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The next few years are set to see major changes in the residential sector for England and Wales.  The Government is pressing ahead with high-profile reform of the building safety regime, while a series of reports from the Law Commission earlier this year herald changes to the leasehold system.  Together, these two programmes will rightly bring new opportunities for residents to get involved in how their buildings are run, but also new responsibilities.  As the UK’s largest residential property manager, re

QUESTION  I have recently inherited my father's leasehold flat after he passed away.  The flat has quite a short lease and I want to extend it. Is this possible? ANSWER I am sorry to hear of your loss. It will be possible to extend the lease but you may not be able to do that straight away – it depends on whether you have moved the title to the flat into your name already. Broadly speaking, a flat owner will have the right to claim an extended lease after two years of legal ownership. A new right was intr

Jeremy Weaver, Head of Litigation at Brady Solicitors, explains the need to understand the requirements in the government’s fire safety Advice Note if you own or manage a residential property with balconies. The dreadful Grenfell Tower tragedy of 2017 prompted a detailed and necessary focus on fire safety, and a series of government Advice Notes. The first of these was the ‘Building (Amendment) Regulations’ published in December 2018. These regulations required stricter fire safety compliance for new, ref

East Midlands property management law firm Brady Solicitors has for the first time been named one of England and Wales’ top 200 law firms.   Based on Nottingham’s Regent Street, Brady Solicitors features in The Times’ Best Law Firms 2021 list published today (5 November 2020), which showcases 200 of the top solicitors’ practices out of 10,000 firms across England and Wales.   The Times Best Law Firms list is collated by international market research firm Statista, and compiled entirely through recommendat

Rupert Hambly, director of Peninsula Management, welcomes the launch of a Government initiative for property management company directors which chimes with his own views on a potentially thorny issue.  Frankly, it might have not have registered much on the public consciousness amid a plethora of Government announcements at the start of November 2020, but if you are the director of a residents’ management company (RMC) then one particular Whitehall pronouncement should have you sitting up and taking notice

Where a landlord wishes to forfeit a lease on grounds of breach of covenant, what evidence is sufficient in order to determine the nature and extent of the breach? The Background In Marchitelli v 15 Westgate Terrace Ltd [2020], a long lease was held by the appellant tenant of a flat in London. The lease contained a covenant on the part of the tenant “Not to do or permit or suffer in or upon the Demised Premises…any illegal or immoral act or any act or thing which may be or may become a nuisance or annoyan

Where a tenant applied for relief from forfeiture, was it sufficient for the application to have been made within the 6-month time limit or should it have made the application sooner? The background In Keshwala and another v Bhalsod and another [2020], the tenants occupied property comprising a ground floor retail shop with a residential flat above under a 20-year lease, of which the defendants were landlord.  The tenants’ rent for the June 2018 quarter was £2,000 but only £1,500 was paid to the landlords

MRI Software (“MRI”), a global leader in real estate software solutions, announced a series of key enhancements and innovations across its product portfolio at MRI ‘Ascend Anywhere’ 2020, the first virtual edition of its annual North American users conference, held October 19-21. With more than 1,700 registrants, the conference brought together professionals from across the real estate industry to attend virtual keynotes, presentations and panels by MRI and its technology partners – as well as guest appea

Barratt Developments, which is currently building more than 8,000 much needed new homes across the South West, has become the first major national housebuilder to have its science-based carbon emissions targets officially approved. The company, which owns Barratt and David Wilson Homes, took the lead for the housebuilding industry back in February, announcing its commitment to reduce direct carbon emissions by 29% by 2025 and to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions in its own operations by 2040. Thes

MRI Software, a global leader in real estate technology, has acquired residential property management software Jenark™ from CoreLogic, Inc. (NYSE: CLGX).  Jenark aligns with MRI’s existing product set for the management of residential property portfolios, addressing the unique needs of community and homeowner associations by facilitating processes, operations, transactions, communications, accounting, administration, and reporting. The solution is used by hundreds of management companies and large self-ma

Brickflow, the UK's first online search engine for development finance loans, today announces its official launch to the market. Brickflow is a property technology platform that aims to revolutionise the property finance sector by digitally connecting borrowers and lenders in seconds. The company's mission is to empower property developers by opening up the market and providing the quickest and easiest way for them to secure trusted finance. Available online, Brickflow's technology offers wide market visi

A North East property lawyer has used her own conveyancing skills to move into new offices with a historical link her to her profession. Sue Toomey has moved her Toomey Legal practice to Cramlington Village where she has taken over the Surveyors House which first appeared in maps of the town in the mid 1800s. The building was previously a family home, a quarry office and an undertaker's home for the nearby St Nicholas Church. Originally a lawyer for a Sheffield law practice, Sue set up her own property la