What is Greystones’ fee structure?

For identifying, assessing and assisting with the purchasing of a property for our clients, we charge a 3% commission on the property purchase price.

To ensure all properties purchased are made available to tenants in the most desirable condition, we also project manage the required refurbishment.
Our fee for this project management service is 10% of the overall refurbishment cost.

When your property is available for rental, our integrated letting service can help you secure high caliber tenants, manage your rentals and maintain properties on your behalf.
We will also ensure that any departing tenants return your property in the condition it was provided or manage any restoration required.
Our letting service fee is based on 10% of rental receipts.

What other costs should I consider when investing in the UK?

Like most property purchases, contracts have to be dealt with through lawyers so you should budget for legal costs. Depending on whether you require a mortgage, some banks may require an arrangement fee from borrowers.

Do I need to pay any UK income taxes?

This depends on your personal circumstances. Similar to other countries, if you earn rental income from landed property in the UK, that income will be subject to income tax in the UK.
However, in calculating the amount of income that you may be taxed on, there are certain costs you can deduct such are rental service fees, legal costs, general wear and tear, and one airline ticket a year if you’re an overseas investor, as well as a personal allowance.
However, to ensure that you are paying the right amount of tax, it is recommended that you seek independent advice tailored to your individual circumstances.

Heard there is a capital gains tax coming up in 2015.

This is correct. Although for most of our client, whose investment strategy is to achieve high yields over a long term period, from 6 April 2015 overseas investors making a gain on disposal of their investment property after this date will be subject to capital gains tax at 18% or 28% depending on whether you’re a higher rate tax payer.

Why not invest in London?

We have no objection to people wanting to invest in London. In fact, we’re more than happy for more investors to continue concentrating their wealth in the Capital so that we have less competition in our core cities.
We at Greystones believe that the opportunity for much higher yields on a long term investment can be achieved outside of London.
Coupled with the fact that the average price of London properties has already exceeded their peak from before the financial crisis whilst the cities we focus on are still below this benchmark, we see much more value in investing away from London.
Call us crazy but we seem to think that making higher returns for a smaller outlay is a much more attractive proposition.

If I decide not to engage Greystones, do I need to pay any fees?

The easy any to that question is no. If after speaking to us you decide that our product is not right for you then you have no obligations to us.
If on the other hand you wanted to explore investment opportunities in the UK we can immediately start work on the “Identify” process.
This will involve going through our data capturing questionnaire to determine which investment category best suits your needs, which location and what type of property is most in line with your ambitions.
To enable us to begin the actual search for suitable properties, send our teams out to physically inspect them, run background checks and prepare financial analyses on each potential opportunity, we will require an initiation fee of HK$5,000.
This initiation fee will however, be credited against your amount purchase commission.