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> Edgbaston’s first £2M house sold

> Contoversial Seller's Pack Inevitable

> Third generation Chartered Surveyor joins the practice

Edgbaston’s first £2M house sold

Robert Powell & Co have helped Edgbaston’s residential market to reach yet another milestone by selling the only ever single dwelling property in Birmingham to reach the £2m mark.

The property, known as ‘Lawnfields’, is situated on Church Road in the heart of the renowned Calthorpe Estate. It is a house that Robert Powell knows particularly well having now personally dealt with its sale no less than three times through the course of his 40 year career, underlining the depth of knowledge and experience that he has in this section of the market place.

Surprisingly the record breaking deal comes only months after Robert Powell & Co sold Edgbaston's first house to break the £1m barrier. Robert Powell said, “The fact that these two milestones have been reached in such quick succession is testament to the strength of the top end of the private house market in Birmingham . Since reaching the £1m level we have sold a number of properties at and around that price but this new benchmark may take some passing.”

The achievement of the £2m seems all the more impressive when considering the fact that the property was sold ‘off market’ to reflect the wishes of the vendor. “This is not unusual for us” said Mr Powell “in fact quite often vendors do not want their home fully exposed to the market and they come to us because they know that we are well placed to find them a purchaser discreetly. We spend a great deal of time and effort maintaining a database of available purchasers, and we have such in depth knowledge of the local market that we often know who will buy a house even before we have been instructed to sell it.”

The Government published its draft Housing Bill at the beginning of April, dispelling any doubts that the Seller’s Pack might be dropped as a result of the fierce criticism it has received since its conception.

The Seller’s Pack (now dubbed the Home Information Pack) is likely to become mandatory by 2006. It is designed to reduce the percentage of abortive transactions that take place every year (currently around 12%) by providing key information to buyers up front. The result, it is argued, will be a dramatic 50% reduction in the amount of time taken to complete the home buying process from its current average of around 12 weeks.

But critics are not so sure. The National Association of Estate Agents and Council of Mortgage Lenders have spoken out in opposition to the proposals, questioning whether the government has considered the full implications of such a scheme.

It is expected that the cost of producing the pack will average £500 - £600 and this cost must be borne by the vendor before the property can be put on the market. The result could be to prevent some people putting their property on the market at all, especially at the lower end where the up front costs are disproportionately high against the value of the property.

Some critics go further, believing that buyers will be reluctant to rely on the information provided by the sellers who have an obvious vested interest. Furthermore, if a property has been on the market for some time, the information may become out of date and thus be considered obsolete. The result could be buyers doing their own survey anyway, resulting in even more costs than before.

Robert Powell, senior partner of Robert Powell & Co, has mixed feelings: “I have no doubt that the Home Information Pack will speed up transactions and that can only be a good thing. It will also focus the attention of the vendor and help to deter them from wasting everyone’s time by ‘dipping a toe in the water’ only to conclude that they don’t want to swim after all!"

Mr Powell goes on to say, "I do however have reservations about the practicality of the home condition report and not only because they have a limited shelf life. From our experience, different people want different types of survey dependent upon circumstance and property type. If the survey upon which the Home Condition Report has been based is not as detailed as the purchaser requires, they will have to commission an independent surveyor at their own cost. This is good news for us surveyors, but bad news for everyone else!”

The precise requirements of the Home Information Pack will not be known for some time, keep an eye on the Robert Powell & Co website for updates.

Chartered Surveying has run in the blood of the Powell family since early in the 1920’s and looks set to continue to do so for some time to come. Robert Powell & Company’s latest recruit is James Powell, who at 28 would like to think that he can carry the trend on beyond the 100 year mark. We have taken a moment to look at the past, present, and the future of the Powells in the profession:

Clive Powell FRICS , born 1901, qualified as a Chartered Surveyor and a Land Agent in the early 1920’s and practiced for over 50 years – latterly as a senior partner of Chessire Gibson & Co. In addition to managing a number of large agricultural estates throughout the Midlands and into Herefordshire he was also one of the most prominent surveyors of his generation in many other branches of the profession. In addition, over the years he handled the sales and purchases of many leading houses in the Midlands including Edgbaston, Harborne, Selly Park and Moseley. He was a true exponent of the “general practice surveyor” and perhaps lucky enough to avoid the specialisation that all but a very few current practicing surveyors have been subjected to. His son:-

Robert Powell FRICS , born 1944, qualified as a Chartered Surveyor in the late 1960’s and a partner of Chessire Gibson & Co until leaving the practice in 1985 to set up what is now known as Robert Powell & Co. A specialist in the sale and purchase of private houses and more recently New Homes agency, Robert has become a leading name in the middle to top end of the market in the Midlands, more specifically Edgbaston, Harborne, Selly Park and Moseley. He has sold some houses in these areas three or four times during the course of his professional life, indeed the recent £2m record breaking sale of a house in Edgbaston is a property he has sold twice before. His son:-

James Powell MRICS , born 1975, qualified as a Chartered Surveyor in the late 1990’s, has experience on agency and property management matters, and more recently has been involved in site acquisition and development on behalf of a national development company. He joined Robert Powell & Co as a partner this year to practice in all aspects of the business, including introducing land opportunities to developer clients. Having only just got married, James is refusing to comment on speculation that there might be a fourth generation Chartered Surveyor in the pipeline!