Buying a property with planning permission?
Check this first.

Jeremy Hinds00:00

Courts have been very clear on this: in planning, there is no such thing as a precedent.

Alastair Hoyne00:05

Welcome to The Property Escalator. I’m Alastair Hoyne, founder and CEO of Finanze Group and author of The Finanze Framework: Property Strategy & Finance Success.

I wrote the book around a simple idea: property decisions work better when strategy, finance, tax, legal, valuation, delivery and exit are treated as one connected system. The Property Escalator takes that thinking into real conversations with people who operate at different points in the property journey.

I’m joined today by a good friend of mine, Jeremy Hinds, the founder of CivicScape Limited and previously of Savills, who is an expert planning consultant.

Today, we’re going to discuss how a planning assumption can change the value, programme, finance and even the viability of an entire strategy. I want to explore how buyers can think about planning potential without confusing potential with certainty. Jeremy, thanks for coming on today and welcome.

Alastair Hoyne00:59

Investors often talk about planning as if it’s a box to tick after they have bought the property. How early should planning thinking really begin?

Jeremy Hinds01:10

The short answer is very early indeed, as early as you can. In some instances, depending on what you’re proposing, buying and thinking about doing with what you’ve bought, planning might be no greater than a tick-box exercise. In that case, it’s fine. You can almost dismiss it, but don’t dismiss it without giving it proper thought first.

There is such a thing as planning risk. What you think you’re going to get through a planning process might not be what you end up with. You need to understand the risk, its extent and what type of risk it is. That’s the real question. It’s not just about planning permissions, which I can elaborate on.

Alastair Hoyne02:01

That would be good. Especially in my lending capacity, I’m often sent a request by a broker or a direct investor, and they seem to assume everything’s going to be rosy.

Whether it’s permitted development, as though it’s automatic based on local allowances rather than an application of some sort, or, even worse, where full planning is required for a conversion or it’s a listed building, they seem to treat it as a given. After the first queries, you find out it hasn’t even been applied for.

Jeremy Hinds02:48

Indeed. One false assumption is that planning doesn’t matter; it just has to be gone through because it’s part of the process. But planning does matter because it underpins the lender’s appetite for risk. It’s an essential part of a lender’s due diligence process.

Is planning permission in place? If not, will it be granted for what’s being sought? And it’s not just the permission. The permission will come with conditions.

Do you get the permission you think you’re going to get, or do the conditions change what you thought you were having? What are the terms under which it operates? What do you have to do to comply before starting development? What must you do to continue complying during development and occupation?

Jeremy Hinds03:54

Early in my career, in more rural areas, housing permissions were granted subject to what were known as agricultural occupancy conditions. They were designed to ensure that people living in those houses needed to live in the countryside. These still exist, particularly around the outer areas of Green Belt locations.

To comply with the condition, you had to demonstrate a livelihood dependent on an aspect of farming. Challenging those conditions became very difficult because the whole reason the property existed was to provide accommodation for an agricultural worker. It was granted as an exception to the general rule that housing would not be permitted.

I got involved in a number of cases where properties were bought without understanding what an agricultural occupancy condition required of the occupier. They couldn’t just tinker in the garden. Their livelihood had to be based entirely on income from farming, and not just as a landlord farmer. It was tied to their actual income and the nature of their job.

People would look at it and think, “All I have to do is a little farming, and that will be enough. Meanwhile, I can spend the rest of my life doing my other job, which provides the income.” That’s called a continuing compliance condition. You can’t dip in and out. There are real risks with the types of conditions and permissions that exist.

Alastair Hoyne05:49

I wonder if that applies where I live. I live in an AONB, on what was previously a farm. Everyone around me is a farmer, although we have a vet nearby. New builds are restricted from getting planning in our area, and I need planning permission just to put a shed in the garden.

Jeremy Hinds06:13

That goes to the heart of what you alluded to about permitted development rights. How do they exist? Have they been removed by the planning authority?

It’s not just a matter of asking yourself. You have to ask the local authority what it has done to preserve the character of the area where you’re proposing to buy. It doesn’t have to be limited to conservation areas or listed buildings. It can be any of a number of things.

Removing permitted development rights through Article 4 directions, which is the formal process, is quite common.

Alastair Hoyne07:11

That’s the common misconception, especially with permitted development rights: browse the council website, see if it’s within the permitted development approvals and get on with it, rather than submitting anything or telling anyone about it.

