantly decorated flats thanks to its marble and murals has gone onto the rental market for more than £20,000 per month.

More than two-and-a-half years since the tragic North Kensington tower blaze which left 72 people dead and more than 70 injured, action on improving fire safety in other UK high rises has been painfully slow. Government data on the number of buildings that remain clad in Aluminium Composite Material (ACM), the material used at Grenfell with disastrous consequences, paints a depressing picture.

Like London, Hong Kong is in the grip of a housing crisis. But unlike London, Hong Kong doesn’t have strict minimum space standards. That’s why Swire Properties can develop a residential tower which offers studio flats that are just 142 square foot in size, or “saleable area” as it’s called.

For the first time, Havering Council has created much-needed housing by converting a loft into a comfortable living space. This initiative is part of the Council’s ongoing commitment to addressing the borough’s demand for social housing. By making better use of existing properties, the Council aims to unlock new housing opportunities through smart, efficient solutions.

A tiny flat, once a caretaker’s cupboard, has hit the London property market with a jaw-dropping price tag. Despite measuring just 96 square feet - and narrowing to only 2.4 feet in some spots - the compact space is listed for an astonishing £230,000.

A couple transformed their cramped top-floor flat into a £2million luxury penthouse by adding a whole new floor using a crane. The owners of the property in Central London had a second floor pre-built, then hired a crane to lift it on top of the existing flat in order to double their living space.

If the pending BTL stamp duty increase and proposed tax changes have not put you off being a landlord, then maybe you should read about the unfortunate owner of a two-bed flat in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.

New research has found homebuyers in this area could face paying a 50 per cent premium for views of the Thames river. According to estate agent Marsh and Parsons, a two-bedroom flat with views of the river in King Henry’s Reach, situated on the Middlesex side of the course on the approach to Hammersmith Bridge, is currently on the market for £1,250,000 – equivalent to £1,275 per square foot.

This is the lowest price sale we’ve seen in a long time. A 75sqft studio flat in Clapton (London E5) has recently sold with Purple Bricks estate agents for just £75,000. The property is big enough to be a legal home to one person but not big enough for banks and building societies to be willing to lend on.

Rightmove says availability of two-bed homes is at its highest since 2007, suggesting the chancellor’s changes to stamp duty and tax relief is working More properties have become available for first-time buyers and prices have stopped rising, in what the property website Rightmove says is the first evidence that the chancellor’s clampdown on buy-to-let is working.

London property developers last year sold more than twice as many two-bedroom apartments costing between £650,000 and £1m as cheaper homes priced at about £300,000, according to market data obtained by the Guardian.

Thinking of selling your flat in 2016? Be prepared to compete against a flood on new-build (and new-build resale) flats coming to the market. Thousands of unbuilt flats and apartments could come back on to the London property market over the next two years as foreign investors seek to cut their losses, according to a new study.

Foxtons are marketing for sale a 113 square foot studio flat opposite Harrods for just short of £600,000 (that’s approximately £5,300 per square foot). Foxtons describe the flat as “cleverly arranged” and “gorgeous”. We agree.

Take a look at the proposed new entrance of these luxury flats on the site of the former Royal Mail post office (also a sorting and delivery centre) which opened in 1906.

Buyers of properties in the last 12 months are typically £4,500 better off due to the stamp duty changes of a year ago, according to the Halifax.

Those who purchase a second home or a property to use for buy-to-let will have to pay an extra 3% in stamp duty, Chancellor George Osborne has announced.The move, effective from April 2016, will raise £1bn by 2021, Osborne said.