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London Mayor to take action to prevent London property being sold off as “golden bricks” to overseas investors (28 June 2016)

Date: 28/06/2016
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, London Mayor to take action to prevent London property being sold off as “golden bricks” to overseas investors

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has criticised a scheme by his predecessor to prevent London homes being sold as “golden bricks” to overseas investors.

Former Mayor Boris Johnson introduced the Concordat scheme as the solution to stop major developers first advertising London homes to overseas buyers – in some cases, many months before ordinary Londoners had the chance to buy them.

More than 50 developers signed up to the pledge to prioritise homebuyers in London – and the previous administration hailed the scheme “a roaring success”.

However, Mr Khan has criticised the previous mayor for designing a “toothless” Concordat, which meant that homes could still be launched overseas at the same time they were made available in London. Mr Khan said the scheme also had no official Greater London Authority process of monitoring whether the signatories to the Concordat were keeping their promises.

The Mayor added that there were no powers or processes to enforce the marketing activities of the signatories – and when the Concordat was broken, as evidence suggests it has been, there was no effective sanction available to the Mayor.

Consequently, only one organisation was ever found to have breached the Concordat – and this was allegedly due to a national paper alerting the previous administration to a developer breaching the agreement, by targeting Hong Kong customers before Londoners.

During Mayor’s Question Time on Wednesday (22/06/16), Mr Khan set out this information as part of an ongoing audit of the housing crisis in London.

The new Mayor has asked GLA officers to bring forward a range of options to replace this housing scheme that are meaningful while being mindful of the needs of homebuilders to raise project finance.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said:

“We all know that Boris Johnson left the cupboard bare on housing in London, and it will be a hard and long process to fix his mess.

“The previous Mayor’s Concordat is yet another housing failure we have inherited – a scheme that claimed to help Londoners get first dibs on new properties, but in reality did nothing to stop the problem of London homes being sold off-plan as gold bricks to overseas investors.

“This is the same Mayor who oversaw planning permissions being given with just 13% affordable housing last year.

“I am determined to give more Londoners ‘first dibs’ on more new and affordable housing.”

The Mayor added that he had asked officers to bring forward a range of “meaningful options” to replace the Concordat.


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