News

MHCLG ANNOUNCE LEASEHOLD REFORMS

Robert Jenrick, the Housing Communities and Local Government Secretary has announced reforms to leasehold housing.

MHCLG advise ‘Last year the Law Commission published reports on leasehold enfranchisement, Commonhold, and Right to Manage.  Today’s announcement is part of the Government’s response to these reports on how to make purchasing the freehold of a property or extending a lease easier, simpler and cheaper for leaseholders and how to pave the way for the widespread take-up of Commonhold.

Under the current system, too

COVID – 19 UPDATE FROM DHSC (2)

DHSC announced yesterday that “High risk extra care and support living staff and residents will receive COVID19 testing as follows: Staff testing twice weekly, Resident testing weekly to go live in December.

We attach an introductory webinar: EXTRA CARE AND SUPPORTED LIVING WEBINAR(.pdf)

Points not made in the webinar but covered in Q+A include:

  • To date only 110 local authorities have signed up to this system and sent contact details for extra care schemes to DHSC
  • Initial tests –

COVID – 19 UPDATE FROM DHSC (1)

DHSC has published updated Covid 19 Guidance for supported living services and clarified that:

The guidance is primarily for supported living settings, but many of the principles are applicable to extra care housing for older people. It may also be a useful resource for the wider supported housing sector, such as retirement or sheltered housing. Given the different types of supported living and the associated care, support and help for people living there, this guidance cannot be specific to

ARHM UPDATE 2nd SEPTEMBER 2pm TO 4PM

As we are unable to hold our usual Regional Training Events in person, we are pleased to announce an update for members on 2nd September 2pm to 4pm via Zoom. Please contact us by email on enquiries@arhm.org  to reserve your place. We look forward to seeing you then albeit virtually!

AGENDA

  • ARHM Update – Cecilia Brodigan
  • Law Commission Recommendations – Jeff Platt (S20 Ltd)
  • Fire Safety/Building Safety Bill – Dr Shaun Lundy (Tetra Consulting)
  • COVID 19 and the Law

LAW COMMISSION REPORT LONG AWAITED REPORT PUBLISHED

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

CONSULTATION OPEN ON UNIFIED CODE FOR PROPERTY SECTOR

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 PARTICIPATE IN INDUSTRY WIDE STEERING GROUP TO DEVELOP NEW CODE OF PRACTICE

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