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On July 31st 2007 the UK government alongside What Car? magazine launched their "best on CO2" ranking for cars, with Toyota and Volkswagen models emerging as the leading contenders for the title of "greenest car".
People considering buying a new car can now visit www.dft.gov.uk/ActOnCO2 Results are colour-coded to reflect the Fuel Economy Label similar to the one seen on fridges and washing machines.
As many as 4.5 million homeowners with a four-bedroomed property are planning on marketing it as a three-bedroomed home and describing their fourth bedroom as something else in a bid to cheat the 10th September three-bed HIP deadline.
The most popular way to remarket a fourth bedroom, according to 82 per cent, is as a study. The word ‘study’ could well become a codename for a fourth bedroom on property’s particulars - and millions more homeowners could consider this technique now that the Government has announced that HIPs will be extended to include all three-bedroomed properties put up for sale from September 10th.
Abbey is warning homeowners against marketing their property as having a reduced number of bedrooms. Doing so may make your home appear over priced and damage your chances of selling, which outweighs the relatively low cost of HIPs.
Furthermore, with 89 per cent of Britons now using the internet to search for properties, and 73 per cent using the number of bedrooms as a way of filtering out irrelevant properties from a search, you may also run the risk of being missed by potential buyers.
Nici Audhlam Gardiner, head of mortgages at Abbey, advised: “While HIPs might seem a hassle, we think it would pay in the long run to play it straight rather than going through this loophole. By remarketing your home as a two or three-bedroomed house with a study, you’ll become invisible to thousands of potential buyers that are searching online, specifically, for three or four bedrooms and above.”
“You might also make your property seem over-valued as potential buyers will be comparing the price of your bigger abode against someone else’s, which is likely to appear to offer better value due to the reduced number of bedrooms.”
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WEEE stands for Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment, and is Europe's flagship waste policy. WEEE is the fastest growing waste stream in the UK. The WEEE Regulations aim to reduce the amount of this waste going to landfill, and increase recovery and recycling rates. Full responsibility for treating and recycling household WEEE came into effect on 1st July 2007, which means that producers of EEE are financially responsible for the collection, treatment, recovery and environmentally safe disposal of WEEE. Consumers of EEE can no longer dispose of their WEEE with their general rubbish.
The latest report released by the Social Market Foundation says that there is not enough brownfield land in the UK to support government's house-building plans for 3 million homes by 2020.
The report states, in order to meet this target housing developments would have to be built on green belt or undeveloped countryside. The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has hit back saying the report fails to recognise the benefits of Green Belt controls and seriously underestimates the amount of brownfield land available. The CPRE are concerned that relaxing planning controls in the Green Belt would unleash a wave of unsustainable urban sprawl and damage on the countryside. |
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