The Building Safety Act 2022 has brought a fundamental shift in the regulation of relevant and higher risk buildings, imposing a swathe of new obligations and processes on those responsible for these buildings, and plenty to...more
Key takeaways The Building Safety Levy will come into effect in Autumn 2026. The Building Safety Act 2022 gave the government the power to impose a building safety levy on new residential buildings requiring certain building...more
The High Court has imposed the first Building Liability Order under the Building Safety Act, passing liability for building safety defects from an SPV to its wealthier parent company....more
The Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025 was given Royal Assent on 3 April. While its provisions are not in force just yet, anyone operating premises or events meeting the thresholds will need to start taking action...more
An earlier version of the article appeared in Estates Gazette.
Given the trend towards an ageing population across Europe and beyond, later living is one of the hottest sectors for real estate investors, with many investors...more
The Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 (LAFRA) was passed swiftly on the final day of the last Parliament. As well as introducing long promised changes to leasehold enfranchisement and banning new leasehold houses, it...more
The Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) has recently given its judgment in Lehner v Lant Street Management Company Limited, absolving a tenant from paying service charge due to defects in the service charge demand....more
Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, has secured a remediation order requiring a pension fund landlord to carry out fire safety remediation works totalling £15 million under Section...more
In our recent article, we explored how to pre-empt and prevent anticipated trespass on your land through injunctions. But what do you do when it’s too late for that, and your property has been occupied by trespassers or...more
The Law Commission’s review of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 was announced in Spring 2023, with a consultation paper – setting out the existing law, the problems with it, and possible solutions - anticipated by December...more
In our last update in May, when the Renters Reform Bill was finally placed before parliament, we flagged the proposed changes - perhaps most significantly, the abolition of “no fault” or Section 21 evictions. While Bill...more
The first remediation order has been made under the Building Safety Act 2022, requiring a landlord to carry out works to fix fire safety defects.
In January, the First Tier Tribunal made the first Remediation Contribution...more
The responsible actors scheme – which requires residential property developers to agree to remediate fire safety defects in relevant buildings, or face being barred from securing planning permission or building control...more
In part 1 of this series, we set out what landlord certificates are and when they must be provided. In this article, we delve deeper into the rather more burdensome requirements to provide supporting information with...more
The Building Safety Act 2022 introduced landlord and leaseholder certificates to help leaseholders understand which protections against the cost of remedial works apply to them. In this first part of our series on landlord...more
In the global real estate industry, there has been little escape from tales of economic woe recently. But there are still many with money to spend, and given the uncertainty around office, retail and leisure following the...more
In the recent case of Rail for London v The Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of Hackney, the UK High Court considered what happens when the express terms of a lease do not reflect the wider business context....more
In its recent decision in Jalla and another v Shell International Trading and Shipping Co Limited and another, the UK Supreme Court confirmed that a one-off oil spill was not a “continuing nuisance”....more
Where the parties can’t agree on the terms of a renewal lease under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, the Court has the power to decide those terms. But how does the court balance the competing demands of a landlord - keen to...more
In the 20 years since the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (Part II) was updated in 2003, there have been increasingly vocal calls for it to be revisited. The government announced a review in December 2020, but this fell by the...more
Camilla Lamont and Paul Tonkin consider the potential effects of the MEES Regulations on commercial lease rent reviews. ESG considerations are increasingly dominating the conversation between commercial landlords and their...more
In their recent Judgment in R (on the application of Day) v Shropshire, the UK Supreme Court decided that public rights over local authority land – which was later discovered to be a public park - survived a sale to a...more
The First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) has made the first remediation contribution order under the Building Safety Act 2022. The Tribunal ordered a landlord to repay amounts paid by the leaseholders of a multi-let...more
Since our previous update on the Building Safety Act 2022, the legislative landscape around fire safety has continued to evolve, with the Fire Safety Regulations coming into force, and new Higher-Risk Buildings Regulations...more
2023 has already been a busy year for real estate litigation, with 3 Supreme Court decisions in as many weeks. Whilst recent years have taught us the dangers of trying to make any predictions, we have identified 5 key areas...more