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Practices fail to learn from residential conveyancing mistakes
Mortgage solutions - UK
Research from Lockton's Professions shows that nearly a third of negligence claims and circumstances against solicitors are related to domestic property work.
With negligence claims and circumstances against solicitors, 29% are related to domestic property work, according to statistics for Q1 - Q3 issued by the professional indemnity insurance broker. Personal injury work is also a danger area for solicitors, attracting 13%of notifications of circumstances and claims of negligence.
Mortgage solutions

Joburg's new gold belt
Want to make big money in property? Buy near Gautrain or where it's busiest - expert.
Moneyweb - South Africa
Whether you love or hate the idea of the vastly expensive Gautrain that's set to cut through the nation's busiest region, don't ignore it from a property perspective. Land and property along the Gautrain route is set to become South Africa's "new gold".

That is the forecast from John Loos, property strategist, in the FNB Commercial Property Finance market update for the third quarter.

You may think that traffic congestion will spark a move by many businesses to areas off the beaten track, but Loos thinks the opposite could happen.

He said he believes that mounting congestion "will limit the pace of both urban sprawl and the de-centralisation of commercial activity, and promote densification of prime existing locations".
Moneyweb.co.za

Some banks want three months' notice to cancel a bond
RodneyHayter.com - South Africa
Sellers of South African residential property should take note that certain banks now have a rule that three months' notice is required to cancel a bond. If cancellation takes place in under three months, it is quite possible that the bondholder will be charged a hefty penalty fee.

Discussing this contentious issue, Lanice Steward, MD of Anne Porter Knight Frank, says in a Cape Town interview that, on a recent sale postponing the transfer by three days had enabled the seller to comply with the three months' notice ruling and had saved him from being subjected to a R8,000 penalty.

When homeowners decide to put their home on the market they should, says Steward, immediately establish the position adopted by their banks vis-à-vis bond cancellations and possibly give notice immediately ahead of any actual sale taking place. If the sale is then delayed the validity of the bond can be extended without problems.
RodneyHayter.com

Soaring property prices mean R16bn set aside for land reform may not be enough
Business Report - South Africa
The nine provinces will have R16 billion in total to spend on land reform over the next three years, but the national treasury yesterday would not be drawn on whether this would be enough to achieve the government's land distribution targets.

However, finance minister Trevor Manuel told the media at parliament yesterday that he was optimistic about the housing delivery programme, for which average allocations would increase by 18.3% a year for the next three years.

Manuel noted that public spending had been growing faster than the economy since 2003/04, but he could not say whether enough was being spent to achieve the UN's millennium development goals in general, or whether the country would reach its goal of transferring 30% of farm land to historically disadvantaged South Africans by 2015.
Business Report