General elections are always an exciting time for lawyers. Particularly when a new government – with new ideas – is almost a dead cert. Out with the old. And in with the new. But if you are expecting a ‘big bang’ on 5th July 2024, you’ll be disappointed. Once the initial furore of a new administration has died down, there will be a lull for a couple of months, when almost nothing happens. Then there will be the ‘Queen’s’, I’m sorry, the ‘King’s’ speech, when the new government will outline its legislative programme. So what are we likely to see in that legislative programme?
Well for a start, I would expect to see the Renter’s Reform Bill coming back to the floor of the House and pushed through to royal assent. Also, secondary legislation to bring into force the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, which received royal assent in the dying days of the Sunak government. So I thought that I’d look at the Labour Party Manifesto just to see what we’ve got in store. Nothing much, it hasn’t yet been launched. Just a few generalisations about economic stability; reducing NHS waiting lists; new border controls; setting up a new energy company; cracking down on anti-social behaviour and recruiting more teachers. Is anyone going to argue with that? And haven’t we heard all that before? If I turn to the Lib Dem manifesto, I discover that Ed Davey is going to launch this at 11am tomorrow. And all while falling off a surfboard. I shan’t be tuning in.
If I outstay my welcome in a camera-controlled car park, I will probably be issued with a penalty charge notice.
That notice would, in the ordinary course of events, be posted to the registered address of my motor vehicle. But supposing I don’t receive that PCN because I have moved away from my old address and have not yet got around to updating the DVLA with my change of address? And supposing I don’t receive any of the follow-up correspondence, during which time the original £60 PCN has accumulated to £600? The first I know about it, is when a bailiff comes knocking at my door. But Mr Bailiff, I didn’t receive anything?
Tough! Parking enforcement is entirely a matter of process. No allowance is made for oversight. Fortunately, the law is not always like that.
Supposing a civil judgment is entered against me in my absence for legal proceedings which I knew nothing about. Even if the papers were correctly served, I might still have good grounds for asking a district judge to set aside that judgment if I can convince the judge that it would be unfair to let the judgment stand, because I had an arguable defence. A similar issue arose in relation to two recent cases at the Upper Tribunal Lands Chamber, which concerned situations where papers had been correctly served by a local authority but had not come to the attention of the intended recipient.
In the first case, Tabassam v Manchester City Council [2024] UKUT (LC), Ms Tabassam was held to have had a ‘reasonable excuse’ for not complying with a statutory improvement notice which had been sent to the proprietorship address stated on her land registry title, as well as well as to the property itself. But neither notice reached her and she therefore did not respond. In default of her response, Newcastle City Council imposed a financial penalty against her for failing to comply with the improvement notice.
The reason why Ms Tabassam had not received the improvement notice was that she had moved away from her old address and had not updated the land registry record. She pleaded ‘reasonable excuse’. Her plea was upheld as it was said that the council could have found a more up to date address if it had searched other internal records.
In the case of Newcastle City Council v Abdullah [2024] UKUT 140, the city council had adopted a landlord licensing scheme under the Housing Act 2004 for the area within which Mr. Abdullah’s property was situated. A licence issued by the council permitted Mr Abdullah to manage premises at 29 Gillies Street subject to standard conditions requiring him to provide certain information on demand. The council later requested information from him by letter sent by ordinary post and addressed to him at an address he no longer occupied. The key question in that appeal was whether a demand which never came to his attention was nevertheless an effective demand for the purposes of the licence condition. If it was, Mr. Abdullah’s failure to comply with that condition would have been an offence contrary to section 95 (2)(b) of the Housing Act 2004 unless he could prove that he had a reasonable excuse for that failure.
In this case, the upper tribunal found that the notice had been properly served, even though there was other e-mail correspondence on an unrelated matter between Mr. Abdullah and the council which quoted a more up-to-date address. Nevertheless, the upper tribunal found against Mr. Abdallah on the question of whether service of the notice was valid.
