With the potential economic impacts of COVID-19 becoming increasingly clear, it is only natural for landowners who have recently secured valuable planning permission for development, often as a result of a significant investment of time and money, to be more cautious.
Carter Jonas has several landowning clients across the country that face some challenging choices, especially in the context of a development market slowdown, over what to do next. Whilst we are still handling encouraging market activity, there are now some difficult decisions to be made by landowners who are contemplating sale. Where this is the case, we are ensuring that we are working closely with our clients to offer our trusted advice and ride out these uncertain times.
The temptation for many is to ‘hunker down’ and wait for market recovery. The reality in most cases is that there is still a lot of important preparation that landowners should consider undertaking before going to market that can create added value and de-risk development opportunities.
This applies to all development sites, from barn conversion opportunities and edge of village plots through to large housing schemes and urban extensions.
Indeed, in certain cases it can take two to three months post planning permission before a development opportunity is ready to be marketed. Therefore, we suggest that landowners should use the time created from a potential hiatus wisely. Such preparations include the following:
We are currently working with all our clients to ensure that these tasks are considered where appropriate.
Most importantly, setting out a strategy for market preparations now will ensure that as soon as there are clear signs of market recovery, our clients development opportunities will be the first to hit the market and reach a captive audience of developers, who will be keen to ‘play catch up’.
Over the coming months, decisive and realistic guidance will be essential to our clients if they are to realise the very best results from their development opportunities. We will be by their side to guide them through these strange times and would be delighted to do the same for you too. For specific advice on how to achieve the development potential of your land, please
contact us to speak to one of our dedicated professionals.