Law – BRUCE AND HOLLY

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Your First Job: Key Tips for Young Job Seekers

August 2, 2026 bruceandholly

Aurora Department Store building with large glass windows and people walking outside — Shoppers enter and exit the illuminated Aurora Department Store during evening hours

With more than a million young people in the UK not in employment, education or training (NEETS), getting your first paid job has never been more difficult. But hasn’t getting your first permanent paid job always been difficult? When you have nothing to offer but a few paper qualifications and your enthusiasm? Yes – but it’s never been as difficult is it is today. We start by explaining the reasons for this sad state of affairs before looking at what you can do about it. Here are the reasons:

The modern trend of referring to our 16 and 17-year-olds as ‘children’ to be mollycoddled. Mixing them in with 11-year-olds. Banning under 16s from social media instead of making them streetwise. And then wondering why they act stupid. I was 14 years old when I bought my first packet of Players No 6 from a cigarette machine in a fish and chip shop. Just to look ‘big’. But it never did me any harm and I gave up smoking 5 years later. In other cultures it is different. Elsewhere in the world young people are not held back. They are encouraged to ‘grow up’, take on the family responsibilities and contribute. Maybe we can learn something.
Language illiteracy. The fact that learning foreign languages is not prioritized in the UK. Instead we expect everyone else in the world to accommodate us. The one thing I remember about learning French at secondary school was that I never actually met anyone who was French. In fact you were more likely to be taught by the woodwork teacher. Has anything improved since? I don’t think so.
The regulating away of the Saturday job. Forget paper rounds. No one gets their papers delivered anymore. It was the Saturday job which for many young people provided the gateway to paid employment. Unpaid work experience or internship is no substitute for a wage packet. The fact is that there are now many administrative hurdles for any business thinking about taking on a Saturday worker. If a person is under the age of 16, application has to be made to the local authority for a child employment permit, otherwise employers and public liability insurance might be invalidated. Young people require supervision at the till if they are serving restricted items like alcohol or cigarettes or lottery tickets. For most employers it is just not worth a hassle. Recruiting a Saturday person now requires more than just a 20-minute interview and a gut feeling
When you apply for your first ‘proper’ job, you are asking a prospective employer to take a ‘punt’. Because you have nothing to offer but a few paper qualifications and your enthusiasm. But the stakes for a prospective employer are much higher when everyone has day-one ‘rights’.

So what can you do to improve your prospects of getting that first job? Here are some tips:

To apply for a job vacancy, you first have to know about it. So you register with agencies. Look around to see what his advertised. Speak to people. But don’t get scammed, If someone asked you to send payment up front or to provide your bank details, you know it is a scam. Or if it is just too good to be true? Like becoming a crypto millionaire.
Don’t use AI to write your CV. Chances are it will filch from someone else’s CV. And you want a prospective employer to know about you and not your computer. So it’s got to be original and interesting and packed with examples which only you can talk about. Even using AI to check your spelling or grammar can be dangerous as it will default to American English. So maybe best to refer to an old-fashioned dictionary.
The likability factor. No one is going to offer you a job unless they like you. And first impressions count. So you throw away that hoodie and cover up those tattoos. Take a genuine interest in the job which is offered and find out as much as you can about it in advance so that you have something to talk about if you are called for interview. Buy a copy of Dale Carnegie’s ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’ and read it. Likability can be learned. It’s the basic stuff like taking an interest in people and the world around you; taking the trouble to remember somebody’s name; treating everyone you deal with as ‘important’, even if they are sweeping the streets. Not breaking eye contact to look at your mobile phone.
Be presentable. The good news is that it is not expensive to look smart. So go to Primark or order off Amazon. Nobody is going to look at the label.
Think about learning another language. Because it will give you work-mobility. If you can speak some of the biggest languages, you can work anywhere in the world. Yes I know it’s difficult. Even though there are excellent programs like Duolingo. Problem is, it’s a solo activity. Everything is online. When you really need someone to practice with.
Polish up your communication skills both written and face to face. Remember that most of our communication is non-verbal. Hence the importance of eye contact. Don’t – don’t – don’t look at your phone when you are being interviewed. Switch it off and keep it in your pocket. Even if you don’t like football or cricket, at least listen to the sports news, because you need it for the ‘small talk’. Talking about sport is not going to upset anyone. One of the best ways to improve communication skills is practice. So join your local Toastmasters Club.

In the final part of this post, I’m going to introduce you to the world’s most exciting profession. Here it is

Law

The Dangers of Relying on AI for Legal Cases

May 30, 2026May 30, 2026 bruceandholly

Using AI is like taking legal advice from a man in a pub. You might come away with some good tips. Though you wouldn’t want to trust his advice without first checking it out. Particularly if you are preparing a case for trial. But so many lawyers seem to do just that. Particularly those still at the learning end. They’re the ones getting caught out. But it is usually their employer who gets the grief.

