Category: Law

Brexit, business, culture, history, Law, politics, society

Erasing 1000 Years of History

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Erasing 1000 years of history

One of the things I’ve noticed in the past couple of years is the appearance of cans of Carlsberg; Guinness and some other beers and lagers, which have been repackaged in larger pint-sized containers.  So when you pour it out, it will reach the top of your glass.  Just as if you were buying it draught.

What makes it legal in the UK to sell beer in pint-size cans is the fact that the 568ml equivalent is also displayed on the can.  Just as a McDonalds quarter pounder doesn’t define its weight but is a trademark.  A McDonalds quarter pounder’s actual legal weight in the UK is a minimum of 113.4 grammes uncooked.  But for me, it will always be quarter pounder.

So why is it that when I buy a 454 gramme jar of strawberry jam, I am not allowed to call it a pound of jam?  It is never labelled as such, even though for all practical purposes, 454 grammes is a pound of jam  The welcome exception is MacKay’s 12-ounce (340 gramme) jars of jam and marmalade, which are labelled in this way.  So why can’t other manufacturers label in the same way?  Selling items in imperial units is not illegal provided that you label the stuff correctly.

The fact Is, that pint cans have never been part of the British tradition because, before metrication, off-sales of beer were in brown pint or quart bottles.  The only notable canned beer which existed before metrication was the Watney’s Party 7 (and the smaller Party 4), which was sold in large cans which you could never open.  And when you did manage to pierce the heavy-duty aluminium, the gaseous contents sprayed everywhere.  From the 1970s onwards, most canned beers were sold in the horrible 440ml size, which doesn’t appear to convert to anything and which continues to be the standard size for most canned beers sold in the UK.  Why 440 ml?

Currently, it is only the British Weights and Measures Association (which appears closely aligned to Brexit and Farage’s Reform Party) which is fighting to preserve use of imperial units and which is fighting a rearguard action against mandated metrication.  But you don’t have to be an ardent Brexiteer or Faragist to regret the erasure of 1000 years of history.  And there is nothing anti-Europe about wanting to preserve our industrial heritage.  And the problem with rearguard actions is that they always fail, unless they buy time for something else to intervene.

Where imperial measurements still reign supreme, are in those parts of the world economy which have been traditionally dominated by the United States.  And no mandated-metrication is ever going to change that. Which is why we buy 15-inch pizzas and eat 15-ounce steaks.  Why we buy our McDonalds Quarter Pounders.  Why we fly at 30,000 feet.  Why heavyweight boxers still weigh themselves in pounds.  And why you might buy a 56-inch TV for your living room.

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

Kings Speech 2024 – What it means for conveyancers and other property professionals.

bruceandholly
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King’s Speech 2024 – what it means for conveyancers and other property professionals.

We are not talking about the big-ticket stuff – like House of Lords reform.  Instead, we are focusing on the small-print in the Starmer agenda.  The things which are likely to affect our day-to-day work.  We also mention things which we would have expected to see mentioned in the King’s Speech, on which there has so far been silence.  Here are the things which interest us.

A Planning and Infrastructure Bill

This is exciting.  For too long, the ‘no’ lobby has been in the ascendancy.  And all at a time of housing crisis. Planning has become two politicised.  Planning pre-conditions have become long shopping lists, within a process which has become like treacle.  Even so, the government’s announced proposals for reforming the planning system are modest: with the restoration of house-building targets and the reclassification of some parts of the green belt.  When what is really required is a speeding up of the whole planning process.  Which shouldn’t be problematic for a self-financing public service.  We’re sure many developers would be willing to pay a little bit extra by way of planning-fees, to pay for the additional staff needed to get their applications through the system.  And if it is blocked by local politicians, to get it quickly in front of a government-appointed planning inspector.  Why should that be difficult? 

Leasehold Reform

Some of it we have heard before. Like replacing a leasehold system which has existed for more than 1000 years by a new system of commonhold.  The legislation already exists in the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002.  But it didn’t work when Tony Blair tried to introduce it more than 20 years ago.  Because nobody wanted it.  So why will it work now?  Despite its imperfections, residential leasehold is the most workable system for selling flats and maisonettes.  So wouldn’t it be better just to make the reforms needed to get the existing residential leasehold system right, instead of trying to force something which nobody wants.  At the moment, we are waiting for the new government to bring into force detailed provisions of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, which received royal assent in the last days of the Conservative government.  But it is not just about bringing it into force, because the detail will be in the regulations which, as far as we’re aware, have yet to be published.  So there is some work for the new government to do before that legislation can take effect.  We are also expecting the new government to waste no time in pushing forward with the Renters Reform Bill, which had been tabled by the previous Conservative government but dropped as soon as the general election was called.  It always seemed to us that the last government’s commitment to removing section 21 no-fault evictions was always a little half-hearted, we assume because of the landlord-lobby.  Funny thing about the section 21 evictions process, was that it was not seen as problematic in 1989 when the private-rented sector was opened up, because the residential market was so different, with residential landlords competing with each other for the best tenants, not the other way round, as it is today.  It meant that if, in 1989, you were a reputable tenant who was unlucky enough to be given the section 21 notice of eviction, there would be dozens of other potential landlords bidding to accommodate you.  And remember, that in 1988, most councils still had their social rented stock.

