City Lofts Group, the holding company of City Lofts Developments (CLD), has been put into administration.

City Lofts Group was formed in 1996 and focused its developments on inner city living especially within northern cities. Over the last year many cities, especially those in the north-west, have suffered from an oversupply of inner city apartments with further developments still to come on to the market. Developers who were once able to sell many of their apartments off-plan have recently been faced with an increasing number of unsold apartments on their books. These developers have found their core market of first time buyers being unable to enter the property market and buy-to-let investors steering clear of the large number of unlet apartments.

Recently CLD had put 250 of its unsold properties into receivership and in a statement said ‘This is part of a restructuring process which City Lofts has been pursuing in light of the extremely difficult market condition’.

The British Property Federation (BPF) believes that Government reforms could go some way to alleviating the current crisis facing developers. Andrew Teacher, spokesman for the BPF, told PIN: “It is indicative of the current financial climate and it could well be a while before development resumes. The Government is staunchly sticking to its 3 million house building target, but needs to accept that affordability is driven by a person’s income, not by the volume of properties built. The BPF has set out a raft of measures which could help the situation. These include reforms to planning and to the way stamp duty is charged and do not require any new legislation.”