We held our Annual Seminar at the Queen Elizabeth ll Centre in Westminster on 12th May 2022. The event was a resounding success, not only commemorating IRPM’s 20th anniversary, but there was also more than 600 members in attendance on the day. IRPM seminars are now widely accepted as the leading knowledge and networking events in our sector, and it was great to see so many of you there.
The day began with an address from Minister of State for Building Safety and Fire, Lord Greenhalgh. He noted that there is a need for a significant cultural shift in the construction industry and property managers will need to play their part in holding the construction industry to “account”. He ended his brief speech with a nod to RoPa, explaining that “tremendous work has been undertaken with codes of conducts and I recognise the importance of professionalisation of letting, managing agent and estate agents …. Government is still considering its response to Lord Best’s report”.
Camilla Sheldon and Gillian Kiy took to the stage after Lord Greenhalgh to present on the shape of the Act, implications for homeowners and residents, the role of the Building Safety Regulator, details on leaseholder protections, enforcements and the timeline to implementation and what the next steps are to be. They were tackled on a number of issues that have been identified by members regarding the Act during the Q&A session, which certainly made it a lively moment at the Seminar.
Next up was a practical session on Building and Fire Safety by Mark Varley, and Dr Shaun Lundy, that looked at the current situation surrounding buildings over 18 meters, buildings over 11 meters, buildings containing two or more sets of domestic premises, the use of the golden thread of information and the importance of the resident engagement strategy. The session hosted a Q&A session, which led to numerous questions from members that needed immediate practical advice from these two leading experts in the field.
This was then followed by David Reid who delivered a highly informative presentation that looked at the issues around freehold tenure in Scotland. David was joined by Hardip Devsi, who explained that the Scottish Government is taking a holistic approach to cladding remediation. Scotland is expected to come up with a similar solution to the English government’s ‘developer pays’ waterfall approach but it is working to build-in more collaboration between the parties. The Scottish government wants to take this onerous role away from property factors but in order to develop a way to remediate dangerous buildings that works for all parties, it is still necessary to get buy-in from tenants and that’s one of the biggest challenges. The Scottish government wants to take the opportunity of upgrading buildings to upgrade other systems such as broadband and environmental features to future-proof buildings and move towards net zero.
Following the theme of different tenure’s, we welcomed Robin Froggett-Smith form the DLUHC who outlined the story so far on commonhold. He emphasised that the 2002 legislation took a one-size-fits-all approach that hasn’t worked and that’s why commonhold is such a tiny proportion of the market. The government wants that to change. DHLUC is working with developers to identify how commonhold could work on very complex sites. The Government will also need the profession’s help to identify any areas it may have missed.
After lunch, the long-awaited IRPM Awards ceremony was held, with the winners as follows:
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Janine Dattani was presented with the Ann Garland Award for the most outstanding paper in the Associate Exam 2021.
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The BPF Award for the most outstanding paper in the Member Exam 2021 went to Christopher Pass.
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The Bretherton’s Award for the most outstanding legal paper in the Member Exam 2021 went to Sandeep Goenka.
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The Housing Association Candidate of the Year Award for the most outstanding paper in the Member Exam 2021 was presented to Matthew Duggan.
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The BTR Candidate of the Year Award sponsored by the UKAA was presented to Louise Alvey.
Laurence Howards from the Health and Safety Executive delved into the workings of the Building Safety Regulator (BSR). He confirmed that it is not yet fully operational but will be coming on line in 12-18 months’ time. Key points from his presentation detailed the new role of the Accountable Person , the new role of building safety director – a third party to help resident-led blocks carry out the responsibilities of the AP, registration of blocks with the BSR and safety case and Safety case reports that must be compiled and logged with the BSR. The BSR will assess all 12,500 in-scope buildings over the next 5 years, beginning in April 2024, with prioritisation criteria now being developed. It will then re-assess the APs’ management of building safety risks every 5 years on a rolling reassessment programme. Secondary legislation will provide further detail.
CEO Andrew Bulmer then spoke to members about the merger with ARMA and the next steps of the union. He also spoke about The Property Institute’s input to the Building Safety Act and the continued efforts that the unified organisations are committing to, to ensure the sector is prepared for all that the new Act will entail.
Attention then turned to the current Economic Climate with a look at Simon Rubinsohn.
The mid-afternoon presentation focussed on the legal aspect with the legendary Legal Update delivered by Roger Hardwick and Emma Bush. They did a whistle stop tour of the key cases of the past few months, including: First Port v Settlers Court [2021], Prime London Holdings 11 Limited v Thurloe Lodge [2022] and Marshall v Northumberland property Trust Ltd [2022].
Next up, was Tracey Hartley, Jo Green and Katherine Rose, who made a very strong case for property management skills required in the BTR sector. They provided some stats about the growth of the sector in the last 10 years. The success of BTR has largely been down to its huge investment appeal based on security of income from tenants and strong operational management which gives major corporate investors such as pension funds peace of mind. For property managers it is still a ‘one man two governors’ scenario but there is a lot less friction in the relationship. Delivery is seamless, it’s a professional operation and resident engagement looks and feels very different to both BTL and long leasehold. There may be two ‘customers’ but they are very closely aligned in their objectives.
Next was a highly anticipated topic – EV Charging! Roger Hardwick and Alan Draper delved into the legal and practical problems around installation of EVCs in leasehold blocks – both individual and site-wide installation. Roger set out the legal considerations for leaseholders who want to install their own chargepoint. Alan then presented a case study that looked at the installation of 12 EVCs at a grade 11 listed development in Henley-on-Thames which demonstrated the issues raised. Resident engagement is absolutely key to the whole process but is frequently “like herding cats”. Project management of these schemes is complex and involves a series of different contractors. They concluded that the technology is there to do all these things, but you need the legal mechanisms to be in place too.
Up next was Malcolm Perryman looking at the results from the recently released Industry Wellbeing Report. This year, the second survey once again received a strong response with a 100% completion rate and around a fifth of respondents going to the trouble of providing additional comments.
Some key points were that:
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Property managers are happier than they were last year. Satisfaction with life is up 17% since last year but still 14% below the national average as measured by the ONS. When asked whether or not life feels worthwhile, there was also a slight improvement on 2021. Work-related stress was also down slightly on last year.
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More than a quarter of the profession feel their work is bad for their physical health - a slight improvement on last year’s survey. Sadly though a massive 64% felt their mental health was at risk, which is a 7.5% increase.
This year’s survey included some new questions. These looked at levels of satisfaction, happiness and whether or not life was worthwhile in Scotland and Wales, in Yorkshire, and in London and the South East. The nations report higher levels of wellbeing than in the English regions with Wales scoring highest for all three indicators. Yorkshire scored the lowest with London and the Southeast marginally below the national average. To find out more from the report, visit: www.irpm.org.uk/news-articles/irpm-arma-2022-wellbeing-survey-report/
Following on from the findings of the wellbeing survey, Adam Laidler’s presentation was perfectly placed to engage the attention of everyone in the room – and it did. Adam spoke about how to start to set personal boundaries to avoid being overwhelmed both at home and at work. This session was one of the most thought-provoking of the day and an excellent way to send attendees home with some new strategies for dealing with their own work-related issues.
The event was a great success. We want to thank all our attendees, and our sponsors who made this event possible. All the speakers’ presentations and recordings are available on the IRPM website here.
