Electoral Lottery Law

So the results are in, but there is something dodgy about them. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to work out that it takes 35,000 Conservative voters to elect one Conservative MP, 33,350 to elect one Labour MP, but 120,000 voters to elect one Liberal Democrat MP. On the votes cast, there should be another 138 Liberal Democrats in Parliament. So where are they all?

The truth is that votes have been stolen by the corrupt electoral system.

In Scotland, 412,386 votes cast for the Conservatives (a sixth of the poll) realised 1 seat.

In the South East, the Conservatives polled almost exactly half the vote and snaffled 89% of the seats.

In the North east, Labour polled 43.6% of the vote and took 86% of the seats - almost double their true entitlement.

That a modern democracy should allow its Government to be chosen by what amounts to a lottery is a disgrace.

Stamp Duty update

I thought it might be fun to call HM Customs and Revenue to ask them how to identify first time buyers.

It looks like I am right about them distinguishing marks. One suggestion that if they had borrowed money on mortgage they would be missing an arm and a leg seemed initially promising but eventually had to be dismissed.

The chappie I spoke with was very friendly and said, with commendable understatement, that he had had a fair number of enquiries about the new rules.

He said that at the moment individuals had to certify themselves as first time buyers on their Stamp Duty Land Tax return.

"But just suppose", I said, "that one of these dear people said that they were first time buyers when they were not." Unthinkable, of course, but you never know.

This would be their responsibility. It would be on their conscience for life. It is unclear whether a solicitor who knew a client was telling lies could be held responsible for wrongly completing a form on their behalf.

There are of course several legal ways round this anyway, so who needs to break the law?

Here are some ideas for you. They might work or they might not. They are less easy if mortgage finance is involved. No warranty is given.

If there are two purchasers and only one is a first-time buyer, then buying the property in that person's name followed shortly afterwards by the other taking a half share, will mean no duty is payable if the property is worth £250,000 or less.

If you have a tame but penniless first time buyer, and two non first-time buyers who want to buy a property, then a sale to the penniless buyer with loans from the others, followed by two separate sales of half shares in satisfaction of the loans, should once again lead to no duty being paid.

But the fact that anyone who has given this 10 seconds' thought realises it is completely unworkable is a sad reflection on Government and (as the idea was nicked off the Conservatives) opposition intellectual capacity.

Planning the Future?

With the election coming up it is instructive to look at the Conservative opposition's plans for planning reform. To sum up, they are a terrible mess. There is a lot of cuddly language, but any idea of seeking to ensure that there is a half decent supply of new housing will be dumped in favour of locally set development plans generated by self-selected "local people" who are unlikely to be people seeking accommodation, but rather those who wish to protect the status quo.

The idea that councils will be able to retain 6 years' council tax in its entirety - which for most councils means a bonus of around 4 years' tax will lead both to accusations of the council being bribed by developers whilst the scheme not actually being an incentive as it is just not enough money.

At the same time, it will be "easier" for developments to take place where a "significant majority" of the immediate residential neighbours raise no objection. Quite what this means as most properties have just four or five such neighbours is hard to see. In practice this will mean abandoning the current test of planning harm in favour of a system based on neighbours bothering to object. Where people are inarticulate or disempowered, anything will be allowed, whilst in areas where residents are aware of what is going on and how to object, nothing will ever happen.

They also consider that it is possible for large local projects to be designed through a collaborative process. The problem with that is that where such collaborative processes are tried out, each choice made by those involved leads to support withering away. It is not a good way of dealing with contentious sites.

It seems to me that what is set out in the Green Paper is designed to appeal to middle class voters who want development in other places. It will do nothing to alter the current underprovision of new dwellings, which the Shadow Planning Minister recently rightly pointed out was at the lowest peacetime level since 1924, and far from empowering local communities, it will politicise and therefore corrupt town planning and will take away from owners of land the fundamental right to use their land according to their wishes, so long as no harm is done to others.

It is no surprise that this is a mess as there seems to be no-one doing any thinking at the moment. Since my last posting, about the Stamp Duty changes, it has been pointed out to me that the poorly considered idea for reducing duty for first time buyers came from the Conservatives and was nicked by Mr Darling for his last Budget.

The Budget - not of this world.

Fresh from the Department of Silly Ideas is the provision that "first time buyers" will be allowed to escape 1% Stamp Duty Land Tax on properties purchased for between £125,000 and £250,000.

The rules are:

• The purchaser - or all purchasers if buying jointly - must be buying their first home

• They cannot have previously owned another property anywhere in the world

• They must be buying somewhere that will be their only or their main home

• The completion date is on or after 25 March 2010 and before 25 March 2012.

The question is: how will anyone be able to check up on this? I have over the years seen many people buying property, some for the first time, and others for the second and subsequent times; and I could not tell them apart purely on that criterion. Unfortunately, or maybe not, second-time buyers do not have green hair, or warts on the ends of their noses.

