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• AST – Assured shorthold tenancy (the most common tenancy agreement in the UK, which grants tenants a number of protections to ensure landlords cannot be unscrupulous )
• BMV – Below market value
• Conveyancing – The legal process of transferring property from one owner to another. In the UK, conveyancing is conducted by either solicitors or conveyancers
• Freehold – One of the two main types of property tenure, the other being leasehold. A person owning a freehold owns both the property and the land it is on. While most, but not all, houses are freehold, very very few flats are leasehold (and those that are are generally not desirable for legal reasons). Freeholds are generally seen as more desirable than leaseholds, as there is no need to pay ground rent (GR) or service charge (SC). Note that there are different types of tenure for property in Scotland.
• GCH – Gas central heating
• GR – Ground Rent, a charge payable by a leaseholder to a freeholder
• HMRC – Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs
• Leasehold – The main type of property tenure. A leasehold entitles the owner to the right to occupy the building for a certain number of years (typically around 120 years, but this can be 70 years or less – a ‘short lease’, or 900 years – known as a ‘virtual freehold’). The leaseholder does not own the land the property is on, and, in the case of a flat, does not own the ‘fabric of the building’ (such as the external structure and communal areas).
Leaseholders must pay GR and SC to the freeholder. Almost all flats and a small number of houses in England & Wales are leaseholds.
• RICS – Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors
• ROCE – Return on capital employed, calculated by operating profit divided by cash employed
• SC – Service Charge, a charge for the maintenance of a property paid to a freeholder by the leaseholder. This is generally for things like upkeep of communal areas, landscaping and building repairs. The cost of such is distributed among the leaseholders within a freehold. • SDLT – Stamp Duty Land Tax, a tax incurred on the purchase of property
• STC – Subject to contract
• Yield – the gross annual rent of a property divided by the purchase price of that property. Usually used to compare investment opportunities.