Jeremy Hinds07:27

People forget to ask the slightly more important question: why? It’s all well and good discovering that something has happened, but why has it happened? Why has the local authority removed permitted development rights? Why has it imposed conditions requiring X, Y and Z?

Understanding why gives you the beginnings of the necessary audit trail to understand your prospects of successfully challenging the removal of rights or a condition, or getting permission in the first place. “Why?” is always the question people forget to ask.

Alastair Hoyne08:10

The repercussions are serious if you do something without planning. You read scenarios in the press: someone builds an underground swimming pool without permission and gets told to get rid of it, or turns a garage into a man cave and gets told to tear it down.

What I see quite often in our title split transactions is freehold blocks converted into flats 10 or 15 years ago, but with no proof it was ever done. You can go through the onerous process of a certificate of lawfulness. It’s a risk borrowers take when they can’t establish not just planning for what they propose, but whether planning was obtained for the building in the first place if it had alterations.

Jeremy Hinds09:08

That’s right. Certain people underestimate whether local authorities will see through the consequences of their own actions and those of others.

People often start with the assumption that, if I do something without planning permission, I’m not breaking the law. There is a degree of truth in that, to be fair. I do not commit an offence by undertaking development that requires planning permission but not obtaining permission. The offence occurs when the local authority discovers what you’ve done and starts to take action.

Alastair Hoyne09:55

And the neighbours start saying, “He’s obstructing my view,” and they start the inquiry, I imagine.

Jeremy Hinds10:03

People will inform the local authority that works have been done without permission. They themselves may have applied for something and had it refused, so they feel hard done by.

Alastair Hoyne10:27

Or the development has impacted the value of their property by restricting views and things like that.

Jeremy Hinds10:34

Indeed. People take note of what’s happening around them and inform the local authority if they suspect development is being undertaken without the relevant consent.

That begs the question: will the local authority care? The answer is that it will, because it has a statutory duty to discharge if prodded into action to address development without permission, or development taking place in a way the permission suggests should be done differently. The local authority is under an obligation to investigate and enforce if needs be.

Once it starts that process, it won’t let it die a death until it reaches its proper conclusion on its terms.

Alastair Hoyne11:23

I wish they would fix the roads with the same diligence as trying to get buildings taken down. That would be very nice.

Jeremy Hinds11:32

Don’t get me wrong on that. I’m with you.

Alastair Hoyne11:38

The other thing worth bearing in mind before the next official question is when planning lapses. I have a case where a client is looking at buying a property in the North East: a pub with flats upstairs and separate outbuildings that are holiday lets.

Planning permission was being marketed as part of the sale, for additional holiday-let cottages. On investigation, I got a call yesterday saying the planning had lapsed. They clearly hadn’t broken ground, when all they probably had to do was basic groundworks to enact it. As long as it completed within the time given, it would have been okay.

Are they mismarketing by saying it has planning? Or is it a case that it has planning, but you have to re-enact it?

Jeremy Hinds12:33

Timetabling a planning position is relatively straightforward because the dates are obvious, but also slightly more complicated depending on the type of permission.

With outline permission, you have to comply with the dates to get the next set of details, known as reserved matters: usually landscaping, layout, appearance and so on. Those require money because you need architects’ plans and drawings. People try to delay them until they know they can afford them or have an income stream to offset or leverage against.

Be aware that you probably have no more than two years in nearly every case to get those, and then you have to implement your permission three years after that, or sometimes the other way around depending on what the local authority wants to do, but always within five years.

With full planning permission, where nothing is reserved and everything is granted at the outset, you need to implement it within the deadline set by the permission. There will be a condition specifying that. Again, normally five, but it could be less. In very complex proposals, it could be considerably longer. I know one permission where planning didn’t have to be implemented for around 15 years, but that was an extraordinarily complicated site. Don’t assume that.

Be aware of the timetable. Also, no matter what the permission is for, the works required to implement it are very light indeed. There are a number of cases dealing with what you have to do to demonstrate implementation. Broadly speaking, you have to show you have done some works: marking out or laying out the land to understand where foundations will go, for example, is normally enough. But record it.

Alastair Hoyne14:48

Just putting those strings on the ground?

Jeremy Hinds14:53

Putting strings in the ground will do, but make sure you record it and demonstrate you’ve done it.

