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Neighbour Disputes & Sir Paul McCartney

Neighbour disputes whether concerning party walls or boundaries can incur disproportionate legal costs if advice is not sought timely from a specialist practitioner in the field.

A recent battle occurred in St John’s Wood between two neighbours of Sir Paul McCartney in Cavendish Avenue. Clive Lewis a chartered surveyor lives at 3, Brenda Fenton lives at 5 whilst Sir Paul lives at 7.

Last month a judgment in Mrs Fenton’s favour handed down at Central London County Court ordered Mr Lewis to pay her £250,000 in costs and to make alterations to his house over a gutter leak that if fixed timeously would have cost him £7000. If you add Mr Lewis’s own legal costs (barrister and solicitor) he is now facing a bill of around £500,000.

Mrs Fenton was represented by a member of the barristers’ chambers that have the strongest reputation for property issues.

We at the Solicitors Information Service can recommend solicitors in London with proven expertise in the speedy resolution of such matters.

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Commercial Property Rents Up 7%

Commercial conveyancing solicitors in London are reporting strong rental growth rates and no significant evidence of any downturn.

Areas such as Covent Garden and the streets to the north of Oxford Street near Selfridges are booming. Developers who have invested heavily in these locations also set their sights on for example Earls Court for its redevelopment potential and London’s Tech City near Shoreditch.

The rising rents of properties in these locations have seen more than a quarter increase in their freehold values.

Solicitors in London who have clients in Mayfair with commercial property portfolios have noted a slowdown in sales, however, as their clients enjoy the security of the yields from their investments made over the past ten years.

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Ex-Wife’s Maintenance Payments Cut

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Recent Cases & News Round-Up

Crime

Hate crime has gone up by more than 20% London in the past year. The rise is due to world events but also due to the fact more people are prepared to make these complaints today. About 32,000 more crimes of a violent nature have been committed.

In July where a record number of faith hate offences were made 95% were anti-semitic in the aftermath of Gaza being invaded by Israel.

These revelations come on top of these further London crime statistics:-

Religion, racism and homophobia attacks are up dramatically Faith related offences up 23% to 1048 Violent hate crime up 21% to 1140 Homophobic crime rose 21.5% = 100 cases a month with 175 reported in June alone Transgender hate crime up 86.2%, 58 to 108 cases Disability hate crime up 12.5% and racist and religious up almost 20%. Crime in Haringey up 38%, Barnet 31%, Kensington & Chelsea 31%, Redbridge 29%, Hillingdon and Bromley about 28%, Kingston 7.5% and Ealing 10%

However only 43% of criminal incidents are thought to be reported.

The police said that since October they have attended nearly 5300 premises visits, 400 alcohol test purchases, seized 400 weapons in 5000 sweeps, 3000 out of 160000 stop and searches had positive results e.g. weapon retrieval.

A 25% rise in domestic violence charges is likely to be made to April this year. There have been nearly 10,000 prosecutions from April to December this year which is up by more than 1000. The good news is that more than 65% have resulted in successful convictions with nearly 6500 either admitting/being found guilty over the last two quarters.

The UK taken as a whole paints a similar picture with just over 89,000 prosecutions expected by the first week of April, almost 20,000 more than the nearly 71,000 last year. A rise is rape proceedings is similarly reported.

Sexual violence has been described as being the worst in London for more than 30 years by the Metropolitan Police’s leading Commander.

Drinking whilst pregnant is not an offence

Three judges sitting in the Court of Appeal have recently ruled that if a woman drinks heavily during pregnancy and causes severe mental and/or physical deformity to her unborn child no criminal offence has been committed upholding an earlier ruling by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

Delayed birth delivery – £7,000,000 awarded by the High Court

A 6 year old boy suffering from quadriplegic cerebral palsy due to the lack of oxygen to his brain has won the above captioned award.

As he was in the breech position he was required to be delivered by Caesarean. However due to delays at the south east London hospital when his mother was actually attended to it was too late for it to be performed and a normal delivery ensued.

He will require the use of a wheelchair and is not expected to live beyond the age of 26.

Solicitors in London hope that proper training will be given to all maternity staff especially to sub-contracted midwives.

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Stamp Duty

You have to pay Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) if you buy a property in the UK over a certain price. This is charged on all purchases of houses, flats and other land and buildings.

Different rates apply in Scotland from 1 April 2015 when Land and Buildings Transaction Tax (LBTT) replaces SDLT.

The SDLT rate depends on:

the purchase price of the property
whether the property is residential

SDLT may also be due if you lease a property.

SDLT rates from 4 December 2014

SDLT is charged at different rates depending on the portion of the purchase price that falls into each rate band.

Before 4 December 2014, SDLT was charged as a single percentage of the property price.

Where contracts have been exchanged on or before 3 December 2014, and the transaction is completed on 4 December or later, you can choose whether you follow the new or the old rules.

