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One of the Welsh capital’s newest luxury apartment blocks, which has 104 units and incredible city views, is to be looked after by Principle Estate Management. The contract to manage the Brickworks, on Trade Street in Cardiff, has come from Pier Management, the asset management subsidiary of the national freeholder Regis Group. The new instruction comes after RG Capital Partners Ltd purchased the property’s freehold and immediately wanted Principle to take on the management of the development. Principle a

MRI Software (“MRI”), a global leader in real estate software solutions, announces the appointment of Saurabh Abhyankar as Chief Product Officer (CPO). In this role, Abhyankar will lead MRI’s global product strategy and drive the continued innovation and evolution of the company’s open and connected software platform for the real estate industry. Abhyankar has a strong track record over the last 15 years of inventing and bringing new products to market, building and leading product management teams, and d

In its latest Customer Service Excellence assessment Clear Building Management has been awarded Compliance Plus status, putting the company among the elite and “setting the standard other services providers can strive for”. Customer Service Excellence is a Cabinet Office award that tests in great depth those areas that research has indicated are a priority for customers, with particular focus on delivery, timeliness, information, professionalism and staff attitude.   The standard also places emphasis on d

Directors of the Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners (ALEP) have written to Housing Minister, Christopher Pincher MP calling for an update on when the Government will issue its response to the Law Commission’s recommendation for leasehold reform.   In July 2020, the Law Commission presented Government with its recommendations for reform which, if adopted, would hail huge changes to the way the current leasehold system operates.   John Midgley, ALEP Director, explains: “Whilst we a

Clear Building Management share advice for RMC directors facing a leaseholder request to keep a pet in their property. As flat living has become more of a lifestyle choice and the number of people live alone increases, more and more leasehold owners want to share their home with a furry friend. In late 2019, statistics suggested that more than half of UK adults own a pet, and this number has reportedly grown further during COVID-19 and lockdown. Indeed, for many of us, our four-legged companions are vital

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