Alastair Hoyne14:56

For someone to let planning lapse without that basic work is pretty poor, I suppose.

Jeremy Hinds15:03

Yes. They’ve overestimated what’s required of them. Be aware, though, that conditions may say, “Prior to commencement, you must do something.” Work out whether your permission requires other things first before you can implement it.

From a lender’s point of view, that’s important. If an owner has started implementing permission by building what is permitted, but the permission requires the local authority to be involved before that moment, breaching those conditions precedent puts the whole permission at risk. The permission on which the lending is based is therefore also at risk.

Alastair Hoyne16:04

You can’t assume that, because you’ve been granted planning permission once, you’ll get it twice. I presume it’s the same as filing a brand-new application.

Jeremy Hinds16:17

It’s exactly the same.

Alastair Hoyne16:17

Which only works, I suppose, if you wanted to change what had been approved in the first place?

Jeremy Hinds16:25

Yes. People use the concept of a precedent: “You’ve got permission; that’s a precedent, therefore I can get permission.” Courts have been very clear that, in planning, there is no such thing as a precedent.

Alastair Hoyne16:44

With parties constantly changing who’s in power, especially in Lancashire, the new ones coming in could be against certain things.

Jeremy Hinds16:52

That’s right. The courts also say every application has to be determined on its own merits. That’s the test. It doesn’t matter whether it looks like another scheme, or a scheme that might have lapsed on the same site. The decision maker’s requirement is to start afresh. It doesn’t matter what went before.

Alastair Hoyne17:15

Especially if national legislation has changed in that period, protecting a species found on a site that might have been approved five years ago. A new approval might be declined because something has emerged that affects the legislation.

Jeremy Hinds17:33

Correct. Changes at national level are usually the biggest risk for individuals because you can monitor what’s happening locally more easily. Local plans tend not to change dramatically over time. They’re not allowed to unless a whole due diligence process of local plan creation is going through.

Local policies tend to be relatively static, but national policies change quite quickly, as does legislation, including interpretations of legislation by a court. That could change something overnight.

Alastair Hoyne18:11

The summary of this expanded early section is that planning really matters, and you need to investigate properly before an acquisition, especially if you’re relying on a statement regarding planning as part of a value-add strategy.

Jeremy Hinds18:28

That’s correct. I buy that.

Alastair Hoyne18:28

What can you establish before acquisition to determine whether planning is going to be approved? Our standard model as a lender is that, if they tell us planning is approved, we try to work out which application is available online. Ideally, we ask them to send it, but they don’t always have it, which is a surprise when there should be that link with lots of dashes in it.

Jeremy Hinds18:59

Indeed. There’s a change about to take effect at the end of this month, probably to most people’s advantage: planning applications will, in almost every case, be decided by officers under delegated powers.

Come the end of this month, the likelihood of an application going to planning committee is significantly reduced. It would have to be of major controversy or scale, or both, to go to committee.

That has two implications. One, it enables people to work more closely with an assigned case officer. Get to know that person. If you have to make a planning application, the person you work with is likely to make the actual decision. Understand that the planning officer is the gatekeeper to what you want.

It works both ways. The planning officer can’t say, “This is my judgement, subject to committee,” any more. “This is my judgement,” full stop, is where that is. That benefits both parties.

The second benefit is the pre-application process, often ignored because people see it as an unnecessary expense.

Alastair Hoyne20:31

That’s interesting, Jeremy, because that’s where you can come in and assist anyone buying a property where they believe planning is in place, or considering a strategy requiring planning. They can engage you to assess viability in advance, with a degree of certainty, a bit like whether you’re going to win litigation. Separately, you can follow through with the actual application and write the long proposals.

Jeremy Hinds21:06

That’s right. If we go back to the change to planning delegated decision-making at the end of October and tie that to the pre-application process, there’s a consequence, even if unintended.

The planning officer cannot now say what they normally say at the end of a pre-application letter: something to the effect of, “Subject to decisions by the committee.” The pre-application process will acquire more significance because it ties an officer’s judgement to a scheme you’ve asked about, which you then follow through with an application.

Provided what you ask about and what you follow through with are, for practical purposes, the same thing, what officers said at pre-application stage becomes significantly more important in terms of the weight attached to the likelihood of permission being granted.

Alastair Hoyne22:14

It’s going to be something like, “The guy over there already said yes, so we’ll wait for you to put it through the official bureaucracy.”

