The latest property quarterly update aimed at in house lawyers (and other professionals) practising in the property / real estate sector.
A landlord who would only carry out works if its tenant did not leave voluntarily could not rely on ground (f) of section 30(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 to defeat the tenant’s application for a new lease.
Rights to use sporting and recreational facilities are capable of taking effect as an easement.
A landlord breached an obligation to enforce lease covenants by licensing a flat tenant to carry out alterations despite an absolute prohibition.
A tenant breached a covenant against parting with possession by transferring a lease without consent even though the transfer was not registered at the Land Registry.
A seller had been ready, willing and able to complete when it served a notice to complete on its buyer, even though the property was not yet vacant.
The Court of Appeal refused to modify restrictive covenants where a development was knowingly carried out in breach of the covenants.
This consultation was launched by the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government and follows on from the government’s announcement in December 2017 that it will tackle unfair practices in the leasehold market by prohibiting new residential long leases from being granted on houses and restricting ground rents to a nominal amount. This new consultation sets out how the government intends to make the changes and how it should implement the reforms.
The consultation seeks views on four main areas as follows:
The consultation ran until 26 November 2018.
A copy of the consultation can be viewed from here.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has responded to its initial consultation which ran from December 2017 to March 2018. This consultation proposed to remove the ‘no cost to the landlord principle’ and replace it with a capped landlord’s financial contribution.
The government has confirmed that the MEES Regulations in relation to domestic properties will be amended as soon as possible as follows:
A copy of the government’s response to the consultation can be viewed from here.
Having been previously asked by the government to propose reforms to reinvigorate commonhold as a workable alternative to leasehold, the Law Commission has published a consultation paper on the subject.
The paper includes proposals which would (amongst many other things):
The consultation runs until 10 March 2019.
A copy of the consultation paper (running to a mere 461 pages) can be downloaded from here (where a summary can also be downloaded).
This guidance includes a variations in names flowchart where the names of individuals (not companies) on deeds lodged for registration (or on those deeds and on the register) do not match. It helps you decide if further action is required and, if so, the evidence that you need to lodge to account for any variations. The guidance also covers how to apply to update the name of the registered proprietor (including the authorisation needed if you do not act for the registered proprietor).
A copy of the guidance can be viewed from here (where the variations in names flowchart can be downloaded).
This comes in on 1 January 2019 and significantly changes lease accounting for tenants. For the first time, all operating lease liabilities (except for those leases with a term of less than 12 months) will have to be shown on a tenant’s balance sheet.
Going forwards, this could significantly change standard practice in the market. Possible changes include shorter lease terms, increased use of index-lined rent reviews (which provide greater certainty than traditional open market reviews), increased use of turnover rents (which are not included as rental liabilities on balance sheets under the new rules), longer rent-free periods and discounted rental periods (instead of capital contributions from the landlords) and increased use of licences and serviced office accommodation.
Professional Development Lawyer
david.harris@brownejacobson.com
+44 (0)115 934 2019
Law firm Browne Jacobson has collaborated with Wiltshire Council and Christ Church Business School on the launch event of The Council Company Best Practice and Innovation Network, a platform which brings together academic experts and senior local authority leaders, allowing them to share best practice in relation to council companies.
In the Autumn Statement delivered on 17 November, rises to the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates were announced, to take effect from 1 April 2023.
Announced in September but scrapped on 17 November the investment zone proposals were very short lived. The proposal has now morphed into the proposal for a smaller number of clustered zones earmarked for investment.
Settlement agreements are commonplace in an employment context and are ordinarily used to provide the parties to the agreement with certainty following the conclusion of an employment relationship.
On 2 November 2022, the Supreme Court handed down its judgment in the much awaiting case of Hillside Parks Ltd v Snowdonia National Park Authority [2022] UKSC 30. The Court’s judgment suggests that the long established practice of using drop-in applications is in fact much more restricted than previously thought. This judgment therefore has significant implications for both the developers and local planning authorities.
In ‘failure to remove’ claims, the claimant alleges abuse in the family home and asserts that the local authority should have known about the abuse and/or that they should have removed the claimant from the family home and into care earlier.
Across the UK, homelessness is an urgent crisis, and one that is set to grow amid the rising cost of living. Local authorities are at the forefront of responding to this crisis, but with a lack of properties that are suitable for social housing across the UK, vulnerable individuals and families are often housed in temporary accommodation.
Updates include UK Shared Prosperity Fund, contracts, Subsidy Control Bill, data controller liability, Government Covid-19 procurement and Highway Code revisions.
The complex and rather nebulous transitional subsidy control regime set out in the UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement and the UK’s wider international commitments has made it difficult for public authorities and those working with them to proceed with certainty where subsidies are involved.
Investment zones have been introduced by the Conservative party to get the United Kingdom (UK) ‘working, building and growing’. They are to be designated sites which provide time-limited tax incentives, streamlined planning rules and wider support for local growth to encourage investment and accelerate the development of housing and infrastructure that the UK needs to drive economic growth. Processes and requirements that slow down development will be stripped back with the intention of attracting new investment.
Created at the end of the Brexit transition period, Retained EU Law is a category of domestic law that consists of EU-derived legislation retained in our domestic legal framework by the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. This was never intended to be a permanent arrangement as parliament promised to deal with retained EU law through the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill (the “Bill”).
It is clear that the digital landscape, often termed cyberspace, is a man-made environment, in which human behaviour dominates and where technology both influences and aids our role in it — through the internet, telecoms and networked computer systems, which are often interdependent. The extent to which any organisation is potentially vulnerable to cyber-attack depends on how well these elements are aligned.
Three months on from the commencement of the new statutory Integrated Care Systems (ICS) Anja Beriro and Gerrard Hanratty reflect on the main themes and issues that have come from the new relationship between local government and health.
The Procurement Bill (the Bill) has now been with us for about four months, during which time there have been a huge number of amendments proposed in the House of Lords (circa 320). Lately, there has been less mention of it — unsurprising, really, given everything else going on in politics recently — but here’s a summary of some of the key issues and themes so far.
Browne Jacobson has been named as a supplier on Crown Commercial Service’s (CCS) Public Sector Legal Services Framework on Lot 1a – full-service provision (England and Wales) and Lot 2a – general service provision (England and Wales).
Browne Jacobson has been ranked as a Top Tier law firm in 25 key practice areas in Legal 500 UK 2023, the independent directory of comparative law firm performance. The firm also continues to underpin its status as one of the leading law firms in the East Midlands region with 16 Tier 1 rankings.