Absences

As well as the reforms which the new government has announced, there are also some things missing, which we would have expected to find within the King’s Speech or other government announcements.  We are surprised that there has been no mention at all of any scaling back of right-to-buy, not even from the crazy discounts introduced by the Cameron government.  What is scandalous is that up to 40% of ex-right-to-buy properties are now in the hands of private landlords, meaning that local authorities are having to rent back ex-right-to-buy properties on their own estates, just to meet their statutory housing needs.  What nonsense is that?  Is our system of housing benefits really so generous that it can afford to throw money at private landlords, because there is no longer any significant affordable rented sector?  No wonder first-time buyers and private renters have been priced out of the housing market.  The other thing, for which there has been no mention, is any revamp of the measures brought in by the Gordon Brown government to bring long-term empty dwellings back into occupational use.  The problem with Brown’s empty dwellings management orders, was that the whole process was too cumbersome to be of any use.  At the last count there were approximately 260,000 empty dwellings in the UK.  What a waste!

Legislative Agenda

We have also taken a few moments to look at the government bills which are currently before Parliament.  Presently, there are only five government bills, most of which we think are uncontroversial.  These include a new Arbitration Bill, building on the existing 1996 legislation, to restore London as the world’s arbitration capital.  Who is going to argue with that?  And there is also the bill to re-nationalise Britain’s railways.  With only four clauses, this bill is astonishingly short for what has become one of the new government’s landmark policies.  It does no more than prohibit a re-letting of existing railway franchises except to a government-owned company.

Law, property, real estate, Uncategorized

Rentcharges – The New Law

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One of the first actions for the new government should be to bring into force the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, which received Royal Assent in the dying days of the last conservative government.  In this article, we look at Part 7 of the 2024 Act, which introduces new protections for freeholders, whose titles are expressed to be subject to historic rentcharges.  Here, we are not talking about estate rentcharges, which are a legitimate means of ensuring that everyone pays their fair share towards estate maintenance.  We are talking instead about the old fashioned rentcharge, probably created more than hundred years ago, where tiny sums of money are charged out of property and payable to the owner of the rentcharge.

Until the Upper Tribunal decision in Roberts v Lawton [2016] UKUT 395, lawyers never gave much thought to this type of rentcharge.  Who cares that the landowner is liable to pay another party a couple of quid a year, even if they knew to whom the money is to be paid?  But in the Roberts v Lawton case, the Upper Tribunal held that failure, even to pay those few pounds, could result in the rentcharge owner exercising their rights under Section 121 of the Law of Property Act 1925, to walk in and take possession of the property or – more likely – grant a lease out of the property to its own nominee, which was what happened in the 2016 case.  The effect of creating that lease was to freeze the title to the property, making it un-saleable and unmortgageable, which meant the property-owner could be held to ransom.  Because that’s what the 1925 Act said that the rentcharge owner could do.  And that is currently still the case until the new legislation is brought into force.

The creation of new rentcharges of this type was abolished more than half a century ago by the Rentcharges Act 1977.  But there are many thousands of rentcharges of this type still in existence, giving rentcharge owners the powers of enforcement set out in the Law of Property Act 1925.  Furthermore, there is nothing to prevent ownership of rentcharges of this type, commonly known as ‘chief rents,’ being traded, just like stocks and shares.

Once it is brought into force, Section 113 of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, will introduce a new section 120B into the Law of Property Act 1925, which will prevent rentcharge owners from exercising any of their rights of recovery until they have first given the property owner a 30 day ‘wake up’ call, by serving formal notice demanding the outstanding rentcharge arrears and providing the following additional information:

  1. The name and address of the rent owner as well as a calculation of the arrears and details of how to make payment;
  2. Enclosing a copy of the instrument creating the rentcharge and proof of the rent owner’s title to that payment.

Even property-owners who receive such a notice but are dilatory in their response may still be protected by the new section 121(1A) of the 1925 Act, which will prevent rentcharge owners from going into possession of or granting themselves leases from the owner’s property in relation to any arrears covering a period after 27 November, 2023 (although the old remedies will still be available for pre-existing arrears recovery).  It means, effectively, that, as regards arrears accruing after 27 November, 2023, rentcharge owners will be limited to what they can recover through the small claims court as a simple monetary debt, which is how it should be.

business, career, jobs, Law, property, real estate, self improvement, society

Conveyancing – How to Increase Your Productivity and Your Chargeable Output

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Conveyancing – Four Ways to Increase Your Productivity and Your Chargeable Output

