Flower power: Covid restrictions fuel boom in plant and bulb sales

Sales of medicinal plants such as echinacea have risen by almost 3,000% at some outlets

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As winter approaches, the pandemic continues and spending time outdoors seems less appealing, how can you still get your fix of nature? By bringing the outdoors inside, or at least that’s what soaring plant sales seem to suggest.

Latest figures show there has been a huge increase in the number of people buying plants and bulbs during lockdown, and medicinal plants have proven particularly popular.

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Inside four of the ‘spookiest’ homes for sale this Halloween

Don't be scared...

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'Nightmare' of businesswoman accused of mortgage fraud

Santander accused a designer of supplying forged documents – but refused to explain its actions

A businesswoman who found herself placed on the National Fraud Database after she applied to Santander for a mortgage, says she went through a “nightmare” after the bank refused to admit it had made a mistake.

When Claire Foster* from Hertfordshire applied for a buy-to-let loan, staff reviewing her application placed a note on the database of the fraud prevention service Cifas warning that she had attempted a fraud.

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Can you make an offer on a house that is under offer? Nottingham Estate Agents

One of the questions most frequently asked by house-hunters is: what is the difference between ‘under offer’ and ‘sold subject to contract’? They have seen both terms applied to properties and assume, reasonably enough, that they must mean different things. In fact, and confusingly, they mean pretty much the same thing. It just depends which […]

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One in eight UK renters unable to meet housing costs in full, says report

Action needed to help tenants in second wave, says Resolution Foundation

• UK house price boom will collapse once buyers lose their jobs
• UK house prices jump but slowdown is likely, says Nationwide
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Almost one in eight private renters are unable to meet their housing costs in full, according to a report warning that urgent steps are needed to protect households during the second wave of Covid-19.

The Resolution Foundation said private and social renters are bearing the brunt of redundancies during the Covid recession and are more likely to have fallen behind with their housing costs than mortgagers.

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UK house price boom will collapse once buyers lose their jobs

Pent-up demand in the Covid lockdown and the stamp-duty cut kept the property market hot, but a chill is on its way

Bars are closing. Restaurants are seeing bookings cancelled. Retailers are worried about the impact of tightened Covid-19 restrictions on their businesses in the run-up to the crucial period. Everywhere there are signs of an economy rapidly losing momentum after its summer growth spurt.

Everywhere apart from the housing market. There demand is booming, with the Bank of England reporting that mortgage approvals in September were the highest since 2007, the year the last crisis started.

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Plant inspectors and rising prices: UK garden industry set for Brexit shock

Nurseries say doubling up of regulations will mean a rise in costs and EU suppliers going elsewhere

The UK’s love of horticulture has grown during the coronavirus pandemic, but avid gardeners are being warned of a Brexit shock, with rising prices, potential plant shortages and even the need for plant inspectors at nurseries.

Every year 55,000 trucks loaded with plants arrive in the UK from the Netherlands alone. Each individual pot or hessian root wrap bears an EU “plant passport”, which allows frictionless cross border trade.

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