Think of AI as an advanced search engine. It does more than simply searching out internet content and presenting it to you as a series of links. It goes further by mashing up that content and then reconstituting it as its own work. So is it surprising that AI sometimes gets it wrong? And there’s another thing. Everything downloadable from the internet is somebody else’s intellectual property. So when you are reusing that mashed up content and passing it off as your own work, you are opening yourself up to a damages claim.

Don’t get me wrong. I sometimes use AI myself. But only a starting point. I might ask it to list out some cases relevant to the matter with which I am dealing. I will then go on to the BAILII website and search out those cases and download the PDFs. But sometimes my AI has responded with an answer which I know is wrong. So I will always defer to my own professional judgment. Because that’s what I’m paid to do. And yes – I can always sense when something has been written by AI.

housing, Law, Uncategorized

I’ve received a section 21 eviction notice from my landlord. What can I do?

April 25, 2026April 25, 2026 bruceandholly

Photo by Luis Medina Diseu00f1o on Pexels.com

If you occupy your home under an assured shorthold tenancy, you may be amongst the thousands of people who have received from your landlord a section 21 eviction notice before the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 takes effect on 1st May 2026. On that day the law changes. Tenants who previously could have been evicted on as little as 2 months notice will then have lifetime security of tenure. Landlords will only be able to evict a tenant if they can prove to a judge that they have legitimate grounds to do so. What this means is that many buy-to-let landlords are trying to get out of the market before the law changes on that date. So what do you need to do if you are a tenant who has received a section 21 eviction notice?

Sit tight. At least for the time being. A landlord who evicts you, still has to go through the process of getting a possession order through the courts, even though there is currently an accelerated process for doing this. And even after a court order has been obtained, the only way which a landlord can forcibly evict a tenant is by engaging the services of a bailiff, which itself can take months.
if you have received a section 21 notice but your landlord has not issued court proceedings against you before a 1st August 2026 cut off date, the Section 21 notice will lapse and the landlord will have to start the whole process again. Only this time round, you will be a sitting tenant. It means that the only way your landlord will be able to evict you is if they can convince a County Court judge that they have legitimate grounds for ending your tenancy. A process which could take up to a year, given the current delays to the court system in the UK.
If you have children living with you, or are pregnant, or are old or have a serious health condition, your local housing authority may have a duty to ensure that you are not left out on the street. In other words, homeless legislation regards you as someone having a ‘priority need’ for rehousing. So don’t forget to get in touch with your local council as soon as possible.

Law, real estate, Uncategorized

Renters’ Rights Act 2025 – What it means for local authorities.

April 3, 2026 bruceandholly

The Renters’ Rights Act 2025 goes beyond the abolition of assured shortholds and section 21 no-fault evictions. It also introduces a raft of measures intended to re-balance the legal relationship between residential landlords and their tenants at a time of housing crisis.

Standing behind these reforms are the districts and unitaries which will have the difficult job of policing the new legislation.

Indeed, the reason why new investigatory powers were brought into effect on 27th December 2025 was to give those councils a four-month head start to get their enforcement policies in place before the grand launch of the new legislation on 1st May 2026. Other key structural changes introduced by the 2025 Act, include:

The abolition of fixed term residential tenancies, which means that tenants can vacate on giving as little as 2 months prior written notice to the landlord;
Increased regulation of tenancy documentation;
An obligation on landlords and letting agents to quote a fixed rent when marketing a proposed residential letting and not being allowed to accept anything more than the quoted rent;
Increased restrictions on the amount of money which landlord can ask by way of advance rent;
A 12 months moratorium on re-letting, in circumstances where a landlord relies on one of the new non-fault grounds to recover possession in circumstances where they intend to sell the property or occupy for their own purposes.
A prohibition on discriminating against prospective tenants who either have children or are on benefits. Whilst this does not prevent a landlord from carrying out a financial assessment on a prospective tenant, state benefits must not be treated less favourably than other private income.
It is also made illegal for a landlord to ‘bluff’ a tenant into vacating by pretending to rely on a ground for possession which they cannot substantiate

Just to complicate things further, the 1st May 2026 launch will not apply to all residential lettings. Only those in the private rented sector. Social lettings will for the time being continue to be governed by the existing regime until the reforms are extended to social landlords later in 2026. It means that for the time being there will be two separate tenancy regimes running side by side.

The cost of getting it wrong

For private landlords and letting agents who get it wrong, there will be no second chances. There will be no warning letters. Only financial penalties. Nor is the new enforcement regime intended to be complaints-led.

Government guidance asks local authorities to be proactive in the enforcement of the new tenancy legislation and make full use of the investigatory powers and financial penalties which are made available to them. Local authorities will be incentivised to do this by being able to keep and recycle financial penalties into more enforcement.

