Information

Britain’s biggest mortgage lender has predicted a cooling in Britain’s house price boom after reporting a fall in the annual rate of property inflation. The Halifax said prices rose by 0.4% in July, the first month since buyers in England and Northern Ireland had to contend with a less generous stamp duty holiday. However, the …

KPMG has been fined a near-record £13m and severely reprimanded by an independent tribunal for misconduct, in a long-running case relating to the sale of the bedmaker Silentnight to a private equity group in 2011. The tribunal determined that one of KPMG’s partners helped push Silentnight, which was a client of the blue chip accounting …

A 13-bedroom Victorian mansion perched on a private island in the River Thames that was built for Gilbert and Sullivan opera impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte has been sold to a mystery British buyer for just over £3m. D’Oyly Carte Island, which was known as Folly Eyot until D’Oyly Carte bought it in 1890, has long …

I ordered a Flymo mower online from Homebase. It was available and would be delivered to my local store in four days for a £6 payment. Nine days later, having heard nothing, I emailed customer services and received an automated response saying my query was in a queue. Three days on, I emailed again and, …

One coping mechanism that many of us adopted during the pandemic was to buy things, including takeaways, games consoles, clothes and other morale-boosting treats and entertainments. But now lockdown restrictions have eased for many, is this sort of spending a habit that you’d like to end? We would like to hear from readers about their …