Jeremy Hinds22:21

To some extent. From a lender’s point of view, it gives you the ability to say planning risk has been reduced or heightened, depending on the pre-application response, without necessarily requiring the person to obtain full permission before lending. Or it allows you to lend in a more structured way against the prospects of permission being granted. You’ve got more certainty.

Alastair Hoyne22:55

Especially if there’s going to be an uplift from planning being granted.

Jeremy Hinds22:57

Absolutely.

Alastair Hoyne22:57

The way we do it at Finanze Capital at the moment is: if it has planning, great, we can fund it traditionally. But we’ve also tried to create a structure to avoid clients having to make a standard purchase as it is now, then refinance, pay fees all over again and get works funding at that point.

We often create a facility with a longer time horizon and pre-approve funding for the purchase and the works. We’ll get the valuer and QS out. You then get the funds upfront for the purchase loan, and we withhold works funding until we can see planning has been granted.

At that point, we release a portion on day one so you don’t have to self-fund the cash flow, then the rest in arrears. In some light-refurbishment cases, which don’t really require planning unless it’s a listed building, it’s a day-one release. We’re trying to save clients money by having one facility that does both jobs.

The idea that, once the person I’m almost going to call the sheriff says yes, the council potentially only has to go through a paperwork exercise to sign it off properly sounds good. I wish HM Land Registry could do something like that to speed things up as well.

Jeremy Hinds24:23

Indeed.

Alastair Hoyne24:26

How should investors think about planning potential without treating an opinion as a guarantee?

Jeremy Hinds24:32

Planning potential. The way I would look at it is…

Alastair Hoyne24:38

Listen to an estate agent. That’s probably one of the first ones.

Jeremy Hinds24:43

It’s a continuum of risk and reward. For practical purposes, the lower the planning risk, the lower the reward through a conventional development understanding. The higher the planning risk, potentially the higher the reward. That’s why you get cases that hit the press from time to time.

Alastair Hoyne25:08

It’s normally land deals: agricultural farms being turned into plots for ground-up development.

Jeremy Hinds25:11

The other piece travelling along that continuum is time. The greater the planning risk, the longer it will take to see the outcome you hope for and your money returned.

With strategic land allocations, you might see a farmer benefiting by £15 million or £20 million for a good portion of the farm, but it could have taken 15 to 20 years to get there. That’s quite normal.

Alastair Hoyne25:50

I suppose that’s why most farmers sell at agricultural value but put overage agreements in place to get uplift if it gets planning, and buyers use lease or purchase options.

Jeremy Hinds26:05

Absolutely. It’s expensive. The greater the risk, the more expensive it can be. Anyone who reads your book is also going to be a fan of Clarkson’s Farm, I suspect.

Alastair Hoyne26:21

They should. I hope so, if I get mass retail distribution. I watch the show, and I’ve read my book.

Jeremy Hinds26:30

Indeed. I watch the show, and I will read your book. There was an interesting episode, I think in the first series, when Jeremy Clarkson applied for a change of use or to build a farm shop. Gathered around the table reviewing the decision notice and reasons for refusal were a lawyer and a barrister who I know.

The overall appeal cost was estimated at £350,000 to £500,000. That’s probably top end for what was proposed, but it’s not unusual to find those costs if you go down an appeal route by public inquiry. Other types of appeal are available.

If you want the full-blown one, budgeting half a million to a million or one and a half million is not uncommon for a full development advisory team.

Alastair Hoyne27:39

Obviously, you need to ensure the end value offsets those costs.

Jeremy Hinds27:50

Absolutely. It’s value and time. You have to appraise these things carefully. If you’re happy to engage in a process where the local authority says no and you want to challenge it, and the financial returns justify doing so, that’s a legitimate driver.

Planning isn’t a tick-box exercise where, if a local authority says no, the only answer is no. It’s its judgement, and you can challenge that judgement. But be prepared for it to take time and cost money.

Alastair Hoyne28:38

If you lose the appeal, do you cover its costs?

Jeremy Hinds28:43

If you’re acting unreasonably, you would have to cover the local authority’s costs. There’s an increasing move for costs to be recovered in all circumstances by the losing party. At the moment, no, only for unreasonable behaviour.

