A Sign of the Leasehold Times

Practitioners signing notices on behalf of clients will need to satisfy themselves that they are “duly authorised” to do so when serving the notice. It will be of particular benefit to those who could not previously personally sign a notice because of a physical or mental disability and also to people whose affairs are being dealt with by a power of attorney. It will also mean that people who are not physically in the country will not be forced to find a way to personally sign the notice or miss out if they can’t.

It has been no small measure to change the law. Actually getting an Act on the statute book has been a huge effort – and one in which collaboration has played a key role: from ALEP - who have raised the issue and pressed previous housing ministers in the past - to the Parliamentarians who rallied behind the legislation. The latter includes, in particular, David Nuttall MP who steered the Bill through the Commons (Nuttall is himself a solicitor who went into politics to, in his own words, “to have some fun”), and Baroness Susan Williams of Trafford who took the Bill through the Lords’ stages - actually making her maiden speech in the Chamber introducing the Bill in the process.

When the Bill was originally announced, it was one of a number which the press quickly dubbed the “Alternative Queen’s Speech”. [At the time, Lord Michael Ashcroft commissioned an extensive opinion poll on all the 40 or so alternative Bills being proposed. There were over 200 pages of detailed polling analysis of Bills ranging from making non-payment of the licence fee a civil matter to the introduction of a sentencing escalator. Yet in poring over the data, I couldn’t find the Leasehold Reform (Amendment) Bill – probably because the pollsters did not think the public would understand what it was about.]

However, of these 40 alternative Bills, this is the only one that has, and will in this Parliament, become an Act. We got there. Who would have thought it?

John Midgley is a Partner at Seddons.  This article is based on a presentation given at the ALEP Spring Conference 2014.