Featured Articles

Leading managing agent Rendall & Rittner has appointed Guy Lambert as Head of Marketing and Communications. This is a new position at Rendall & Rittner and will be key to ensuring sustained business growth and the successful implementation of the company’s market leading new property management platform. Guy comes with extensive experience in Marketing and Communications in the real estate sector. Most recently, he was Head of Marketing and Communications at NHBC, establishing a commercially driven mark

The Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners (ALEP) has commented on new legislation designed to protect leaseholders that will ban ground rents on new leasehold properties.  The Leasehold Reform (Ground Rent) Bill has received Royal Assent, making it an Act of Parliament.   The new Act, (which is not in force yet) will apply to leasehold properties in England and Wales. It will restrict ground rent owed on new leases to a ‘peppercorn’ rent – effectively zero – and aims to make leaseho

The largest national leaseholder event of the year, Leaseholder Expo 2022, is taking its highly anticipated conference virtual for the first time by partnering with online events platform Vfairs.   Leaseholder Expo 2022 aims to arm leaseholders with the knowledge they need to understand their lease, including service charges and lease extensions. On the day leaseholders can speak with experts from across the industry including solicitors, insurance agents, service charge brokers and many more.   As well a

Lord Stephen Greenhalgh, Minister of State for Building Safety and Fire made ‘a clarion call for proportionality’ last year and has since communicated a clear need for innovation to help solve some of the issues facing lessees caught up in the UK’s building safety crisis. His call has been answered by intelliclad – a pioneering alarm system designed to be integrated into the external facades of buildings where materials in the external wall system pose a risk. The system uses smart sensors which are fitte

A leading property agency has welcomed government plans for new laws to protect leaseholders living in apartments from exorbitant costs by forcing industry to pay to remove cladding. But MetroPM has pointed out that the legislation could be very subjective, will be closely considered by all and could result in costly court battles. The comments follow tough new laws unveiled by Michael Gove, the secretary of state for Levelling Up, which could result in any developers and product manufacturers who do not

Strangford Management Ltd, a specialist block management agency in the City of London, has announced the promotion of Lauren Bode to Property Manager. Lauren Bode joined Strangford Management in 2020 as a Junior Property Manager and has since excelled in her role leading to her promotion to a Property Manager, managing her own portfolio of clients. Lauren will be managing a portfolio of clients based in Central London ranging in sizes from 10 to 250 units. Managing Director, Michael Paul said: ‘Lauren has

MetroPM, the national property management company with offices in Birmingham and Cheltenham, has taken the initiative to install defibrillators at a number of the sites it manages. Managing director Matthew Arnold said it was a conscious decision by the board to create a community resource that could save lives. “It’s not just older people that have heart attacks, we have seen young fit sportsmen such as the footballers Fabrice Muamba in March 2012 and Christian Eriksen during Euro 2022, have their lives

A creative development of 31 affordable homes on the site of an historic public swimming baths in Bristol is to be looked after by Principle Estate Management. Speedwell Baths on Whitefield Road, to the north-east of the city centre, first opened in 1937 and were a favourite leisure destination for tens of thousands of city residents for nearly 70 years. They were then closed in 2005 by Bristol City Council and lay derelict for years before they were demolished in 2019. Abri Housing Association has now de

In September 2020, EQT Exeter (formerly EQT Real Estate) the real estate arm of global investment organisation, EQT, and Sigma Capital Group, a residential development and urban regeneration specialist, launched a new joint venture to build high-quality, well-located apartment blocks and houses in more affordable parts of Greater London and its commuter towns. The project, named “Saturn”, delivers buildings with strong sustainability credentials: where possible, the homes tap into local community heating

“Serious concerns” about the firm that tested cladding on Grenfell tower were raised by a review body five years before the fatal blaze. And a senior civil servant warned “there is going to be a major fire” three years prior to the fire that claimed the lives of 72 people. The inquiry into the Grenfell tragedy was told about the warnings during two days of hearings this week. A series of reports were shown to the inquiry that criticised the firm that carried out tests on the building products used on the

A new housing minister has been appointed as part of a cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Stuart Andrew will replace Christopher Pincher, who was appointed to the post two years ago. Mr Andrew becomes the fifth housing minister in four years. Until the reshuffle, Mr Andrew held the role of deputy chief whip of the House of Commons and treasurer of HM Household. The MP for Pudsey, West Yorkshire, has previously voted to phase out secure tenancies and to require those on high incomes living

This article was first published on the Winckworth Sherwood website.     he Government first consulted in July 2017 around measures to “improve the consumer experience of leasehold”.  It then asked the Law Commission to explore how improvements might be made to enfranchisement rights, the right to manage and to reinvigorate commonhold as an alternative to leasehold.  The Law Commission then consulted in 2018 and 2019 around this. It seems likely that reforms will be introduced along the lines of the Law C