The good news: people who have title deeds to bits of the moon won't have to worry about that.

O tempora, O mores!

What would Cicero have made of the dumbing down of the Land Registry? Certainly patienta nostra has been most certainly abused: "You are 25th in the queue...."

Not long ago, you could ring up the Land Registry which dealt with your area and chat to someone who knew what they were talking about or who could shout across the office to someone who did.

But in the last year that has all changed. Now there is a Customer Support line staffed by Customer Support Agents. When they are not answering the 'phone are they spying on the Stamp Duty Office or inflitrating the Council of Mortgage Lenders?

Standards have definitely dropped. Courtesy and friendliness are still there, but the edge has gone from the expertise.

In addition, a number of offices are being closed. That isn't so much of an issue as no-one ever visits Land Registry offices any more; but one can't help wondering if this is affecting morale.

The reason for the closures is the economic downturn. But what will happen when things recover? Sadly the answer is likely to be massive delays. The Land Registry deal with things very quickly generally, and we are used to this.

It is probably too late to stop the centralising of Land Registry resources, but what about a contact line for practitioners aimed perhaps at those who have finished the Ladybird Book of Land Registration?

The Conservatives' Housing Policy - will it help?

One of the big issues of our society is how to house people. But there are conflicting issues:

1. A basic shortage of accommodation, leading to high housing costs, particularly in areas of the country with high employment;
2. Popular resentment and opposition to new development, particularly on greenfield sites, and where back gardens or other "empty" space is used up;
3. Pressure on parking infrastructure;
4. A need to replace old housing stock with new in order to raise standards and save energy;
5. An opposition to losing older property where this raises density.

The Conservatives plan to change planning rules to as "prevent the bulldozing of homes with gardens" and so as allow the market to build "new homes with parking spaces and gardens". But where? But how? This is not explained.

The Conservatives will abolish stamp duty land tax on properties selling for less than £250,000, so that "nine out of ten pay nothing". This will cost a great deal of money of course, and lead to the current "dead zone" between £250,000 and £260,000 being extended by £10,000.

It is hard to conclude that these measures will assist anyone.

The Labour Party appears to promise little of any use, with a pathetic promise of 5,500 new rented homes over the next 18 months. In the 1930s, around 300,000 new homes were built each year, with a recession deeper than we can imagine now. Around 130,000 private homes are built each year; half of the level 75 years ago.

The only way to deal with the housing crisis is to use land efficiently. If this means pulling down bungalows and replacing them with terrace-houses; if it means high density development with limited provision for car parking, then this is a price which our descendants will be glad we paid. If the same approach to housing need as we have now had obtained for a century rather than a quarter of that time, we would have shanty towns outside every city. It is time we grew up.

Will the Tories get rid of HIPs?

They say they will, of course, but will they, and will it be a good idea? Will there be mourners, and will we, like the people in the picture standing waiting for a glimpse of Stalin's coffin, both delight in the end of a pointless tyranny and yet miss the passing of opportunities for improvement?

Everyone hates HIPs of course. Sellers resent paying out £350 or so. Buyers dislike being told by their Solicitors that personal searches are unreliable and out of date. Only lawyers read them, and they don't understand the Energy Performance Certificates; or maybe they do but don't want to.

Estate agents keep them hidden and bring them out only when offers have been accepted if they can't avoid it. They don't understand them and fear that in the right hands they might contain inconvenient truths. The potential for using them as a selling aid is vast but unexplored.

Documents are often missing or useless. If a lease has been extended, you'll only get the document which extends the original lease and none of the terms to which is subject. Off title documents, such as restrictive covenants, are never included unless care has been taken in preparing a HIP, which excludes any done by HIP "specialists".

So why should anyone complain at their disappearance? Well, the HIP firms will. They lobbied hard for them to be introduced, and it is hard to believe that Ruth Kelly and Yvette Cooper, who were the architects of this fiaco, were not touched to the very heart by their entreaties. Will their successors be prepared to write off this useless sector of our economy, and the considerable investment that they have foolishly underwritten? Maybe not.

Also it is fair to say that the legal profession, with its customary adaptability, has taken on board the HIP project and uses them, grumbling away, to the best advantage available. More change we don't want either.

So the alternative is to fix them. This could be done:

1. Ensure that the Searches used are official searches only unless the local authority in question cannot supply these within 21 days.
2. Provide for a cheap "Official Search update" to allow Buyers to update an Official Local Search within a year for a modest fee - perhaps 25% or 33% of the original fee.
3. Get rid of the useless and misleading Property Questionnaire.
4. Ensure that off title documents and other documents which are necessary are included.
5. Provide for public access to HIPs once done, or at least to EPCs; no more hiding them away.

But what are the chances of this happening?