The rationale is that planning remains a matter of judgement and opinion. You’re allowed to disagree, but not to be unreasonable in disagreeing. If you’re told you can’t have an isolated 10-bedroom property in the Green Belt, in breach of a significant number of Green Belt policies, you would still be unreasonable to pursue it simply because a 10-bedroom house in Surrey’s Green Belt commands a significant value. Your prospects would be so low that you’re forcing the other party to incur costs unreasonably.

Alastair Hoyne29:40

Unless you had Lord or Baron in front of your name and could claim ancestral heritage rights.

Alastair Hoyne29:52

What do investors most commonly underestimate about planning time?

Jeremy Hinds29:59

In terms of how long it takes?

Alastair Hoyne29:59

Yes.

Jeremy Hinds30:03

They underestimate how long it’s going to take. That’s it.

Alastair Hoyne30:03

Even talking about appeals, I know from corporate finance work: the application takes three weeks, gets ignored, then the appeal takes a year.

Jeremy Hinds30:16

Time is money. The reality is that local authorities have lots of time, and they don’t equate time with money.

I’ve got a case I’m doing pretty much pro bono because I was a governor of the school. The application has taken so long that I’ve absorbed the planning risk on its behalf and said, “Go ahead and build it, because we can’t wait another academic year.” The school can only undertake the development at certain points, namely the summer holidays.

The cricket pavilion, costing the school about £6 million, is now up and running, and the planning application is buried somewhere in the local authority’s files. I’m not pushing it for a decision.

Alastair Hoyne31:19

Can you insure against that?

Jeremy Hinds31:24

Against my judgement, or against time?

Alastair Hoyne31:24

That would be PI, of course. I’m wondering more whether you can insure against an application being rejected.

Jeremy Hinds31:34

You can. People get insurance against that and certain types of objections as well. You can buy land and attach restrictive covenants so that people who subsequently purchase it can’t object to proposals on adjoining parcels, for example. There are ways to reduce risks in that sense, but forcing an outcome from the planning authority is very difficult.

Alastair Hoyne32:05

We don’t have super PACs as in America, where they can lobby the government to make changes. Maybe if you’re a crypto billionaire, it’s no problem getting that underground car park approved.

Jeremy Hinds32:17

You can take your own risk. Would you be found out?

There are planning performance agreements, PPAs for short, where you enter into what is effectively a contract with the local authority to make a decision in an agreed timescale. It has to do certain things by agreed dates, and so do you. There are means of going around it, but they’re difficult, expensive and require legal and professional input, so people tend to shy away.

Alastair Hoyne32:57

This is really interesting. I could talk to you forever, as we normally do. If you want to meet Jeremy in person, ideally having engaged him as a consultant, and want to meet me to talk about lending, we can have drinks together in Manchester sometime. Alcoholic or non-alcoholic, depending on preference.

Jeremy Hinds33:12

Preferably alcoholic.

Alastair Hoyne33:18

What types of projects benefit most from engaging a planning consultant such as yourself early on?

Jeremy Hinds33:27

Can I answer that in reverse? Nearly every project, and I can’t think of one that wouldn’t, requires an architect at some point. I would ask: is it a project where the architect feels they need the second voice of a planning consultant?

Alastair Hoyne33:53

Architects aren’t often planning consultants. They can draw something magical, but it doesn’t mean it can be built.

Jeremy Hinds33:57

Correct.

Alastair Hoyne34:02

Like George Lucas’s new museum.

Jeremy Hinds34:02

Absolutely. That is genuinely a starship on legs. If your architect feels slightly uncomfortable, I would spend the extra money on a consultant.

An architect will be versed in local policies and most dealings with the local authority at a certain scale. I wouldn’t dismiss that expertise. But when the architect goes beyond their boundary and says, “I don’t know whether this has merit in terms of a listed building impact, a conservation area impact, or whether the building’s height exceeds what’s been granted elsewhere,” I would go straight to the local authority for an opinion. Then think carefully about whether you want a consultant.

Alastair Hoyne35:12

Engaging an architect, especially a high-end one, to draw plans is expensive. There’s an argument for knowing what can be done before having the drawings done.

Jeremy Hinds35:25

If you’re going with a high-end architect, you’re likely to get a unique or different building that might not marry with what’s around it.

Alastair Hoyne35:38

Like I. M. Pei in Singapore.

Jeremy Hinds35:38

In those instances, you ought to have a second opinion from a planning consultant. If you buy a plot and repeat the three-storey Victorian town housing around it, you’re already in a low planning-risk environment. That really shouldn’t require a planning consultant.

