A peaceful English countryside village nestled among rolling green hills and wildflowers
I don’t get sunburned anymore. Years back, my skin would have turned red and I would feel as if I had been chucked into a sack of stinging nettles. And just by sitting outside in the sun for a couple of hours. Then after a few days my skin will begin to itch and flake. Not anymore, I have adjusted to the UK’s sunnier climate. And I certainly don’t miss the freezing cold winters of yesteryear. And I can’t remember the last time I put on sun cream. How can it be good to smother ourselves in chemicals? But don’t get me wrong.
I am sensible in what I wear. So it is only my face and arms which are exposed. And I have also taken to wearing a baseball cap. Not a silly one. And I don’t pull it down over my nose like Donald Trump. Instead it is perched on the back of my head and maybe cocked slightly to an angle. How cool is that?
If I want a good night’s sleep, I will put a large fan at the end of my bed. Even the sound of it is relaxing. And it uses only a tenth of the energy of a portable air conditioning system. So I’m also saving the planet.
A rainwater collection barrel gathers water from the roof during rainfall
I also believe in self-sufficiency. Which is why I have installed a rainwater collection system. Not like the one in the picture. Mine is freestanding. Just a green plastic tank with a few holes punched in the top.I bought it a couple of months back and we still haven’t had a drop of rain.
The historic Merchant Taylors’ Hall building in London viewed from the street
Yesterday I had a lovely evening at a summer party at Merchant Taylors’ Hall courtesy of the barristers at Francis Taylor Building. The weather and the vibes couldn’t have been better.
I walked through the open doors the building, not knowing a soul. When I went to collect my name badge i asked if I could glance through the attendance list, all 10 pages of it, just to see if there were any names I recognized. I noticed some firms, including Avison Young, with whom we do business. But my aging eyesight meant that the name badges attendees wore on their lapels were of little use to me. At least not without invading their personal space. But having taken my drink, it only took me about 15 minutes to find somebody I did know. A barrister with whom I had worked many years ago on a couple of planning inquiries and whom I had met a few weeks earlier at another conference organised by the Ecclesiastical Law Society and who introduced me to a retired judge-turned-mediator – who in turn introduced me to other guests including a lady member of the City Corporation with whom we spoke about Smithfield Market. Later on someone shouted out my name, even though I couldn’t remember who they were. But it was someone I used to work with and we quickly got talking and he introduced me to other lawyer acquaintances. So what do I take from all this?
Never refuse an invitation because you are worried that you might not know anyone else who is attending. Because that is what networking is about. And as my late mother once said, “If you refuse an invitation, you might never be invited again”. So be gracious. Always accept courtesy when it is offered.
A very long time ago I attended a free networking course at the Law Society Legal Services Exhibition at Olympia. I went along with Allison, a former work colleague. The course was free because it was promotional. But that didn’t matter. Because I took away a lot. And I bought the book. Like me, the course promoter, was a big fan of the late Dale Carnegie and his book, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”. So what are my networking tips:
Get in the habit of accepting invitations when they are offered. If you are not there you can’t network.
Take a genuine interest in the people and the world around you so that you have something to talk about. That is always an issue for me because in our house, sport is always a ‘turn-off’.
If you don’t get to speak to anybody it doesn’t matter. Just enjoy the vibe. Say hello to the catering staff.
Remember that you’re not trying to sell anything. Only yourself.
Take the trouble to remember someone’s name. Just in case you meet them again.
Stick to the small talk. You’re not trying to make a point. And never criticize or complain.
Don’t hand out business cards unless somebody specifically asks for one.
Don’t try to work the room. Shaking hands with everyone is not going to get you anywhere.
Be sensitive to body language. All conversations have a natural end. You will know when it’s time to move on.
An issue which president-elect Andy Burnham is going to have to grapple with is fixing Britain’s housing crisis. I’m sorry Andy but it’s not as simple as imposing rent controls. That is not the answer. It is the old issue of supply and demand. But supposing there is a way of increasing that supply by half a million homes overnight? It’s not going to solve Britain’s housing crisis. But it will certainly make a difference. I’ll show you how it can be done.
There are already around half a million homes standing empty in the UK which could help ease Britain’s housing crisis if only they could be brought back into beneficial use and occupation. I’m not talking about those properties standing empty because they are going through probate or which are on the market but have yet to find a buyer. No – I’m talking about those properties which are long-term empty and with no realistic prospective of ever being brought back into beneficial use and occupation. Many of those properties have been empty for so long that they are no longer fit for human habitation without expensive capital works to put them back into repair. So what can be done?
