Featured Articles

A man accidentally burnt down his apartment as he tried to kill a spider by setting fire to it.   The resident in California had spotted a large wolf spider and used a torch lighter to destroy the creature, which then scuttled under a mattress and went up into flames.   A fire official said that residents had tried to extinguish the fire with a garden hose, but their efforts were unsuccessful. The blaze caused approximately £8,100 worth of damage.

A newlywed couple claim they are trapped in their home after discovering a legal clause in their lease that means ground rent will double every 10 years.   Nathan and Tasha Stewart put their house in Soham, Cambridgeshire, on the market last October – four years after buying the new build property from Taylor Wimpey.   After accepting an offer, the couple were told that the buyer’s solicitor had asked for a sales pack from the ground rent company and uncovered the clause.   Nathan said: “The solicitor tol

Battersea Power Station — which is being transformed into luxury apartments, offices and a shopping and leisure complex — is about to be bought in the UK’s biggest ever property deal.   Two Malaysian state-backed funds have said they will pay £1.6bn for the iconic building, which will provide a much-needed cash injection as its completion has been hampered by delays and increased costs.   Asset management group Permodalan Nasional Berhad (PNB) plans to buy the building with pension fund Employees Providen

Residents at a block of flats in South London that is fitted with the same cladding as Grenfell Tower are being asked to pay more than £30,000 each to replace it.   Leaseholders of the Citiscape block have said they have been handed a combined bill of £2m to remove the aluminiumcomposite material (ACM) panels, which are thought to have helped spread the horrific fire.   The owner of the building — which is one of 228 to fail combustibility tests — said they were not responsible for the cost of replacing t

Leasehold houses and flats have had a lot of coverage in the press recently culminating in the report prepared for Sajid Javid (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government) on abuses of the leasehold system in the housing market. As a result of all this coverage, more and more people are becoming aware of the length of their lease and that maybe it is not as long as they thought it was. Here are five good reasons why you should consider extending your lease: 1.  A lease is a diminishing asset

QUESTION I am the Chairman, of a Residents Association that manages a 17 apartment, 6 floor, leasehold block, with a share of the freehold. One of the lessees wants to have a Labrador dog and has asked for my opinion. The lease, common to all, has a paragraph which relates to dogs which doesn’t appear to forbid dogs nor does it allow them: ‘Not to keep or allow to be kept any bird dog or other animal in or upon the said flat or garage which may cause damage nuisance or annoyance to the lessees or other oc

The Court of Appeal has just dismissed the eagerly awaited appeal of the decision in Mundy v The Trustees of the Sloane Stanley Estate. Consequently, valuers should continue following the guidance set out in the Upper Tribunal’s decision. Leaseholders with less than 80 years remaining on their lease will feel the pinch but landlords should see a benefit following the dismissal. Mundy concerned the valuation of a lease extension under the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, specificall

Yashmin Mistry, Partner at JPC Law highlights an area of law of interest to tenants when they are fed up with poor management and the building does not comply with the criteria required to purchase the freehold or exercise the right to manage – The Right to Appoint a Manager and/or Receiver.   A common complaint of tenants is that their property has been badly managed and/or the landlord is collecting excessive amounts of service/administration charges.  To deal with these problems, the First Tier Tribuna

In contrast to the supply contracts for individual flats, energy contracts covering the supplies to communal areas are classed as business contracts as the contracting party is almost always a company, as opposed to an individual resident. As such, unless the usage level at a particular meter is below the 'de-minimis' threshold specified by HMRC (currently under 12,000 kWh per year for electricity and 52,764 kWh per year for gas), then suppliers will charge VAT @ 20% as default. In addition, they will cha

Congratulations – you have just enfranchised the block of flats in which you live and you are now a proud member of the freehold company. Or perhaps you have just completed a successful Right to Manage claim and you are now in control of the management of the block. So, erm… now what? Acquiring the Management Function There are two ways in which the tenants may acquire responsibility for the management of their building – by enfranchisement pursuant to the Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development A

OakNorth – the bank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs – has provided £2m of debt finance to Warwick Estates, one of the UK’s largest property management companies which last year gained investment from Sir Rod Aldridge, the founder of Capita. The £2m financing represents the first phase of a new relationship between OakNorth and Warwick Estates. The finance provided by OakNorth will be used to implement a ‘buy & build’ strategy to consolidate a highly fragmented market. Warwick’s ambitions are to acquir

The property management industry is now all too aware of the devastating consequences of a building which is not fire-safe, particularly where, as has been alleged following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the cause was defective cladding. Most landlords of blocks which use the same cladding are keen to replace or modernise aspects of the buildings to prevent, insofar as is possible, further disaster. Where a building is identified as needing remedial works to rectify any fire concerns, but at the same time t