But if, on the same plot, you put an avant-garde building that clashes with its surroundings, first you’ll generate local objections; secondly, you’re raising its profile. I’d go for consultants in those instances.

Alastair Hoyne36:29

It’s also the scale of the project. Ground-up development where planning is needed is almost a given, as is a significant commercial conversion. Moving a few internal walls might not warrant a consultant, unless it’s a central London property already worth £15 million and moving the walls changes the value a lot. It’s the quantum of uplift and risk of reset if necessary.

Jeremy Hinds37:00

Internal works don’t normally require planning permission, so you’d be fine.

Alastair Hoyne37:10

I think that normally applies only to structural, load-bearing changes?

Jeremy Hinds37:15

That’s an engineering issue rather than a planning issue. If the building collapses, you’re in a different realm.

Listed buildings are different. Works to a listed building without the benefit of listed building consent risk causing a criminal offence. I said earlier that development without planning consent isn’t criminal; there are exceptions, and listed buildings are one of the biggest.

There’s a long casework history of people assuming what they propose wouldn’t require permission, then not realising they need listed building consent. It’s a completely different regime, sitting alongside planning with its own statutory basis.

Alastair Hoyne38:08

We’ve primarily talked about buildings, but sometimes you can’t even cut down trees without permission. You can’t exactly put it back. Ordering a fully mature tree to replace it would be expensive.

Jeremy Hinds38:16

Don’t underestimate it. The Sycamore Gap tree, which everybody knows, wasn’t protected. It didn’t need a tree preservation order because there was no threat, so no justification for issuing a TPO.

What people ignore to their peril is a regime protecting every tree in the land, under the Forestry Commission. If you fell a tree without consent, you’re liable to prosecution, as were the two men in the Sycamore Gap case.

The replacement cost was estimated on its amenity value. The courts held that wasn’t the £600,000 claimed by the Forestry Commission, but £400,000 through slight arbitration. Don’t ignore a tree’s potential value or fell it thinking you can do so with impunity, because you probably won’t be able to.

Jeremy Hinds39:44

There are exceptions.

Alastair Hoyne39:44

When roots go under and cause subsidence and things like that?

Jeremy Hinds39:48

If you can demonstrate that. Also, if the tree’s in your own garden, there’s very little anybody can do to stop you, because it’s in your garden.

Alastair Hoyne39:56

There’s even the rule that, if you cut branches overhanging your hedge, you have to throw them back to your neighbour.

Jeremy Hinds40:04

You do have to do that. People also wrongly assume that, if they have planning permission to build something, and there are trees within the red-line area, the permission authorises felling them. It only does so if the trees are specified as trees to be felled on the plan.

If you show trees retained, or forget to mark them, it’s assumed they’ll be retained. Felling trees as part of a permission carries risk if you haven’t identified them as trees to be felled. Always bear that in mind.

Alastair Hoyne40:39

Especially if you need to drive through them to get to the site.

Jeremy Hinds40:46

Exactly. People overlook it.

Alastair Hoyne40:46

Jeremy, brilliant. We’ve talked about a lot, and it’s been really interesting. We’ve gone beyond the original subjects. Is there anything you specifically want to say to the audience? Assuming anyone watches this, of course. If you are watching, thank you. I really appreciate it.

Jeremy Hinds41:07

Be aware of the conditions on a planning permission. Read them carefully. Be attuned to what the permission grants consent for. What’s the description of development? If it grants permission for five flats, that doesn’t mean 10.

Look at what you’ve got permission for, and what the conditions say. Read that document with due care. That’s what I would emphasise.

Alastair Hoyne41:37

Jeremy, thank you. The takeaway for me is that planning makes the deal work in many cases, especially where it’s an uplift opportunity. It needs to be part of an acquisition decision.

If you already own a property and are thinking of doing something with significant uplift in value, talk to someone like Jeremy to see whether it’s likely to be approved before spending too much time or money.

Potential is valuable, but only when we’re clear about what is evidenced, what is judgement and what remains uncertain. That’s the concept I discuss in the Framework when we talk about risk, and a perfect subject for this Property Escalator episode.

I look forward to seeing you in person in a couple of weeks. I’m grateful for you coming on and talking to everyone who isn’t quite here yet, but hopefully will watch it.