Statutory powers already exist to enable councils to take over long-term empty properties and bring them back into beneficial occupation and use. These include the empty dwelling management orders (EDMOs) introduced by the Brown government and contained in the Housing Act 2004 as well as the powers which Local Housing Authorities have under Section 17 of the Housing Act 1985 to compulsory acquire empty properties to bring them back into use. So how many EDMOs have actually been made in the past 20 years? Take a guess!
229
Yes really! I don’t have any figures for single property CPOs. But I’m guessing that it ain’t many. The problem is that these procedures are cumbersome and expensive to be of any practical use by local authorities. At a guess I would say it would cost between £10K and £50K to cover the investigatory and legal processes as well as additional costs of making the property fit for occupation. And the council don’t even own the property. CPO is even more expensive with the prospective cost of fighting a public inquiry if the owner objects. So budget for at least £50,000. And that doesn’t even include the cost of acquiring the property together with the additional owner-entitlements including statutory basic loss and disturbance payments. We need something simpler. Something that does not require massive upfront investment on the part of the local authority before they can even take control of the property and bring it up the standard. What we need is a simple power of sale, which enables a local housing authority to take possession of an empty property and put it on the market. Such powers already enable housing authorities to force the sale of an empty property to pay for a council tax debt or any environmental costs which can be charged against the property. But that can only work if there is an outstanding debt. All that the owner has to do is to pay off that debt to make the threat of repossession fall away. What is needed instead is a general ‘power of sale’, which would enable the local authority to take over the property and put it into auction. If capital works are required to make the property habitable, the terms of sale will need to ensure that the incoming purchaser is under an obligation to carry out works to bring the property back into beneficial occupation and use. As an added bonus, there will be no cost to the public purse, as the scheme will be entirely self-financing, with all administrative and legal fees being taken out of the proceeds of sale. Is it really that simple? Doesn’t there also have to be a process? Here is what I propose.
Where it becomes apparent that a property has fallen long-term empty without any realistic prospect of it being brought into beneficial occupation or use without local authority intervention, notice should be served on the registered or reputed owner of the property giving them an opportunity to explain why the property is empty and their proposals to bring it back into beneficial occupational and use. Having considered any owner-response, the local authority will then decide whether to issue a legal document giving itself a statutory power of sale against which the owner will have a 21-day opportunity to appeal to a magistrate’s court. Once the power of sale is confirmed, the authority can then immediately re-secure the property and put it in for auction. If major capital works are required to put the property into a habitable condition, this will have to be made clear in the sale-conditions and responsibility placed on the contract purchaser to put the property back into repair and bring it into beneficial occupation and use. The local authority will then handle the sale and the balance of the sale proceeds, after redemption of any prior mortgage and having taken out the cost of the process, will be placed into a separate deposit account to the credit of the former owner. Do you think it would work? Let’s at least give it a try.
Britain’s quarter million shared ownership leaseholders may be feeling that that little bit more secure with the coming into force of the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 on 1st May 2026. The same with apply to any other leaseholder whose annual ground rent had escalated to more than £1,000 in Greater London or £250 elsewhere. Before the changes took effect, any of those leaseholders could have been thrown out of their properties if they fell behind in their rent by as little as 2 months. This was because annual ground rents above the £250 [£1,000] threshold were technically classed as assured tenancies under the Housing Act 1988, which meant that a ground landlord could end the tenancy on grounds of rent arrears by serving notice under Section 8 of the Housing Act 1988 instead of going through a long-winded forfeiture process.Shared ownership leases which had not staircased to 100% were always caught within this trap because the rental element would always exceed the assured tenancy thresholds.
The change does not mean that shared ownership leaseholders or for that matter any other leaseholder cannot be evicted for rent arrears. It just means that the ground landlord has to go through the full forfeiture process which applies to all residential leases and which will always give a tenant relief against forfeiture if they can make up the rental shortfall and reimburse associated legal fees. What the Renters’ Rights Act did was to take any fixed term residential lease for more than 7 years outside the assured tenancy regime.
Shared ownership means that the residential leaseholder does not own their property outright until they have staircased to 100% but instead owns only their share in the property and pays a social rent on the remainder. The purpose of shared ownership is to enable anyone who cannot afford to buy outright, a means of getting on the housing ladder.
BRUCE AND HOLLY 