The Law Commission has published a summary explaining the future of home ownership after reform and of how their recommendations fit with Government’s proposed reforms. That overall summary can be accessed here: https://s3-eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/lawcom-prod-storage-11jsxou24uy7q/uploads/2020/07/Summary-The-Future-of-Home-Ownership-final-N2.pdf.

Summaries of our reports, the reports themselves, and other accompanying documents, can be found at the following link: https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/residential-leasehold-and-commonhold/.

We are pleased to include a summary prepared by one of our Board Members, Yashmin Mistry, partner and Head of Leasehold at JPC, our thanks to

The consultation on the future overarching Code of Practice for Residential Property Agents is now open for industry and consumer input.

The consultation is based on the 14 recommendations made by Lord Best in his Regulation of Property Agents report of last year, and will be used by the future Regulator to both authorise and oversee agents.

The objective of the overarching Code of Practice is to set out the principles that underpin the standards of professionalism including conduct and

ARHM is delighted to participate in an industry wide steering group to develop a new Code of Practice to raise standards across the property sector.

The new Code, designed to be handed over to the Regulator, when appointed, covers all aspects of residential property and follows the recommendations from Lord Best’s Regulation of Property Agents Working Group published in July 2019. The RoPA report recommended that the legislation required to regulate property agents should allow for future extension to the

Please click on the link to read the article that ran in the Mail covering our joint letter to the Chancellor regarding Stamp Duty.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/mortgageshome/article-8479463/Cut-stamp-duty-downsizers-property-bosses-urge.html

The chancellor announced a temporary holiday on stamp duty on the first £500,000 of all property sales in England and Northern Ireland.

The level at which the tax is charged has been temporarily raised until next March to £500,000 to boost the property market and help buyers struggling because of the coronavirus crisis.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53319433

This announcement should benefit most purchasers of retirement housing – and their buyers and chains – and picks up concerns ARHM and wider sector representatives had

The Law Commission announced that it will be publishing all three residential leasehold and commonhold reports on 21^st July and formally launching them at a meeting of the APPG on Leasehold and Commonhold Reform on the same day.

This document was collated by colleagues at  RHG in conjunction with ARCO, HBF and ARHM. Our thanks to everyone who supplied examples.

https://www.housinglin.org.uk/Topics/type/Coronavirus-COVID-19-Supporting-Residents-in-Retirement-Housing-and-Extra-Care-Housing-who-experience-Loneliness-An-A-Z-of-examples/

Further to our continued dialogue with the Minister of Care, we are pleased to have received a letter of support from the Minister which we have shared directly with our named contacts across our membership for them to pass on to all their teams who are providing invaluable support to thousands of older people living in retirement housing. We continue to have regular virtual meetings with the Minister and her team and will provide updates regularly on the website and

Together with RHG and HBF,  we wrote a couple of weeks ago to Matt Hancock  at the Department for Health and Social Care raising our concerns that retirement housing had been omitted from arrangements to support care providers and residents in extra care housing and care homes.  You will be pleased to know that on Friday 24th a broad coalition of representatives from the sector, including ARCO and Housing LIN had a very useful meeting with Helen Whately the Minister

ARHM has teamed with RHG and HBF to write to Ministers seeking clarification on a number of important concerns raised by members about coronavirus and residents in Extra Care and Sheltered Housing schemes and offering the support of the sector at this difficult time.

Concerns include:

• support for self isolating  and vulnerable residents,
• access to protective clothing,
• testing for Covid19
• how to respond when residents contract Covid19
• clarification on key worker status for managers and support staff who are not