Thursday January 21, 2010 at 10:49am
I have previously posted on the issue of back garden development. It looks as though the Government may be finally waking up to the fact that flaws in its planning guidance have caused rather more of this type of development than may have been desirable.
Housing and Planning Minister, John Healey, has announced that he will be strengthening national policy advice to make it clearer that garden land is not necessarily suitable for development and that decisions to stop building on it shoul....
(read more...)Wednesday January 20, 2010 at 9:36am
I have previously written about the business rates revaluation. For those businesses which may experience a large increase in business rates, the transitional relief scheme is intended to spread the impact over several years. To find out whether your business rates increase will be phased in over time, check the lists below.
Caps for small properties Small properties are those with a rateable value of below £18,000 (£25,500 in Greater London) as at 1 April 2010. The cap ....
(read more...)Monday January 18, 2010 at 9:57am
Over the past few years there have been a number of occasions when certain police forces have closed down licensed premises with immediate effect where they consider that they are operating in breach of the conditions on their Premises Licences. Just before Christmas there were 2 such cases in the north of the country where CCTV systems were not functioning.
But do the Police have the power to close premises with immediate effect in such circumstances? The short answer is no. I am concerned th....
(read more...)Friday January 15, 2010 at 5:00pm
The Conservative Party has pledged to scrap Home Information Packs (Hips) immediately in the event that they win the general election, which given their strength in the polls seems likely.
The original aim of Hips was to speed up the house buying process and to stop deals from “falling through” but most people involved in the property industry will agree that Hips in their current form have been a failure. In my own experience one of the biggest problems has been that by the time t....
(read more...)Thursday January 14, 2010 at 5:26pm
The surprise banks’ overdraft charges victory could leave landlords’ exposed to a new challenge by estate agents. The High Court originally ruled that millions of pounds of residential tenancy “renewal” fees charged by Foxtons to landlords were unfair resulting in expected refunds running to millions of pounds. The new interpretation of the law means that buy-to-let investors may now face delays in their claims for a rebate whilst any appeal is heard.
Please get in touc....
(read more...)Thursday January 14, 2010 at 4:45pm
A recent Supreme Court decision will be of keen interest to developers. It was decided that a sewerage undertaker had no power to refuse a builder the right to connect a private drain to the public sewer at the point most convenient to the developer. Welsh Water had argued that it could refuse the connection on the basis that it would overload the system at that point. This would have meant the developer having to connect to the public sewer at a manhole some 300 metres away. The Court rejected ....
(read more...)Tuesday January 12, 2010 at 9:39am
At the end of the second week of 2010 we can look back on Christmas and look at predictions for the year.
Trade over Christmas seems to have been very patchy. Some independent real ale brewers have reported good trading figures, whereas other sectors have posted disappointing results. I cant help but think that the weather played a big part this year. Unless your customers were snowed in with you for days, like Englands highest pub the Tan Hill Inn in the Yorkshire Dales, or you were providing....
(read more...)Tuesday January 5, 2010 at 11:01am
Last month I told you about the changes made by the Policing and Crime Act 2009 of November. The government have just announced that they will be bringing in to force some of the changes earlier than we expected. Perhaps an early election is on the cards?
The intention is to introduce the following changes on 29 January:
Allowing members of Licensing Authorities to object to applications and initiate a review of a Premises Licence or Club Registration Certificate
Making it an offence t....
(read more...)Monday January 4, 2010 at 9:29am
The Chancellor’s December 2009 pre-Budget Report announced that the Government is to extend and increase the temporary relief from empty property rates for low value properties. The Government will continue the relief for a further year from April 2010.
Further, for 2010-11, empty commercial properties with rateable values up to £18,000 will be exempt from business rates. This continues the exemption for what the Government says is an estimated 70 per cent of empty properties.
Wit....
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