What made Mr Abdullah’s case different from that of Ms Tabassam was that he was under a legal duty to notify the council of any change in his address. However, the upper tribunal left open the issue of ‘reasonable excuse’, which was remitted back to the first-tier tribunal.
One of the puzzling things about these two cases is why they were ever allowed to reach the Upper Tribunal. Wouldn’t a wiser local authority, in those circumstances, simply have accepted the owner’s claim that they had not received the earlier documentation, and started the whole process again? Yes, starting again might be annoying. But it’s a damned sight cheaper than losing a ‘reasonable excuse’ argument in the upper tribunal.
Have I read it correctly? Is US law firm Quinn Emanuel really offering a £180k annual starting salary to newly qualifieds at its London office, starting June 2024? Seriously? Wow! Just shows how competitive the London legal market is at the moment. Everyone wants the best. And they’re prepared to pay.
Thousands of people have done well out of Margaret Thatcher’s right to buy, including Labour’s Angela Rayner. But not everyone has been so lucky. Amongst the least-lucky are those leaseholders who purchased high-rise flats under right-to-buy and are now facing sky-high service charges. Amongst those, are the leaseholders in Verulam House in Hammersmith Grove who are facing service charges of between £17,500 and £21,500 for window replacements which they say are not needed. One of the problems for right-to-buy leaseholders is that although they are the ones picking up the bills, they have little say in the matter because they will always be in a minority.
Although residential leaseholders now have extensive rights to take over the management of their flats, they can only do this by acting collectively. For example, the statutory ‘right to manage’, introduced by the Commonhold and Leasehold Reform Act 2002, can only apply where a majority of qualifying leaseholders are on board with it. But this is of no help to right-to-buy leaseholders where the majority of flats in a high-rise block are still owned by the local authority and let out as social housing. The most, to which those right-to-buy leaseholders are entitled, is the right to be consulted over proposed service charges under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985. But even this right to be consulted, is cut down for right-to-buy leaseholders because they do not have the same right to nominate their own contractor as is enjoyed by other private leaseholders. And even the prices may be higher as councils are constrained in their choice of contractor because of the need to comply with rigid procurement regulations, which means that they cannot shop around for the best deal.
I discovered the power of a targeted mailing list when my book shot to the top of Amazon’s best-seller list for business law books on the day it was published. A new book on cemetery and crematorium law was also an unlikely best seller. Hardly a mass market. But it had a couple of things going for it.
Until the book went into print in June 2021, nothing had been written on cemetery and crematorium law for almost 20 years. The industry standard had always been Davies Law of Burial and Cremation, but that hadn’t been published since 2002 and there is still no indication as to when the next edition will come out. In the meantime, something had to be written to fill the gap.
The second thing was that the marketing of this book had been specifically targeted to those in the cemetery and crematorium industries, who were most likely to need it. The book itself had been commissioned by the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management, which represents this industry, and which meant that I had access to its mailing list.
Within minutes of the mail shots going out, the orders started coming in. More than 100 books were sold on the first day. Over the following months, sales of the book tapered off as the market became saturated. But it is still making sales.
At £39.00 for the paperback, the book was not cheap. But by law-book standards, it was not overpriced.
A 900-strong mailing list might seem miniscule compared with the 60,000 strong mailing lists boasted by some writers. If only! But I’m not complaining.
The book reached the people it was intended to reach. Although I only had access to the ICCM mailing list, there will of course also be other mailing lists for a book of this type. For example: funeral directors.
If you are thinking of putting together a mailing list, there are some things which you need to watch out for.
You can’t just throw together a list of email addresses without breaking data protection law. And the penalties for that can be severe. The essence of data protection is that you can only use somebody’s personal information if they have expressly given you permission to do so. And they can withdraw that consent at any time. One way of making sure that you don’t fall foul of data protection legislation is to use a compliant platform such Mailchimp. It won’t cost you anything.
Nor was it a problem for me, as the recipients of the mail shot were already signed up members of the institute and receiving bulletins on a daily basis. And judging by the volume of take-up, it was well received.
Processing…
Success! You're on the list.
Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription. Please reload the page and try again.
BRUCE AND HOLLY 