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Flat-owners should be thinking now about the implications of Home Information Packs (or the ‘seller’s pack’, as they used to be known). You’re aware from the extensive, and generally hostile, media coverage that HIPs will be a fact of life from July next year and that anyone wishing to market a flat after that time will have to produce one. Because of the nature of their property title the burden of HIPs will fall much more heavily on flat-owners: there is so much more information to be provided. So why t

I am sitting on a plane in New York waiting to disembark on the 10th August. You may recall this is the day after 20 people wanting to blow up planes to the States were arrested on terrorist charges. Gatwick was chaos and all the ground staff were doing their best, but one thing would have made their lives easier and that is communicating information – even if it was there was nothing new to tell. The departure gate was bombarded by people asking, “when are we boarding?” With regular tannoy announcements

Over the last twenty years, the private residential retirement housing market has steadily developed, as more people have realised the benefits of this type of accommodation and due to an increasingly ageing population. Keith Edgar analyses the benefits of managed retirement housing. With 20 million people in the UK currently in retirement and a shortage of retirement homes, there is a huge demand for tailor-made housing for the over 75s. This age group is desperately seeking suitable and available retir

In recent years, the jurisdictions of the Government-sponsored Residential Property Tribunal Service (RPTS) have expanded dramatically. Senior President of the service, Siobhan McGrath, explains the organisation’s new powers to News on the Block, and looks to the future. The RPTS provides an independent, fair and accessible tribunal service for settling residential disputes between landlords, leaseholders, tenants and local authorities. The Committees and Tribunals operated by the service are quasi-judi

In a complex piece of government regulation, thousands of homes converted into self-contained flats could become unmanageable and open up lessees to fines of up to £20,000 from October 2006. During the building boom of the 70s and 80s many thousands of houses, whether terraced, semi-detached or detached, were converted into self-contained flats, the majority of which were then sold on long leases. An obscure section (S257) of the Housing Act 2004 is likely to make these Houses in Multiple Occupation (

The Housing Ombudsman Service was set up under the provisions of the 1996 Housing Act to deal with complaints and disputes involving member landlords. Under the law, the Ombudsman has a mandatory remit over all registered social landlords in England and a voluntary remit over private landlords. There is no charge at the point of complaint for using the Housing Ombudsman service. The Service is funded by a subscription, which at the present time is £1.15 per unit owned or managed by a member landlord. All

EXCLUSIVE REVIEW The Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA) celebrated its first decade of annual conferences on November 2nd at the appropriately grand setting of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, Savoy Place, London. It is the only real time for members from all over the UK – as well hundreds of other delegates with an interest in the leasehold sector - to come together and hear not only about ARMA’s plans for the future, but to discuss the residential leasehold sector in general. The

LEASE has come a long way since its inception 10 years ago, something Peter Haler was instrumental in founding after a period of time lobbying the government for a leasehold advice service. LEASE is now a generic leasehold advice service with 20 members of staff. They have provided advice to over 150,000 individual clients and continue to advise at least 30,000 clients every year in addition to the 1,000 visits a day to the LEASE website. Haler is understandably happy at how LEASE has developed, though

It is estimated that there are now over 54,000 blocks of flats where the long leasehold flat owners control the management of their property; and under current government legislation this is set to grow dramatically. However this very same legislation is increasingly making it difficult for lessees to manage such properties. Rights of individual lessees are being increased and this helpful where they stop the abuses of outsiders who have control. However, these rights can also cause problems where the l

This year’s Association of Residential Housing Manager’s (ARHM) Conference will be held at 1 Great George Street, London W1 on Wednesday 6 December. There is an excellent line up of speakers, including Baroness Elizabeth Andrews OBE, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, DCLG, who will be the keynote speaker. She is leading the initiative for a cross-government strategy for older persons’ housing and will be speaking to the conference about what that strategy might include. Other subjects that will be

EXCLUSIVE REVIEW The Association of Residential Managing Agents (ARMA) celebrated its first decade of annual conferences on November 2nd at the appropriately grand setting of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, Savoy Place, London. It is the only real time for members from all over the UK – as well hundreds of other delegates with an interest in the leasehold sector - to come together and hear not only about ARMA’s plans for the future, but to discuss the residential leasehold sector in general. The

By JANE BARRY, ASSOCIATE EDITOR Long gone are the days when landlords resisted the very idea of enfranchisement and the Duke of Westminster took a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights. Some landlords still safeguard their freeholds by granting only short leases or ensuring the number of rented flats in a block prevents the long leaseholders from qualifying. But successive tranches of legislation have persuaded most that the sale of their freeholds is inevitable major players like the Cadogan