Markets & Investing

How to maximize your Council Tax refund: the 2026 guide

A 2025-26 walk-through of every legitimate route to a lower UK Council Tax bill or an outright refund — band challenges, single-occupier and SMI disregards, the new 100% second-home premium, CTR, and moving-out refunds.

The British Buyer’s Guide to Moving GBP to EUR for a French Property Purchase

A no-nonsense, unaffiliated look at the best ways to move GBP to EUR for a French property purchase — Wise, Revolut, CurrencyFair, specialist brokers and high-street banks, compared on cost, speed and safety.

The Market That Forgot How to Move

The UK housing market has ground to a standstill. Prices hold firm but activity has collapsed, with mortgage approvals at two-year lows and nearly half of listed properties being withdrawn unsold. What's driving this stalemate, and what does it mean for buyers, sellers, and investors?

How to Continue Trading on Interactive Brokers After a PDT Flag (Even If You’ve Used Your One-Time Reset)

TL;DR (April 2026) — You've used your one-time IBKR PDT reset and you're stuck. The three workarounds that...

UK House Prices in 2026: The Market That Stopped Inflating

The 2026 update to our UK housing guide: essentially flat headline prices, a two-speed regional split, the April 2025 stamp duty reset, collapsed net migration, and what it all means for buyers and investors.

UK House Prices Revisited: The Crash That Never Quite Arrived

Three years after our January 2023 piece asked if there was any end in sight to the UK house-price slide, here is what actually happened: a shallow floor, three years of sideways nominal prices, and a real-terms repricing via inflation.

How to claim EIS and SEIS tax relief

A 2026 refresh of our EIS and SEIS guide: the doubled SEIS limits, the schemes now running to 2035, the April 2026 expansion of EIS company thresholds, and the four ways to actually claim the relief.

London Housing Revisited: The Real-Terms Correction That Quietly Arrived

In 2018 we predicted London house prices would keep falling. Seven years on, here is what actually happened to the capital - and what non-dom reforms mean for 2026 buyers.

UK Buy-to-Let Revisited: The Slow Professionalisation of a Squeezed Market

In 2018 we argued the Government had murdered UK buy-to-let. Seven years on, here is how Section 24, the Renters' Rights Act, and the 5% SDLT surcharge actually reshaped the market.