Thursday July 1, 2010 at 7:58am
I have blogged before about the coalition government's promise to remove excessive red tape and to allow businesses to nominate their most hated business laws.Well, at last our chance is here. The government has now launched its Your Freedom website where we can tell it what regulations we want to see removed.They promise to listen. Now let's see how good they are at acting.Gary CousinsBusiness Solicitor
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(read more...)Monday June 14, 2010 at 9:54am
The new PPS 3 now defines previously developed land (brownfield land) as follows:
‘Previously-developed land is that which is or was occupied by a permanent structure, including the curtilage of the developed land and any associated fixed surface infrastructure.’ The definition includes defence buildings, but excludes:
Land that is or has been occupied by agricultural or forestry buildings.
Land that has been developed for minerals extraction or waste disposal by landfill pu....
(read more...)Friday June 11, 2010 at 5:44pm
Directors are under a legal duty to maintain detailed accounting records of their company. In particular, they must maintain records:
to show and explain transactions, and disclose the financial position of the company at any time with reasonable accuracy;
to enable them to compile balance sheets and profit and loss accounts;
to keep records of all money received and paid out by the company on a day-to-day basis;
to maintain records of the company’s assets and liabilities; an....
(read more...)Wednesday June 9, 2010 at 11:16am
The Government has announced that back gardens are to be reclassified for planning purposes. The effect of this is that it will be easier to for Local Planning Authorities to oppose applications from developers to develop garden land as the developer will not be able to argue that the land is 'brownfield'.
At the same time, however, the Government is also proposing that local residents have more say over development in their area. It may be the case that if a development proposal ha....
(read more...)Thursday June 3, 2010 at 6:54pm
The government has taken its first steps to reducing the amount of red tape which is stifling business, particularly SMEs. The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, has announced an action plan to tackle excessive regulation. It includes the following:
The creation of a new Cabinet “Star Chamber”, officially to be called the Reducing Regulation Committee, which will be chaired by Mr Cable. It is tasked with “stress-testing” proposed regulations to make sure that only thos....
(read more...)Friday May 28, 2010 at 9:24am
April saw two of the UK's best known retailers receive significant fines for breaches of fire safety legislation. On 20 April Tesco was fined £95,000 after admitting 5 breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and on 29 April 2010, the Co-operative was fined £210,000 after entering a guilty plea in relation to six offences. In both cases, the breaches are ones that could have easily occurred in any retail premises. Tesco was fined: £40,000 for two counts a....
(read more...)Tuesday May 25, 2010 at 9:00am
When the final Coalition Agreement was published last week, Nick Clegg announced that the government would be asking people what laws they wanted to be scrapped. It was a manifesto pledge of both the Conservatives and Lib Dems for there to be a “one in one out” policy as far as business regulation is concerned – in other words, if a government department wants to introduce another piece of regulation, they must abolish as least as much existing regulation – and it has now....
(read more...)Thursday May 20, 2010 at 6:54pm
Hidden in the governments detailed coalition agreement released today are concrete proposals to limit future back garden development. The plan is to give councils new powers to stop what they call ‘garden grabbing’. Full details to follow but if you are thinking about selling off part of your garden for development now could be the time to take that step. If you have surplus land or are a developer who carries out these types of schemes then contact property lawyer Paul Harrison....
(read more...)Thursday May 20, 2010 at 12:00pm
The long-awaited Full Coalition Agreement has now been published, which sets out what the coalition intends to do during its time in office. Refreshingly, it has a section specifically on business, something which the individual party’s manifestos failed to do. Unfortunately, there are a lot of promises to “review”, “look into” and “consider”, which doesn’t help when SMEs are desperate for help. The government’s main promises, as far as SMEs ....
(read more...)Thursday May 20, 2010 at 11:46am
It was today announced by the new government that the requirement for seller's to provide a Home Information Pack (HIP) will be suspended from 21 May 2010.
As expected Energy Performance Certificate's (EPC's) are retained and will still need to be produced within 28 days of the property being put on the market.
The practical effect of HIP's being scrapped is to shift the cost of paying for searches back to the buyer, which was always the position before they were int....
(read more...)Friday April 23, 2010 at 11:50am
The Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) came into force on 1 April. CRC is a compulsory carbon dioxide emissions trading scheme where large organisations are required to buy allowances based on how much CO2 they expect to emit from their buildings during the year. The CRC will inevitably have a knock on effect to small and medium sized businesses, many of which will be tenants in buildings where the scheme applies. As is the case with any
commercial lease the landlord will be looking to recoup fro....
(read more...)Friday March 5, 2010 at 11:09am
After a long wait, the Consumer Code for Home Builders comes into force on 1 April. It will be mandatory for house builders who are members of a home warranty scheme which has undertaken to enforce the Code. Home warranty bodies such as NHBC, Premier Guarantee and LABCNew Home Warranty have all agreed to require their registered builders to adopt and comply with the Consumer Code.I set out the main issues covered by the Code in this ezine article in October 2008.The Code will apply to all ....
(read more...)Tuesday February 16, 2010 at 5:07pm
When you take a car in for its service do you ever get the feeling that you have been taken for a ride quite literally?! I certainly do when given the list of parts the garage recommends be replaced. It would be useful to have some way of getting to the bottom of what really is important. This was the inspiration behind my Planning Law Guide that certainly can be as complex as the average Audi.
Take the following example. The word “Development” in planning terms does not just mean ....
(read more...)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...)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...)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....
