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Global rules on foreign direct investment (FDI)
Cross-border acquisitions and investments increasingly trigger foreign direct investment (FDI) screening requirements.
Global | Publication | January 2018
The government has announced that it intends to tackle what it considers to be unfair practices in the residential leasehold market “as soon as Parliamentary time allows”.
Statistics show that there has been an increasing trend of developers selling new-build houses as leasehold, as opposed to the more traditional freehold ownership. One motive for this in many cases is to generate an additional income stream from the ground rents payable when a house is leasehold, with that income stream often sold on to investors.
Another recent trend is a significant increase in the cost of ground rents for long residential leases, which traditionally have been nominal. Such increases can create an unforeseen financial burden for the owner and make the property harder to sell or to mortgage, particularly as mortgage lenders are increasingly wary of such onerous terms.
Following a consultation that elicited over 6,000 responses, the government has announced a series of measures to tackle these issues in England. They include:
Houses built on land that is subject to an existing lease cannot be sold as freehold. The government’s answer to this is to propose a ban on the sale of leasehold houses on land that was not subject to an existing lease at the date of the announcement: 21 December 2017.
Once enacted these measures will clearly have a major impact on new – and some aspects of existing - residential developments. We will report further when flesh has been put on the bones of the proposals and a timetable for implementation is announced.
For further information please contact Sian Skerratt-Williams or your usual contact at Norton Rose Fulbright.Publication
Cross-border acquisitions and investments increasingly trigger foreign direct investment (FDI) screening requirements.
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European asset managers are excited about the revised European long-term investment funds (ELTIF) regime and hope that the greater flexibility for managing and distributing ELTIFs will open up new markets for their long-term investment strategies.
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The recent publication of the Investment Association’s Second Interim Report on Fund Tokenisation and regular news articles in the financial press evidence continued enthusiasm for the adoption of digital technologies such as tokenisation amongst players in the financial services markets. Indeed, the global market for tokenised real-world assets is already currently estimated to be around $600 billion and has been predicted to reach $16 trillion by 2030.
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