Good morning,
Developers are in revolt over contracts to fix unsafe cladding that they say go “well beyond” the pledges they agreed to earlier this year. A leaked letter from the Home Builders Federation to the Department for Levelling Up said the new, legally binding contracts were “impossible to sign”.
Business rates are an “iceberg” threatening the industry, says the CBI, with inflation expected to take the bill to £3bn.
Meanwhile, The FT (£) asks if cooling office sales and falling valuations are the cracks that signal structural damage, adding that rising interest rates, remote working and the push for greener buildings suggest a bleak outlook(£).
The new register of overseas owners of UK property will be launched today. In most of the UK the legislation will be retrospective, with purchases in England as far back as 1999 needing to be reported. Those who don’t declare their ownership face fines of £2,500 a day and five years in prison.
The lack of life science space in Oxford and Cambridge is stifling the UK’s ability to capitalise on the growth of the sector. Companies are abandoning plans to set up in the Arc and are heading to Boston in the US, which has plenty of lab space.
Happy Yorkshire day! North Yorkshire and the City of York will get a directly elected mayor as part of a £540m devolution deal signed later today.
As the Lionesses bring football home, EG Like Sunday Morning discusses the excitement in Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games, as well as how the Court of Appeal’s recent decision could impact disputes over Covid rent arrears.
Prime ministerial hopeful Rishi Sunak has pledged to cut income tax to 16p, but not until the end of the decade.
And the biggest interest rate rise in 20 years is expected this week, as traders price in a hike to 1.75%.
Moss Bros is planning to open five new stores…
But most bosses are scaling back investment, says the Institute of Directors, as pessimism rises.
Research has shown that landlords are evicting tenants to make way for holiday lets and Airbnbs…
As Leeds Building Society scraps second-home mortgages, saying they go against its mission to expand home ownership.
And Christian Candy has sold his luxury “Candyland” estate just west of London for about £125m.
The Times (£) has an interview with Harworth’s Lynda Shillaw, and takes a look at how Elon Musk’s Hyperloop plans(£) are progressing (spoiler: they aren’t, really).
And finally, it seems Ivana Trump is still helping out her ex-husband, even from beyond the grave. The former wife of Donald Trump was buried last month near the first hole of Trump’s National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. And it turns out that this could allow The Donald to declare at least part of the estate as a cemetery. In fact, he has been trying to do that for years. Why? Because New Jersey, which has among the highest property taxes in the US, offers an exemption to cemetery companies. In fact, the exemption covers not just real estate, rates, assessments and personal property taxes, but also business taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, and inheritance taxes. Jackpot! And Trump has some form with this. He previously claimed the plot was a farm, because some of the trees on the site were turned into mulch used for flower beds.
