Why has JLL all of a sudden announced changes to three of its five “big jobs” and flagged a change of chief executive? Asia boss Alastair Hughes is leaving the business in the summer to be replaced by Anthony Couse. This week we learn that the estimable Chris Ireland is to become head of UK, replacing Guy Grainger, who takes the job of running Europe from Christian Ulbrich, who is to be president – or chief executive in waiting to Colin Dyer.
Mayfair sources say the firm was caught off guard by Alastair Hughes’ decision, despite much persuasion, not to take the global chief executive role and to leave the firm after 28 years. His reasons are apparently wanting to be closer to friends and family in the UK. But many are speculating that the canny Scot is calling the market again after departing Europe in mid 2008 and riding the China boom from 2009 to now.
Resi reality check
Rumours about the price of new flats plummeting south of the River Thames have been around for months. One property economist said during a meeting on Monday: “What a paradox. Here we are in London with not enough supply, yet thousands of cookie-cutter one- and two-bed flats are being sold off-plan to overseas buyers, not to live in, but to flip. It remains to be seen if there is genuine occupational demand for these units at current prices. Taking them down from £1,500 to £750 per sq ft might do the trick.”
Uppity builders
The huge demand for builders had led to many getting uppity. This month Kier walked off site at the Ram Brewery in Wandsworth, SW18, spurning a £170m contract it had signed with Chinese developer Greenland.
Dealing with the Chinese is not easy. “They come from Mars, we come from Venus,” shrugged a frustrated joint venture partner, working with another Chinese company on another South Bank development.
A measure of the problem
JLL consultant and former RICS president Max Crofts has become fast friends with Australian flight attendant Amanda Birch. Stop thinking what you are thinking. Birch agreed an off-plan purchase of an apartment in Melbourne.
When she applied for a mortgage the valuer found the interior floor area to be not only less than she had been quoted by the developer but also below the minimum size she had specified as suitable security for her proposed mortgage. She sued – Birch v Robek – and won her case in 2014.
“By coincidence, the standards setting committee of the International Property Measurement Standards Coalition met in Melbourne last November,” says Crofts. “I traced Amanda and invited her and her partner to dinner with the committee who heard first-hand about the aggravation she had suffered.”
It was a meeting that helped shape the first internationally agreed standards on how to measure residential floor areas.
Consultations on the “exposure draft” begin this month. The coalition has already agreed on standard ways to measure offices. Sheds are the next to be tackled. Anyone interested should visit www.ipmsc.org.
Party pooping
One job of the National Audit Office is to act as party pooper. This month’s report into the acceptance of hospitality by civil servants warned that entertainment “should not seem lavish or disproportionate to the nature of the relationship with the provider”. Indeed. But there seems to be no NAO guidance for local government officials.
Given that MIPIM is only two weeks away, it seems timely to remind officials involved in planning matters of the guidance issued to them by the Local Government Association in 2009 under the title of Probity in Planning.
Elected officials should be “very cautious” about accepting hospitality. Anything over the value of £25 must be declared and “open to inspection by the public”. As for the poor planners, “Wherever possible, offers should be declined. If hospitality is unavoidable, officers should ensure that it is of minimal level.” The code is silent on developers sponsoring local authority stands at MIPIM.