Conveyancing is piecework.  Forget hourly rates.  In a competitive legal market, residential clients want to be able to compare quotes.  And professional rules now require transparency when it comes to pricing, so that prospective clients can see at a glance what they are going to have to pay.  But whenever you quote a prospective client, you need to be able to work within budget.  If you overrun that budget because you under-quoted or did not appreciate the extent of the work-tough!  You’ll be doing some free work. That’s not the client’s fault.  Unless you can genuinely say that additional complications cropped up which no one could have ever previously foreseen or because of something your client didn’t tell you.  So it’s all about packing in as much personal productivity as is possible for each working hour of your day.  Here are some tips:

  • Always dictate-dictate-dictate your work.  Never try to hand-type everything.  It’s just too much hard work.  Maybe like me, you lost your secretarial support more years ago than you can even remember.  Never mind.  There is Microsoft voice dictation.  If you’re working on a computer which is Windows 10 or above, you’ll find voice dictation somewhere.  Just go to ‘settings’ and ‘ease of access’.  Dictating your work can be annoying to those around you, particularly if you have to keep repeating the same phrase until your voice recognition gets it right.  Sometimes it never gets it right.  If I say the word ‘comma’, it will tell me to ‘call my mum’.  If I say ‘draft’ as in document, I will always get the draught which blows in from an open window.  So why do I use voice dictation?  Because even with its faults, it’s still three times quicker than trying to type everything out longhand.  Because even if you can touch type, you can’t type as fast as you can speak.  So by using voice dictation I can triple my chargeable output.
  • Standardise-standardise-standardise.  Take a tip from Henry Ford.  Install a conveyor belt.  Metaphorically speaking of course.  Try to create your own all-purpose templates, which you can easily and quickly populate before sending out.
  • Front-load your work, so that you can do as much as possible in one shot.  Don’t wait for the other party solicitor to send across to you their title documentation, download it yourself and save a week.  Never issue documentation in draft if the you can send out something which is a engrossment-ready.
  • Finally, never compromise on the quality of your work or the service which you provide to your client.  Make sure that everything is right first time, the moment it is sent out.  Don’t rely on your client to pick up your mistakes.  Take the trouble to organise your electronic file so that everything is correctly labelled and stored in its correct folder, so that you can find anything in an instant instead of having to trawl through the whole file.  It also makes it easier if a colleague has to look after your file in your absence.
business, housing, Law, Uncategorized

What a New Labour Government Means for Conveyancers in England and Wales

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With a new government on 5 July 2024 now a cert, it is time to think about what this means for UK conveyancers.  Here are our own predictions for the year ahead.

Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024

As this non-controversial piece of legislation reached the statute book in the closing days of the Sunak government, it only remains for Starmer to issue regulations bringing it into force.  We expect this to be amongst the first tasks for the new Labour government.  The legislation is important because it changes the process for dealing with statutory residential lease extensions and enfranchisements as well as regulating freehold estate management.

Renters Reform Bill

This bill, which was already part way through parliament, was one of the legislative casualties of the general election.  The key provision of this bill was the removal of section 21 non-fault evictions.  Although the removal of section 21 evictions is not quite a roll-back to the bad old days of rent-controls, it will certainly make many would-be landlords and mortgage lenders think twice before going into this market.  It may also lead to a loss in private rented accommodation as landlords sell up when tenants vacate instead of re-letting.  When it was first introduced on 1 April, 1989, the ability of landlords to regain possession of their properties on two months notice was not particularly problematic because there was a healthy housing market, which made it easier for prospective tenants to pick and choose where they wanted to live and to negotiate how much they wanted to pay.  Unfortunately, that is no longer the case because of the depletion of the social-rented sector.  So our expectation is that the new government will waste no time in re- launching this bill and pushing it through to royal assent.

Right-to-buy

Unlike Scotland and Wales, we are not expecting the new government to abolish right-to-buy in its entirety but simply to scale it back, in terms of discount, to what was available when Gordon Brown left office in 2010.  At that time, the maximum discount on a right-to-buy sale was capped at £16,000.  Our expectation is that this £16,000 cap might be increased to reflect price-inflation but fall well short of the generous discounts introduced by David Cameron when he took power in 2010.  What this means is that purchasing under right-to buy may no longer be the attractive proposition which it is today.  There are also the transitional arrangements which will need to be put in place for right-to buy purchases which are underway at the time the new legislation is introduced.  We are not expecting any changes to right-to-buy to operate retrospectively, which would mean that work-in-progress will be allowed to continue to completion of the transaction.

Reform of the Town Planning System

This is going to be the most difficult task for the incoming government as it will be trying to push back against a bureaucratic inertia which has built up over decades and in which the ‘No!’ lobby has remained supreme.  It is not just about restoring the house building targets which had already existed until the recent abolition by the outgoing Conservative administration.  It is about breaking through the treacle.  The bottom line is that town planning is too politicised.  With too many vested interests.  It shouldn’t be like that.  It’s about making the most efficient use of land.  Key to breaking through this inertia is to simplify and speed up the appeals process, so that any developer who feels that their application is being frustrated by local politicians, can quickly get their planning application referred to a third party for determination.

V. Charles Ward

Solicitor and Legal Associate RTPI – 15th June 2024