Three stories today, and they all land on someone's invoice. Rightmove says asking prices had their best September in years, which is not quite the same as saying homes are selling. Croydon switched on two new landlord licensing schemes this week, with a fee list attached. And on Thursday a new tax on new housing arrives nationwide, with a rate for Wealden that I can quote to the pound.
Rightmove's autumn bounce is a pricing story, not a selling story
Rightmove's House Price Index for September, published 21 September, recorded the first monthly rise in average newly-listed asking prices since May — up 0.7 per cent to £367,440, ahead of the ten-year September average of 0.5 per cent, as Today’s Conveyancer reports. Rightmove's Colleen Babcock described the underlying market as “a large crowd of sellers chasing a smaller number of buyers,” and the numbers back her up: the stock of homes for sale sits at a 12-year high, buyer enquiries are down 9 per cent year-on-year, and agreed sales are down the same amount. The average two-year fixed mortgage rate has climbed from 5.09 per cent to 5.29 per cent over the month, which Rightmove's Matt Smith says is “adding further pressure to monthly budgets.” Only 61 per cent of listed homes are finding a buyer at present, against 74 per cent back in 2021.
Read those two facts together and the story is not recovery, it is congestion. Asking prices are rising because sellers are testing the market with optimism, not because buyers are competing for scarce stock — there has never been more stock. That combination, more homes chasing fewer willing buyers at higher mortgage rates, is exactly the environment where an overpriced or poorly-presented property sits for months while a realistically priced, well-documented one still moves in weeks. The gap between those two outcomes is wider in a crowded market than a tight one, and it is widened further by a defect that only surfaces after an offer has already been agreed, since a buyer with 12 years of alternative stock to choose from has very little reason to renegotiate rather than walk.
Sellers should treat a pre-marketing survey or condition report as a pricing tool this autumn, not an afterthought, so the asking price reflects the property's actual condition from day one rather than getting corrected downward mid-transaction. Anyone pricing on last spring's comparables should discount for the fact that 39 per cent of listed homes are not finding a buyer at all.
Croydon's new licensing schemes are a preview of what is coming to other boroughs
Two new licensing schemes came into force in Croydon on 25 September: a Selective Licensing Scheme covering 14 designated wards, and an Additional HMO Licensing Scheme covering smaller shared houses borough-wide, both confirmed on the council's own licensing pages. It is now a legal requirement to hold the relevant licence for any qualifying rented property in those areas, on top of the existing mandatory scheme for larger HMOs. A five-year selective licence costs £800, split £480 on application and £320 before issue; the additional HMO licence costs £1,250. Discounts are available: £50 off for a property with an EPC of B or above, and £100 off for landlords accredited with a body such as the NRLA, RICS or Safeagent.
What strikes me about this scheme is not the fee, it is the EPC discount sitting inside a housing licence rather than a MEES enforcement notice. Councils running these schemes inspect properties as a condition of licensing, and a below-standard EPC or an unremediated hazard identified at that inspection is now a much cheaper problem to have found yourself, ahead of time, than to have a licensing officer find for you. Selective licensing has been spreading borough by borough for a decade and there is no reason to assume it stops at the London boundary; several district councils across the South East already run smaller HMO schemes and more will follow once they see the enforcement data Croydon starts collecting.
Landlords with property in or near a London borough should check that authority's licensing pages directly rather than assuming their portfolio is unaffected, since scheme boundaries are drawn ward by ward. Anyone renting out a property anywhere should get an EPC and a condition check done proactively; both are now bound up with licence cost and licence risk, not just MEES compliance.
The Building Safety Levy lands on Thursday, and Wealden's rate is real money
From 1 October, the Building Safety Levy applies to new residential development schemes of more than 10 dwellings across England, charged per square metre of chargeable floorspace and collected by the local authority at building control stage, under the government's own guidance. Rates vary by council to reflect local house prices, and previously developed land gets a 50 per cent discount. For Wealden the rate is £17.88 per square metre on greenfield land, dropping to £8.94 on previously developed land; next door, Rother is £16.95/£8.48, Lewes £20.07/£10.04, and Eastbourne £18.80/£9.40. Affordable and supported housing built by registered providers is exempt, and non-payment means the council, an approved inspector, or the Building Safety Regulator will withhold the completion certificate.
On a modest 20-unit scheme of two-bedroom houses at 75 square metres each, that Wealden rate works out to something in the region of £27,000 on greenfield land, half that on a brownfield site — not a figure that features in most small developers' land appraisals from eighteen months ago, because the levy did not exist when many of those sites were bought. The cut-off matters as much as the rate: it applies based on when the building control application is submitted, not when the scheme was designed or when planning permission was granted, so a developer who has been sitting on a consented scheme and was planning to submit building control notice this autumn has a genuine financial reason to get it in before Thursday rather than after.
Small and medium developers with schemes of more than 10 units anywhere in Wealden, Rother, Lewes or Eastbourne should check exactly when their building control application will be submitted and price the levy into the scheme appraisal now if it falls after 1 October. Anyone still finalising a submission this week should ask their building control body directly whether it can be logged before the deadline.
What I’d actually do
- Selling this autumn? Get a pre-marketing survey or condition report done so the asking price reflects reality from day one, in a market with a 12-year high in competing stock.
- Landlord with property in or near a London borough? Check that council's licensing pages directly rather than assuming your portfolio sits outside any designated scheme.
- Any landlord, anywhere? Get an up-to-date EPC and condition check done proactively; both now carry licensing cost and licensing risk, not just MEES exposure.
- Developer with a consented scheme of 10+ units in East Sussex? Confirm your building control submission date against the 1 October cut-off and price the levy into the appraisal if it falls after.
- Buying in the current market? Use the 12-year supply high as leverage; a property that has not found a buyer is a property where the asking price is probably wrong.
Whether it’s a pre-sale condition report or due diligence ahead of a development appraisal, the practice carries out independent Building Surveys across the South East. Get in touch.
Small print. General commentary, not advice for your specific circumstances — regulations, schemes and deadlines change, and your property is not the average property. Sources linked were accurate when read on 27 September 2026.