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Following my previous update on the position regarding sick pay for your employees and the prospect of how to deal with employees in self-isolation, with many employees now working from home and businesses forced to temporarily close, I answer some of the questions that we are being asked by our clients about the options available to you and your business: Do you have to pay sick pay? If an employee is off sick due to coronavirus the normal rules for sick pay apply and subject to satisfying certain criter

Businesses and individuals enter into contracts every day. When they think about what could go wrong, and what terms they need in their contracts to deal with such eventualities, it is easy to focus on how the other party to the contract could default. However, what are the parties’ rights if something happens which neither party perhaps anticipated and which either makes performing the contract uneconomical for one party or else prevents them from performing it properly or at all? It is not too difficult

This is a new type of leave, never used before and has been introduced in response to the coronavirus crisis in order to try to save jobs under the Government’s “Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme”.   On 26th March 2020 the Government issued its guidance on how the scheme will operate, details of which can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-for-wage-costs-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme. The scheme is open to all UK employers that had a PAYE system in place on 28th February 2020 and

Property professionals from Greystar, SAY Consulting, deverellsmith, and Be Original have joined forces to create a central register where the real estate industry can pledge support to the NHS and healthcare workers to help these real-life superheroes fight Covid-19. The initiative repurposes the Do Some Good platform, which launched earlier in the year when MIPIM 2020 was cancelled to encourage delegates to use the extra time from not attending the event for charitable endeavours. The website will now

This is an unprecedented time for most if not all of us. Since the government's call for self-isolation and shielding began earlier in March, many business and personal activities have come to a halt. There have been numerous reports contemplating whether repairs and maintenance works should carry on with them not explicitly named as an 'essential service'. Some expressed an opinion that all works should be delayed.   New government guidance finally put to bed the confusion:   Work carried out in people’

The Association of Leasehold Practitioners (ALEP) has written to the Lord Chancellor (The Rt Hon Robert Buckland QC MP) today calling on the government to extend statutory deadlines for filing applications to determine terms of collective claims, lease extensions and right to manage by a period of three months once the current ‘lockdown’ period is over.  The letter from ALEP states: “This simple act will provide applicants with a reasonable period of time to prepare their applications to the Tribuna

Thousands of properties looked after by Principle Estate Management have benefited from a huge focus on hygiene in the last few weeks to minimise COVID-19 health risks. The leading property management company already organises regular cleaning, but the extra push was timed well ahead of self-isolation measures to make sure staff and tenants were kept as safe as possible. Meanwhile, thanks to its use of the very latest technology, Principle is now operating as near to “business as usual” as possible across

In current crisis stemming from the Coronavirus pandemic many businesses will be asking themselves 2 important questions: - What can I do to protect my business if I cannot fulfill my contractual obligations? - How do I protect my business in the future against the risk of being unable to comply with its business commitments? What can I do to protect my business if I cannot fulfill my contractual obligations? The first thing to do is to check the contract/terms of business that govern your relationship w

No doubt both landlords and tenants will be reeling from the dramatic and sudden impact arising from the Coronavirus outbreak and how that will affect their businesses going forward both in the immediate and longer term future. Whatever the eventual outcome there will be little comparison between normality before the spread of the virus took hold and after it has eventually been brought under control. In these circumstances there will be very few commercial tenants whose businesses will not be adversely a

“Anthony, people will always need plates” Those of us over 40 will remember the above reassuring line from a grandma attempting to console her grandson over his mediocre exam results. (Search on YouTube for ‘An ology’ if you don’t know what we’re talking about).  “…people will always need plates” was a reference to Anthony’s success at GCSE Pottery, and whilst a bit far-fetched, this rings true for residential property management. (He failed all his other GCSEs apart from Sociology. “You get an ology, you

Imagine the horror of thinking your property is worth £500k, when it is actually only worth £180k! We recently met a brother and sister who had inherited a dream property in Hammersmith, a huge 2 bed flat on a lovely road. The last flat on the same road to sell was only a few weeks before, selling for £500,000 the future looked promising. We did some investigating for them and found out that their parent had not extended the lease, it had been allowed to run down to almost 30 years remaining. If it

Estate agents and letting agencies forced to close due to the coronavirus outbreak will pay no business rates for the 2020-21 financial year. The government has announced the move along with the same measure for bingo halls. The government specified that eligible businesses will be re-billed with the updated discount, and refunded by the relevant local authority if payments have already been made. The change comes after NAEA Propertymark, a leading professional body for estate agency personnel in the UK,