The report of the Parliamentary committee on residential leasehold reform has been published containing strong recommendations, many of them radical, and some where it is not at all clear how they could work in practice. Nevertheless, this is likely to be the future and a good commercial conclusion may be to assume that this will … Read more
A report commissioned for the Labour Party entitled “Land for the Many” has been published, proposing radical changes to the way that land is used and controlled in the United Kingdom. It makes many recommendations which are described as “proposals to the Labour Party” to consider as part of its policy development process in advance … Read more
For developers bringing forward any residential development, the affordable housing package will be one of the most important elements of ensuring a scheme actually gets consent – particularly in the current political and policy environment. But while it is easy to focus only on those crucial headlines – number of units, tenure, and size – … Read more
In our blog post of 10 December 2018 (see here), we discussed the potential impact on developers and landlords of changes to permitted development (PD) rights and Use Class A which were being consulted on by the government. Despite widespread criticism, and counter to some calls for a greater role for local authorities in securing … Read more
Landlords can (for now at least) breathe a sigh of relief as the High Court has ruled that a tenant cannot bring its obligations under a lease to an end by invoking the doctrine of frustration simply because it will have no option but to relocate if/when the UK leaves the EU. In Canary Wharf … Read more
This article was first published on Lexis®PSL Property on 24 January 2019. Fiona Sawyer, professional support lawyer in the planning team at Herbert Smith Freehills LLP, and Frances Edwards, senior associate and specialist real estate litigator at the firm, point out that although the government’s ‘open doors’ scheme will certainly help reinstate the high street … Read more
In this podcast, Herbert Smith Freehills’ Matthew Bonye and Tom Leech QC discuss the important Canary Wharf Group v European Medicines Agency court case. This case is highly relevant to real estate development. The tenant, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), argues that Brexit is a frustrating event for its lease and that it can assert that the lease is thereby terminated. … Read more
Two key themes of the Budget on 29 October 2018 were increasing the supply of housing and improving the health of high streets and town centres. Published with the Budget was the consultation ‘Planning reform: supporting the high street and increasing the delivery of new homes’. Also announced was the government’s ‘Open Doors’ project, aiming … Read more