(read more...)Friday December 11, 2009 at 4:16pm
This Act of Parliament has now received Royal Assent but the date for it actually coming into effect has yet to be announced. Although this sounds like some obscure piece of law, there will be one significant benefit for property developers.
At present, an option to purchase land is void if it is not exercised within twenty-one years of the date the option is granted. Now twenty-one years may sound a long time but for investors and developers who specialise in the strategi....
(read more...)Monday November 9, 2009 at 1:31pm
A Federation of Small Business survey showed that an average SME spends 7 hours every week coping with red tape; and a Federation of Private Business survey revealed that the cost to SMEs of compliance was £9.3 billion each year.With so many SMEs struggling in the present economic climate shouldn't the Government be dealing urgently with reducing the regulatory burden on the SME sector? Whilst some of the red tape comes from UK Government initiatives, most originates in the....
(read more...)Friday October 2, 2009 at 11:58am
Following a change to planning rules which took effect on 30 September, developers can now extend their existing planning permissions to give them more time to weather the economic downturn.
Developers with planning permissions granted up until 30 September 2009 where the time limit for implementation has yet to expire may apply to extend their permissions. The move has been made to boost the industry and to save costs for developers badly hit by the recession. Many developers have put pr....
(read more...)Wednesday August 26, 2009 at 3:47pm
I am sure that all buyers (and most sellers) will want to make sure that goods sold are of satisfactory quality and do the job intended. But what is the remedy when things go wrong, for example the steel supplied is not up to the job, the cattle food makes the cattle ill, the computer does not live up to its billing, or the machinery keeps breaking down?
Sale of goods law provides remedies for buyers where the goods are not of "satisfactory quality". A recent High Court case conf....
(read more...)Thursday August 6, 2009 at 2:58pm
The Credit Crunch is inevitably contributing to a delay in payment to businesses, particularly vulnerable SMEs. Money owed to small businesses shot up by 40% from £18.6 billion in 2007, to £25.9 billion in 2008, according to Bacs. And who knows where the figure is at this time, no doubt substantailly higher.
This attack on cash flow is probably the biggest single cause of company failure. For example Barclays state that more than 750 companies failed in the South East in 2008 due t....
(read more...)Thursday July 9, 2009 at 4:45pm
In the past 2 weeks I have been the victim of large scale internet fraud on 2 credit cards, and so I have taken a keen interest in liability and in ways to protect against future fraud.
I have been very careful to use only on line stores who encrypt customer details, but fraudsters have still managed to obtain my credit card details including security number, as well as my address, telephone number, date of birth. This can only be a result of sophisticated hacking, or criminal activity by an e....
(read more...)Wednesday June 17, 2009 at 2:45pm
Responsibility for fire, health and safety issues rests with the operator of the business. Since 1 October 2006 it has been necessary for all businesses to comply with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The Order applies to all non-domestic premises in England and Wales. If you are responsible for business premises, an employer or self-employed with business premises, or responsible for any part of a dwelling used for business purposes, or indeed a contractor with some control over ....
(read more...)Monday March 23, 2009 at 6:16pm
This was publicised in the Telegraph today and is another piece of bad news for businesses struggling with their cashflow.
The rateable value of some properties rose or fell in line with changes in rental values after the last revaluation on 1 April 2005 and 'transitional arrangements' were in place to phase in the increase or decrease in the rate bill. The next revaluation will come into effect on 1 April 2010. The current transition scheme operates over a four year period from 1 April 2005. T....
(read more...)Thursday October 9, 2008 at 6:00pm
Government plans to cut the cost of red tape must be welcomed by business owners, surely?The proposals are that budgetary ceilings are set on the amount of regulation that can be introduced by individual departments.Under the plans, a rolling budgetary limit will curtail the costs of new regulation from next April (2009). Government departments will be allowed to offset the cost of any new rules with savings made by reducing the existing regulatory burden and by trading with other departments. T....
(read more...)Monday September 15, 2008 at 6:08pm
It now seems accepted that Sharia Courts are legal alternatives to the traditional court system in the UK – as long as all parties agree. The UK courts have for a long time now been promoting ‘Alternative Dispute Resolution’ – whereby parties to a legal dispute are encouraged to settle their disputes out of court. Often this is achieved by negotiation, sometimes by Mediation (whereby an independent 3rd party tries to broker a settlement between the parties) and more rarel....
(read more...)Monday August 18, 2008 at 4:19pm
It's been pretty commonplace over the last ten years for people to sell off part of their back garden to a property developer. With the construction of new homes effectively mothballed at the moment, you might be forgiven for thinking that you've missed the boat if you are keen to sell off some surplus garden land. The good news is that developers specialising in certain types of property are still in the market for land and one such area is bungalows. This market is holding up rather better tha....
(read more...)Tuesday August 5, 2008 at 4:33pm
As if there weren't enough issues to worry about when you're buying a business, a recently decided case has given business purchasers another headache. The case was Sodexho Ltd v Gutridge and others. The decision in this case was that where an employer fails to give equal pay then a contractual liability exists in respect of those employees to whom the failure relates, even before any action has been taken to determine the existence of the pay inequality. The ramifications for anyone buying a bu....
(read more...)Tuesday July 22, 2008 at 4:46pm
You'd be forgiven for asking that question the first time you hear about BREEAM. It is, in fact, the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (no wonder they use an acronym). BREEAM is the world's most widely used environmental assessment method for buildings. BREEAM assesses buildings against a set criteria and provides an overall score which will fall within a band providing either a PASS, GOOD, VERY GOOD or EXCELLENT rating. It ties in with the Code For Sustainable Home....
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