Category: Uncategorized

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

business, housing, Law, Uncategorized

Service of Documents – New Case-Law

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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.

housing, Law, London, politics, property, society, Uncategorized

Right to Buy Service Charges

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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.

business, Law, Uncategorized

The Power of the Mailing List

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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.

By clicking submit, you agree to share your email address with the site owner and Mailchimp to receive marketing, updates, and other emails from the site owner. Use the unsubscribe link in those emails to opt out at any time.

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business, culture, job; career; money; raise; pay; increase, self improvement, society, Uncategorized, writing

Selling Your Writing in a Changing Market

bruceandholly
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Ever since the first words were written many thousands of years ago, writing for publication has been about knowing the secrets of selling.  It’s about knowing how to grab a reader’s attention in the first line.  How to interest your reader in what you are about to say.  How to keep them reading.  And to provide your reader with a call to action.  In other words, something for the reader to take away.  Being a successful freelance writer is also about studying changes in the editorial markets and adapting to those changes by changing your own business model.

30 years ago there were always opportunities for someone who knew their subject and could write to a publishable standard, to earn a good second income writing for professional and trade journals.  There was also the excitement of receiving money through your letter-box.  But no-one writes cheques any more.  And editors no longer have to pay freelancers to fill their pages, because they receive so much quality material free of charge from businesses wishing to promote their goods and services.  But even promotional material has to be professionally written.  And someone has to be paid to write it.  Why not you?

Forget expensive newspaper and TV advertising.  The most cost effective way to promote the sale of goods and services is on the Internet.  It’s about drawing the casual Internet browser to your website and to the goods and services you are offering.  Today, the ‘keyword’ is king.  It is about trying to anticipate the words and phrases which your prospective customer is going to type into their search engine, when they are looking for the type of goods and services which you are offering.  It is those critical keywords which must be incorporated within your promotional material to draw those prospective customers to your website.

So what about artificial intelligence (AI)?  Is that going to make freelance writers redundant?  If your computer can write your promotional material, why do you need to pay a copywriter? 

They said the same thing about secretaries when word processing was invented at the end of the 1970s.  But it didn’t happen.  Instead, the amount of paperwork ballooned.  The issue with any piece of written work generated entirely by a computer is that it lacks originality.  I learned that when I asked my computer to generate some promotional material for a book I had written.  Instead, it repeated back to me the promotional material which I had already written.  I’m sure that if I asked my computer to compose my next Eurovision hit, it would come back to me with a mishmash of every successful Eurovision entry which had ever been written, including words and music from ABBA’s ‘Waterloo’.  Is that going to convince anyone?  I don’t think so.  ‘United Kingdom – Nil points.’

Just to show you how modern marketing works, I have included at the end of this article, a link to my book, ‘Write Quick.  Get published.’ I’m not asking you to buy it.  Just to notice it.  And if you do notice it, please take a moment to look inside.  If you then decide to buy a copy, I’ll be raising a glass.  Cheers!