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QUESTION I bought my council flat in 1991 under the right to buy.  It is a 2 bedroom ground floor flat on a block 4 storeys.  In the beginning of 2000 I started noticing issues with my flat - water coming in from the flat above and it progressed to massive cracks in the walls, wall sockets cracking up etc.  I complained to the council numerous times only to be sent away and treated as a nuisance. I was reduced to living in one room, the bathroom was unusable due to cracks etc.  I made a complaint on the c

The flag to invest in Manchester will be flying high at the four day MIPIM Real Estate Conference and Exhibition event in Cannes which runs from 13 to 16 March 2018. The Manchester Pavilion, a 456-metre conference and exhibition space, demonstrates the position Manchester holds as the largest regional area in the UK, a world class business and investment location, and hailed as one of the best cities to live in.   Manchester based property managers Lee Baron will be supporting Manchester commercial and re

QUESTION We are faced with the situation in many of our blocks, where the flat doors do not comply with the fire safety regulations, ie they are not fire doors (FD30); they do not have hydraulic door closers, 3 butt hinges, intumescent door strips or cold smoke seals.  In many instances, letterboxes and/or spyholes have been cut into the door. The Landlord’s obligation is obviously to ensure the main escape routes are protected but that is not possible if the flat doors are not compliant.  However, in mos

Specialist property law firm Brady Solicitors has added two new legal experts to its fast-growing Nottingham team, reflecting the firm’s growth across the full mix of legal work for the leasehold and property management sector. Alexandra Byard has joined Brady Solicitors from Taylor & Emmett LLP and Cheryl Bates has joined Brady Solicitors from Shakespeare Martineau LLP. The appointments are part of a planned programme of growth at Brady Solicitors and reflect a sustained increase in both the quantity and

Following Lord Justice Lewinson’s plea that hopefully “The Holy Grail will one day be found” in the recent Court of Appeal case of Mundy v Sloane Stanley (2018), we have set about trying to find a graph that will hopefully satisfy both Leaseholders and Freeholders alike in the absence of short lease sales evidence.   The original Upper Tribunal Decision found favour with the Gerald Eve Graph (“industry standard”) and both Savills 2002 and Savills 2015. As part of that decision and on  several cases after

A “State of the Property Management Nation” survey revealed that the sector has enjoyed rapid growth over recent years. The demand for capable candidates, experienced in block management, is far out-stripping supply. It does, of course, take many years of dealing with every aspect of the job from issuing section 20’s and representing at the FTT, to briefing contractors and scrutinising tender documents, before a candidate truly becomes an industry professional. So the high-level candidate, with the requis

More and more people are occupying properties under long leases. Unlike freehold ownership, a long leaseholder may well have to make monthly, quarterly or annual payments to his or her landlord (being the freeholder of the building, or land, in which your property is situated or a leaseholder under a superior lease to that which you benefit from) (“Landlord”) by way of ground rent. Ground rent is payable in addition to service charge (a charge levied for the Landlord’s costs and expenses of managing and m

The Reeds Development is a stunning residential scheme of 130 luxury apartments located close to Watford Junction Station.   THE BRIEF: Despite the very  high standard of the development, residents at The Reeds and their property managers had become increasingly concerned that the lighting had become outdated and now posed a potential risk to health and safety. Maintenance costs were exorbitant and the failing system was no longer fit for purpose. The client was also holding a quotation running into thou

As residential apartments become more of a feature in large urban mixed-use developments, residents are happy to work, rest and play in the same location. These developments are becoming larger in scale and more centrally located. A dynamic 21st Century solution to build and maintain community and a sense of home atthese large urban hubsis essential for their success. Meeting with residents will still take place, however with mixed-use developments often including anywhere between 500 and 1000 residential

The  Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has vowed to buy 8,000 homes and create new powers for councils to take over “deliberately” empty luxury flats to crackdown on rough sleeping. Mr Corbyn said the country needed “social priorities”’ that placed homeless people above the right for foreign investors to buy and sell property off plan. He insisted that if Labour formed the next government, it would intervene on the housing market in a “number of ways” to help social tenants, private renters and first time bu

A pioneering London estate agent is using the latest in artificial intelligence to make the lives of landlords and tenants easier.   Vesper Homes has developed a new service through the innovative cloud-based voice service so that both landlords and tenants can ask questions about their properties via an Amazon Echo.   All landlords signed up to Vesper Homes fully managed service receive a free Echo Dot, which can provide all manner of details associated with their account and tenancies.   Questions the l

A development of luxury apartments in London will be connected to a much faster digital world after receiving “gold standard” fibre broadband — making it the quickest in the UK.   The move means residents will receive broadband 27-times faster than the average UK consumer receives today.   Property developer Hadley Property Group (HPG) has selected residential gigabit provider Hyperoptic to connect the 89 grand homes in Chelsea Island. HPG is building the luxury flats as part of the regeneration of the Lo