Are you ready for Labour’s Tax bombs?

Are you ready for Labour’s Tax bombs?

When I started work in 1979 , the top rate of tax was 98%: 83% income tax plus a 15% surcharge on investment income. If you don’t believe me then Google it! I wasn’t earning enough in those early days to pay this tax rate myself but my boss was and he seemed to spend…

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What Does a Good Letting Business Look Like?

What Does a Good Letting Business Look Like?

We are achieving all time record prices for letting businesses at the moment but the buyers are becoming increasingly choosy about the sort of businesses that they want to buy. As a consequence, the price differential between the best letting businesses and the rest is wider than it has ever been. So, what constitutes a…

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Be Prepared for the Worst in Business

Be Prepared for the Worst in Business

Unfortunately, I am often asked to sell businesses for people who are seriously or terminally ill. I am also regularly asked to sell businesses by the relatives of people who have died. These situations are always harrowing to deal with but a recent case was particularly difficult. The owner of a small letting business passed…

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Beware False Prophets When Selling Your Business

Beware False Prophets when selling your business

Back in the 1980s, I used to write a regular property column for The Sunday Times. The article that attracted the most attention by far was entitled, “Beware False Prophets.” It was a warning to the public about how to avoid being caught out by estate agents who overvalue their property in order to gain…

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The Alternatives to Selling Your Business

The consolidation of the letting industry continues at a frenetic pace and hardly a week goes by now without a story of yet another independent agent being snapped up by a larger competitor. However, we are approached on a regular basis by people who want to retire but do not want to sell their business…

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The True Cost of Anti-money Laundering (AML) Rules

Everyone agrees that money laundering needs to be stamped out and the recent sanctions against Russia have drawn further attention to the problem. However, the current rules are cumbersome and inconvenient for customers to comply with. They are also expensive for companies to implement, and I am becoming increasingly doubtful about how effective they are…

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How Has COVID Changed Us?

How Has COVID Changed Us?

As a young man, I worked like a slave. My first business did not take off immediately and in order to pay the bills whilst I was getting established, I did a milk round in the morning and shifts as a barman in a nightclub at weekends. For that period, I literally did nothing but…

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A very busy time for Adam J Walker

The first quarter of 2021 has been very busy for Adam J Walker with a record number of sales being reported in areas right across the country. Despite the effects of the pandemic, sales of Estate and Letting Agencies have been very buoyant with many sales, especially of managed letting agencies, attracting strong competition. Broker…

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Laughter is the Best Medicine

The pandemic has affected different people in very different ways. Sectors such as hospitality have been hit incredibly hard and many thousands of people have lost everything they own through no fault of their own. Other sectors including estate agents, letting agents and indeed business transfer agents have continued to trade very well and those…

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