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A landlord has been sent to prison in the first custodial sentence given in London under the new fire safety regulations. Mr Mehmat Parlak was sentenced to four months imprisonment and his company, Watchacre properties limited, were fined £21,000 following conviction for serious breaches of the regulatory reform order (RRO). The prosecution followed a fatal fire at a flat on Ruskin Road, Tottenham on 16 September 2007. After being removed from the building by firefighters, a man was taken to hospital

Stamp duty has been a nice little earner for the government. As the property market has soared it has brought a tidy dividend in extra billions – £6.44 billion in 2006/07, well over double the £2.69 billion it generated in 2001/02, and nearly twice the £3 billion plus the Treasury pockets from inheritance tax. Estate agents, developers and buy-to-let investors may all have benefited when the market was rising. But the government, while encouraging us to become property owners, was also raking it in. With

Q: You recently joined forces with Porter Crossick – could you begin by telling us a little bit about your firm and the services you offer? What have you brought to them and them to you? A: Certainly. Jaffe Porter Crossick is now a broadly based firm specialising in private client work. We have a property bias and we specialise in residential conveyancing, commercial conveyancing, company commercial work, litigation, matrimonial, wills and probate and of course our leasehold enfranchisement department, co

Surrey We are very much affected by the credit crunch. It has been very quiet. We are still taking properties on the market, but not at the rate we were a few months ago. We’re finding that buyers are increasingly cautious and very confused by the mixed messages in the press. This week we had an offer of £250,000 for a property that was originally on the market for £365,000 and is now on at £269,995. The offer was rejected because it was still below the market value, even in this market, but you wouldn’t

South London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex As property prices continue to fall around the country, London’s surrounding counties are still seeing a steady drop in the value of flats. In particular, Sussex have seen an average value drop of 8.19% in the last year, with the average flat price falling to £162,752, compared to a drop of 6.83% in Surrey and 7.4% in Kent, falling to £208,058 and £158,586 respectively. However, despite the average value decrease and recent housing market slump, flat prices in the ma

The more you see and hear the more you think the English legal system is less about common sense and more about absurdity. Well recently we have received our own share of dealings with the justice system both County Court and LVT. Now where we are different (and probably rightly so from my experience to date) is that I will handle matters and not engage lawyers, unless it gets to a position of technicalities. Let me explain. I have a personal County Court claim against a kitchen fitter where their sole de

The Carsberg Report has called for the regulation of all property management, including property managed direct without agents: “there should be a statutory requirement for all relevant agents and landlords to be members of an approved regulatory regime”. I can’t see a great deal to argue with but, as with so many areas of leasehold reform, haven’t we been here before? The management industry, or at least the responsible part of it, has been advocating statutory regulation for more than 10 years. Governme

It was with some interest that the team at Pathmeads and those within the Registered Social Landlord (RSL) movement looked upon the recent Carsberg review. The main points of the review were: information needs to be straightforward and clear to customers and consumers; control over the practitioner, by making it simple and; a consistent form of redress that is universal. For those of us in the RSL industry, participation with our customers and consumers, guidance to the practitioner and a universal form o

Financial institutions MiNC Apartments’ client base in London is over 90 per cent corporate and a large amount of that is from financial institutions. The vast majority of the company’s apartments are either around the City or the Docklands and they boast the likes of Goldman Sachs, RBS, Barclays and Merrill Lynch as regular tenants. “We see it as a growing market,” Kamran continues. “We have research reports from Savills confirming this to be the case. There is no single player or brand name out there th

Change of tenant EPCs are valid for 10 years and can be reused as many times as needed within that period. In short, it is not necessary to arrange for a new EPC each time there is a change of tenant. Landlords providing emergency accommodation are exempt, up to a point. Where a tenant requires accommodation because of an emergency there may not be enough time to arrange an EPC before renting out the home. The EPC must however be provided as soon as possible after the property has been rented. Various f

Erinaceous Insurance Services Limited (EIS) announces its rebranding and will operate as Barbon Insurance Group Limited (www.barbon.com). The name change and unveiling of the new corporate identity reinforces the company’s position as one of the UK’s leading independent property and commercial insurance brokers. Leslie Goodman, Executive Chairman of Barbon Insurance Group comments: “The rebranding means we can shake off the shackles of the past and start to implement new initiatives designed to enhance ou

Economics, government housing policy and the state of the market will kick off Property Week’s second annual RESI conference in the toughest market conditions for 15 years. Subtitled ‘riding the rollercoaster’, RESI 08 will take place at the Celtic Manor Resort on 18th and 19th September and has attracted more than 650 delegates to date. Economist Roger Bootle, Homes & Communities Agency chief executive Sir Bob Kerslake and Berkeley Homes’ forthright MD Tony Pidgley (pictured right at front) are headline