Within the legislation there are at least three separate financial penalty regimes and a maximum range of penalties from £4,000 up to £40,000 depending on the nature and seriousness of the breach. The government also encourages councils to use financial penalties in preference to prosecution where it is possible to do so. Some circumstances giving rise to financial penalties require proof on a balance of probabilities whilst the most serious require proof beyond reasonable doubt. In each case, the process is the same.

The council will investigate and issue notice to the landlord or letting agent proposing a penalty of a certain amount and giving an opportunity for representations to be made. On the expiration of the period for representations, the council will serve notice of its decision. The landlord will then have a right of appeal to a first-tier tribunal until the order becomes final.

New investigatory powers already in force enable councils to ask questions, enter business premises and seize documents.

Will the new legislation work?

The Renters Rights Act 2025 does not exist in isolation. Its success is dependent on a courts and tribunal system which actually works. The abolition of the accelerated possession procedure now means that all possession claims will have to go to a court hearing, where the landlord will need to prove its case. Taking account of the time needed to get to a possession hearing followed by a bailiff eviction, that eviction process could take up to a year. Add to that the longer lead-in times introduced by the 2025 Act for all grounds of possession, save those based on antisocial behaviour.

It also means more work for first tier tribunals, who will be tasked with adjudicating appeals against fixed penalties. And of course it means more work for local housing authorities tasked with enforcing the new regime. This workload could increase in 2027 when the government introduces its expected landlord registration scheme, which councils will also be required to police. By 2035, the government is also expected to have introduced its Decent Homes Standard for all residential lettings.

How will it affect the Lettings Market?

The speed at which the legislation is being introduced and the fact that it applies retrospectively, means that many private landlords may not even have a chance to get out of the market. Any landlord who has not served their section 21 notice before 1st May 2026 and issued possession proceedings by the cut off date of 31st July 2026, will be caught by the new regime. We could also see a growing professionalisation of the residential lettings market, as small residential landlords drop out and are replaced by larger professional landlords who are better able to navigate the new legislation. It could also provide opportunities for social landlords to replenish their housing stock as more ex-rental properties come onto the market.

We could also see the re-emergence of avoidance schemes, such as company lets. Or private landlords choosing to lease their properties through intermediaries, such as local authorities or housing associations, who can then shoulder those landlord responsibilities and guarantee a return of vacant possession at the end of the lease. End

First Published in Local Government Lawyer – March 2026

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V. Charles Ward Is a senior property lawyer with HB Public Law and the author of Housing Regeneration: a plan for implementation. He is also the author of The Renters’ Rights Act: a practical guide, which is being published through Taylor and Francis and will be released later this year

business, housing, Law, London, real estate, society

A Landlord who fails to do this could be fined up to £7,000

March 28, 2026 bruceandholly

Once the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 takes effect on the 1st May 2026, private residential landlords in England will have only 1 month to get tenancies correctly documented or face fines of up to £7,000. This means serving existing tenants with a tenant information sheet explaining their new rights under the 2025 Act. These new rights can include lifetime security of tenure, protection against unfair rent increases, the ability to vacate on as little as 2 months prior written notice, and the outlawing of discrimination against tenants who are on welfare or who have children living with them. For landlords who get it wrong, there may be no second chances. Just a financial penalty.

For new tenancies, or those which were previously undocumented, landlords must issue tenants (as well as prospective tenants) with a written statement of terms containing all the information required by the Assured Tenancies (Private Rented Sector) (Written Satement of Terms etc and Information Sheet) (England) Regulations 2026. The content of that written statement of terms must conform exactly to the requirements of the schedule to the 2026 Regulations. That statement can either be standalone or incorporated in a formal tenancy agreement. The Information Sheet to be served on existing tenants must be downloaded as a PDF and must be issued to tenants either as hard copy or by email but exactly in the prescribed format. To help landlords with this, the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government has issued guidance published 20th March 2026 titled, ‘The Renters’s Rights Act Information Sheet 2026: The information sheet about the Renters’ Rights Act 2025 that landlords and their agents must give to tenants’.

Whilst there is no prescribed template for the statement of terms, it is important that particular care is taken to include within these statements of terms any legitimate non-fault grounds of possession to which the tenancy may be subject. Landlords who fail to do this may later have difficulty in recovering possession even when they might otherwise have had legitimate grounds to do so.

The MHCLG Guidance includes the following advice:

the information sheet does not have to be given to lodgers but must be given to every tenant named on the tenancy agreement
the tenant information sheet is only valid when downloaded from the Government website;
the information sheet must be given to tenants either by printing a hard copy and posting or hand delivering to tenants or alternatively sending a PDF electronically as an attachment to an email or text message where it is appropriate to do so. However it is not sufficient just to email or text a link to a tenant;
the legislation does not require landlords to change or reissue an existing written tenancy agreement;
where a tenancy was informally entered into before 1st May 2026 without a written agreement, the landlord must provide a statements of tenancy terms (see above);
Social landlords do not need to provide this information sheet.