Earlier this week I took delivery of a letter-scale. It joins my laser printer as well as my scanner; computer monitor; headphones; wired mouse and keyboard. I bought it because I just can’t be bothered to stand in line at our local sub post office behind a long queue of people spilling out of the door and only one person serving. It’s never used to be like that. There were always at least two people behind the counter and the queue moved quickly. Not anymore. And I also read in the news of plans by the post office to close its remaining crown post offices in city centres
I had a letter to post. It was not valuable. It did not require a signature. But it was bulky because it contained a book. So I went to a couple of local sub post offices because I wanted to hand it over the counter and pay the correct postage. In the end, I gave up. So it sat on the shelf for a week whilst I decided what to do with it. Anyway, the scale arrived and I was able to calculate the postage myself and put on the required number of stamps and drop it into the nearest pillar box. Job done.
I had thought about trying the post office’s advertised door-collection service. But I didn’t fancy waiting indoors until the postman arrived. Though maybe I’ll try using it if I have a recorded delivery letter to post.
The long and short of it is that I won’t be going to my local post office anytime soon. In fact, if things carry on as they are, I’m sure that the next official announcement will be the closure of the remaining local sub post offices.
Like everything else in the UK, it’s all gone down the pan. And after the scapegoating Horizon computer scandal, who would want to be a sub postmaster?
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.
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.
Last Sunday I copped a parking ticket. It was a complete surprise to me. I had parked in the same car park on and off for more than 30 years without problem. And isn’t parking supposed to be free on Sundays and public holidays? But not this Sunday.
It was only after I had arrived home that I noticed the little yellow package tucked behind my windscreen wiper. I opened it up to find that I was being punished for not having paid for my parking. That can’t be right? It’s Sunday? Perhaps the traffic attendant made a mistake? Perhaps he had forgotten what day it was? Perhaps he had woken up in the morning thinking it was Monday?
So, I drove back to the car park and looked around to see if there is any obvious sign about charges being introduced for Sunday parking. But there was nothing obvious except in the small print on the machine itself: which had recently been closed down because it was no longer taking cash. And there were no tickets being issued. It is now all pay by phone. Which brings me to another question. If there are no tickets to display, how does a parking attendant know whether someone has paid or not?
When I returned home again with my parking ticket, I searched online to try to find out when the rules for this particular car park had changed, as regards the introduction of Sunday charging, and what signage had been displayed to alert motorists that the rules have changed. But nothing came up. So, I posted a question to an AI platform and got back some Goan food recipes.
As I was not prepared to give up, I bowled in a statutory freedom of information request to the council which had issued the notice, asking the same questions. Now I don’t know how much it costs to answer a freedom of information request. But by the time it has been bounced around between different council departments and someone has spent half a day digging out this obscure piece of information and sending it back to me, I would not have thought that there would be much change out of £500.
As I had nothing to lose, I made representations to the local authority, explaining that I had made an honest mistake. As I expected, the council were quick to reject my representation. Though again, someone would have had to be paid to consider my representation and respond formally to it. If I wanted to take my appeal further, I would have to go to the parking adjudicator.
Appealing to a parking adjudicator is a double or nothing game because, by the time you make your appeal, you would already have lost your 50% discount for early payment. But my personal view is that if you think that a penalty charge notice is unfair and that you have grounds to appeal, you should appeal.
I went back to my AI platform and asked whether lack of adequate signage alerting me to the changes, provided grounds for appeal to a parking adjudicator. This time, instead of Goan recipes, it directed me to a government website, “Key Cases-London Tribunals”.
The first thing I noticed about this government website was that there are so few key decisions. I had been expecting thousands. When I typed ‘Sunday’ into the search- bar, nothing came up. I then browsed the section headed, “Adequacy of Signs and Lines”. There were only six key decisions, most of them dating back to 1990s. Really? So, it did not take me long to browse through the list. The key decision which most closely resembled my predicament was Mary Fairburn’s appeal against a notice issued by the London borough of Bexley, again where there had been a sudden change to the charging regime, to which she had not been alerted, except for the small print on the machine. In that 1997 case, Parking Adjudicator G.R. Hickinbottom expressed surprise that Bexley Council had not cancelled the notice on the basis of a genuine mistake but felt that he had no power to cancel the notice because an infringement had occurred.
So on the basis of Mary Fairburn’s decision, I will not waste time and further public expense pursuing an appeal to the parking adjudicator and will pay the PCN at the discounted 50% rate whilst I still have a few days to do so. Which brings me to a final thought.
I don’t understand the mentality of town centre parking policy. If you really wanted to help struggling local businesses, wouldn’t you want to make it as easy as possible for motorists to park their cars and get on with their shopping? No wonder town centre retail and entertainment chains like Wilco; Debenhams and Cineworld have gone to the wall.
BRUCE AND HOLLY 