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Landlords safety checks

Landlords must gear up for new safety checks 

Residential landlords must get their house in order with the arrival of further legislation to protect tenants through electrical and building safety requirements. New electrical safety standards are rolling out for private sector tenancies and the other upcoming challenge for residential landlords is fire safety compliance for building structures.  Both safety aspects have been accelerated following tragic outcomes.  Electricity causes about half of the UK’s 37,000 house fires a year, according to the charity Electrical Safety First, and faulty electrics cause some 70 deaths and 350,000 injuries each year in…

Employee data protection

Why Big Brother needs to watch out when it comes to employee monitoring

The ‘Big Brother’ surveillance scenario envisaged by George Orwell has long since become reality.  The ability to watch citizens outlined in the futuristic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, is now firmly fact, not fiction. Rolling back to 2013, the British Security Industry Association estimated that the number of CCTV surveillance cameras in the UK numbered some 4 to 6 million and recent estimates put London in the top three cities worldwide having the highest number of cameras by population.  This race towards technological surveillance and monitoring saw a further boost during…

Coronavirus and separation

The new immigration rules: deadlines you need to know

The UK’s new immigration system will come into effect on 1st January 2021 and will apply to both EU citizens and non-EU citizens. This means that citizens of EU member states (with the exception of Ireland) who want to move to the UK on or after 1st January 2021 will require a visa to live, work or study. There are many consequences for both employers, workers, and families of EU citizens. There are also several important deadlines that you must make a note of if you are an EU citizen…

Christmas, coronavirus and separation

Christmas, coronavirus and separation: what are the rules around taking children away from home?

For many parents, the issue of spending time with children at Christmas can be tense. Both parents want to spend Christmas day with their loved ones and their children, but this becomes complicated when they do not live in the same town or city or if they have to travel to visit relatives. In addition, coronavirus restrictions may mean that travel and visiting relatives is not advised or even permitted. In this article, we look at some of the key issues and questions surrounding, Christmas and coronavirus for separated parents.…

Stress-testing before celebrating

Stress-testing before celebrating a virtual office Christmas  

Christmas traditionally brings a round of festive celebrations for customers and employees, but with current Covid-19 restrictions, companies are having to re-think drinks and dinners for customers and learn how to stage a virtual staff party. Plans that venture into new territory will demand a doubling down on risk management.  Any corporate gifting and entertaining must stand up to the rules laid out in the Bribery Act, and an online Christmas party needs to be controlled to avoid employer liability from inappropriate staff behaviour. A recent poll[1] found that 26%…

What investors

Protect your finances – what investors, savers and homeowners should consider

Protect your finances and investments. This has been front of mind for so many people across the country, and the world over the past few months. At the beginning of the year, we could not fathom the impact the COVID-19 pandemic would have on the way we work and live - not to mention our savings, investments, and day-to-day finances. The UK is now in recession - the biggest on record. There have been monumental swings in the stock market and in the price of almost every other asset including…

How secure is your password

How secure is your password?

The need for cybersecurity is more crucial today than ever, with individuals and companies alike relying heavily on hardware and cloud-based servers to store and retrieve secured data, particularly when working remotely during COVID-19 lockdowns. We live in an evolving digital age with consistent advancements in technology, but as technology grows and develops, so do cyberattacks. A brute force attack method is simply trying every possible combination there could be. The colour-coded chart from Hive Systems provides an indication of just how long it would take a hacker to crack…

Retail tenants should

Retail tenants should check the small print

As a fresh wave of lockdown measures cut across the UK, retail tenants may be experiencing new concerns about how to pay the rent, but another ticking timebomb is the viability of their landlords. Even before the pandemic, the high street was undergoing radical change and the continuing restrictions have seen a dramatic shift in consumer habits towards online shopping. Faced with such a shift towards e-commerce, few were surprised to see the recent demise of Intu, a large retail landlord with shopping centres that include the Trafford Centre in…

Stamp duty holiday

Property boom as home and overseas buyers rush to beat the deadline 

Property buyers are fighting off the pandemic to catch a new home before stamp duty goes back to its normal rate.  For overseas buyers, the race is even more important, as the rate will carry an additional surcharge for them from April. As part of the range of measures to provide economic support through the Covid-19 pandemic, the Government introduced a temporary holiday for Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) on the first £500,000 of purchases, but this will come to an end on 31 March 2021, when it will revert…

Applying for relief

Applying for relief from forfeiture? Act without delay

A recent high court case shows the importance of acting on time when applying for relief from forfeiture. The basics of the case were as follows: The tenants (being the Claimants in this matter) had the benefit of a 21-year lease for a property in Leicester (which was entered into in 2008). The Property, which was a ground floor shop with a residential flat above it, attracted a £2,000 quarterly rent instalment. In June 2018 the Claimants had, by way of a mistake, paid 1,500 of the rent thereby going…

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