Building Beautiful in Britain, says Jenrick
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick has this morning previewed his view of the future of British house building in an article in The Times. “Building Beautiful Places” sets out a vision of “a planning system that puts beautiful, environmentally sustainable, and life-enhancing places at its heart.” Having overseen the largest number of new build properties in a […]
Solicitor jailed for SDLT theft
The former owner of a West London law firm has been jailed for three years and four months for SDLT theft. An HMRC investigation has revealed that Manpreet Singh (formerly Munpreet Singh Virdee), the owner and director of Reemans Solicitors Ltd in Hounslow stole £380,000 by falsifying documents and submitting incorrect information to HMRC. Isleworth […]
Building Safety Bill increases “shoddy workmanship” litigation window
Homeowners in England and Wales will now have 15 years to legally challenge shoddy building work, rather than the current six-year window in which legal action can be brought against developers. The change was introduced in light of the cladding crisis following the Grenfell Tower tragedy and as part of the Building Safety Bill which […]
July deadline for fully funded conveyancing courses
A leading Welsh training academy still has conveyancing training course places available free of charge for legal practices and property companies in Wales, as well as England, after being awarded £1 million of funding to provide them to conveyancing staff and businesses in Wales. The Conveyancing Academy can provide limited places to those who enrol […]
Thames Water Property Searches help London leavers make sensible choices
Over the course of the last year the Covid pandemic has prompted an exodus from cities with many people looking to take full advantage of the working from home opportunity and move out to more rural areas. According to recent research from Hamptons Estate Agents, 2020 saw the biggest London exodus in four years with […]
Diary of a High Street Conveyancer; 19th July 2021
Thinking back over the last few weeks, I feel that now is the time for estate agents and conveyancers to form a better working relationship. You will be nodding your head in agreement with me – but I think that is far easier to say than to do. Think back thirty years – if you […]
SAS Who Dares Wins centre stage for Today’s Conveyancer Inaugural Podcast
Today’s Conveyancer is delighted to launch our very first podcast in collaboration with Lawyer Checker. In this first podcast, Tom Lyes, Director of Engagement at Lawyer Checker talks to Hannah Ouseley, who recently appeared on SAS Who Dares Wins. Hannah is a knowledge lawyer at Penningtons Manches Cooper in the Real Estate division and beat […]
Scrap SDLT for wider economic benefit
The SDLT holiday “experiment” has worked and should not stop now, says a report by the London School of Economics for the Family Building Society, revealing that scrapping SDLT altogether could yield greater benefit for the economy and tax revenues. Lessons From The Stamp Duty Holiday analyses the impact of the stamp duty holiday on […]
Are “fake reviews” a cause for concern in the legal sector?
Following the news that the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched formal enforcement cases against Amazon and Google over the use of fake reviews on their platforms, legal professionals are becoming increasingly concerned about fake reviews creeping into legal sector businesses as well. We asked a panel of industry experts for their views and advice […]
Changing attitudes to second home ownership
The number of people who own a second home has risen 33% in ten years according to data from the English Housing Survey. In 2018/19 there were 3.75 million second properties – up from 2.68 million a decade earlier. However attitudes to second home ownership are changing as the survey shows in 2018/19, 35% of second […]
Japanese knotweed – what is it and what are the risks to homeowners?
What is Japanese knotweed? Japanese knotweed is a rapidly spreading weed that is native to East Asia but arrived in Europe in the 19th century. Sometimes mistaken for bamboo, Japanese knotweed can grow up to 3 metres deep and up to 7 metres across and above ground can reach heights of 2-3 metres. Knotweed will […]
Record transactions anticipated in HMRC Figures
Rightmove has said it expects the number of sales completed in the first six months of the year and due to be reported by HMRC later this week to beat the previous record of 795,000 set in 2007. Rightmove’s analysis suggests that home moves are on course to be around 800,000 in the first 6 […]
The CMA investigation: where next for the regulation of the leasehold sector?
On 23 June 2021, the Competition and Markets Authority (the ‘CMA’) announced that it had obtained undertakings from Persimmon PLC and Aviva in relation to actions taken concerning ground rents and the sale of freeholds to leasehold houses. Both relate to issues raised by the so-called ‘leasehold scandal’ – which has led (among other things) […]
Flood History – Knowing the Full Story
During the past 75 years, over 5,000 square kilometres of England* has been recorded to have flooded at least once. That equates to an area three times the size of Greater London, or a footprint greater than the whole of Kent. Regions across the entire country have previously been affected by flooding, with many of […]
Legal Ombudsman Publishes Annual Report
The Office for Legal Complaints today published its Annual Report and Accounts for 2020/21 alongside an Annual Review of Complaints. This Annual Report covers the year from April 2020 when the impact of Covid-19 was felt across the sector and the country. The Legal Ombudsman was able to transfer to home working early in the […]
RLBA Calls For Logbooks To Be Recognised As ‘Digital Assets’ In Law
The Residential Logbook Association (RLBA) has called on the the Law Commission to recognise Property Logbooks and other data sets, systems and apps used in residential property as a ‘digital assets’ in its current consultation on the subject. The Law Commission is consulting industry and the public on reforms to law required to ensure that […]
Final week of June saw 4x the number of completions as normal
In the final week of the stamp duty holiday (at the £500,000 threshold) there were over 78,000 property completions, four times the usual volume and the highest levels of demand growth have been experienced by the highest priced properties reveals the Q2 2021 Property & Homemovers Report from property and data insight specialist, TwentyCi. Properties […]
“Buying a house is like a game of poker”
For a number of weeks, we have been running a Home Buying & Selling Consumer Survey – it can be accessed here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/howdoweimprovehomemoving and I would urge anyone active in the property market to share it with your consumer audience, your networks, through your social media, indeed through any consumer-facing channel in order to help […]
Confused.com owner moves into mortgages with acquisition
RVU, owners of Uswitch, Confused.com and Money.co.uk, is taking on the UK mortgages sector by agreeing to acquire Mojo Mortgages. Mojo, based in Manchester, is a free online mortgage broker, delivering personalised mortgage recommendations through a hybrid of smart tech and human mortgage experts. The growing company of over 60 employees has won numerous industry […]
Mitigating the Risk of Cyber Fraud
Conveyancers are a prime target for cyber criminals as they regularly deal with such significant sums of money. Between March 2020 and March 2021, the SRA reported 147% increase in cyber attacks on law firms when comparing the first 3 months of 2020 to the first three months of 2021. The repercussions of cyber attackers […]