Residential properties

Purchase price of property	Rate of SDLT (percentage of portion of purchase price)
£0 – £125,000	0%
£125,001 – £250,000	2%
£250,001 – £925,000	5%
£925,001 – £1.5 million	10%
Over £1.5 million	12%

Corporate bodies

SDLT is charged at 15% on residential dwellings costing more than £500,000 bought by bodies like:

companies
collective investment schemes

There are some exceptions. For example, you pay SDLT based on the new rates and bands where the property is used for:

a property rental business
a property development or resale trade
providing admission to visitors on a commercial basis

Residential leases

If your residential lease is for more than £125,000, you’ll pay 1% SDLTon the amount above the £125,000 threshold.

Conveyancing solicitors in London have reported that since the new rules were introduced there has been a fall in asking prices throughout London e.g. from 7% in Hammersmith and its environs to 0.5% in Hounslow.

Non-residential and mixed-use properties

Purchase price/lease premium or transfer value	Rate of SDLT (percentage of portion of purchase price)
Up to £150,000 – annual rent is less than £1,000	Zero
Up to £150,000 – annual rent is £1,000 or more	1%
Over £150,000 to £250,000	1%
Over £250,000 to £500,000	3%
Over £500,000	4%

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Delayed Diagnosis £120,000 High Court Award

Chloe McCarthy a 12-year old born with a dislocated hip was awarded £120,000 by the High Court recently for her future care due to a hospital blunder which led to a delay in her diagnosis and treatment.

Due to the error caused by an East London hospital she had endured restricted leg movement, great pain and undertaken several bouts of surgery.

From birth she had suffered from developmental dysplasia of the hip which was only diagnosed in August 2002 after several administrative mistakes and therefore three months late. As a result she was unable to undergo a manipulation of the joint to realign it with the socket, a procedure known as an immediate closed reduction.

Her medical experts attest that she could have avoided any operations and a suspected hip replacement by the age of 40 and in fact made a complete recovery just by wearing a cast for a few months.

She was represented by solicitors in London.

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Banks Fined – Litigation Tsunami Expected

A tidal wave of civil litigation is in expected after City watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined five banks a total of £1.1bn for rigging the £3.4trn-a-day foreign exchange market (forex) on the 12th November.

The five – Citibank, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland and UBS – can all expect to be hit by claims from clients including pension funds, foreign property owners and other foreign exchange houses, according to solicitors in London who have been quietly lining up litigants for the last two years.

A vital component of any successful action will be proving that a bank behaved in such a way that it profited at the expense of its customers.

The FCA statement said: ‘It is completely unacceptable for firms to engage in attempts at manipulation for their own benefit and to the potential detriment of certain clients and other market participants. Our final notices include examples where each bank’s trading made a significant profit.’

The final notices also all contain references to collusion between traders at different banks using online messaging and chatrooms. The FCA cites one example of such chatroom manipulation which netted Citibank a profit of £62,581 and another in which HSBC banked £102,425.

The notices could prove a boon for those bringing cases because they also contain examples of traders congratulating themselves after successfully manipulating forex rates. This, from one UBS trader, is typical: ‘The best fix of my UBS career’ – after he used a chatroom to move rates to produce a profit for £328,100 for UBS.

Chancellor George Osborne has said a share of the fines will be taken by the Treasury and ’used for the wider public good’.

Tracey McDermott, the FCA’s director of enforcement and financial crime, said: ‘Firms could have been in no doubt, especially after Libor, that failing to take steps to tackle the consequences of a free for all culture on their trading floors was unacceptable. This is not about having armies of compliance staff ticking boxes. It is about firms understanding, and managing, the risks their conduct might pose to markets.

‘Where problems are identified we expect firms to deal with those quickly, decisively and effectively and to make sure they apply the lessons across their business. If they fail to do so they will continue to face significant regulatory and reputational costs.’

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London’s Hot £1bn Office Buying Frenzy

There’s a red hot property market prevailing in London at the moment according to commercial conveyancing solicitors with pressure on for completions before Christmas.

The Gherkin was speedily bought recently by Joseph Safra for £726 million according to industry insiders.

The strength of the capital’s economy and the reasonably high returns on investment are proving to be a sweet temptation for purchasers of London’s commercial buildings. Such transactions include the purchase of Bow Bells House near St Paul’s for £300 million by Fubon Life the insurance megalith from Taiwan; it also has recently added neighbouring One Carter Lane to its portfolio for £139 million.

Other hot purchases are Milton Gate, Vintners Place, Thames Court and Cannon Bridge House which are expected to achieve in excess of £800 million.

The Abu Dhabi-backed flats developer Northacre is the suspected purchaser of Victoria’s New Scotland Yard, home of the Metropolitan Police, for £300 million and a takeover bid for the Canary Wharf developer by Qatari and Canadian Investors has been tabled.

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Immigration Law changes on 6/11/14

On the 16th October 2014 the Home Office published its latest statement of changes to the Immigration Rules. This update outlines the key changes made.

Business visitors

A new category has been added for overseas lawyers who are employees of international law firms with offices in the United Kingdom. The change will allow the business visitor to provide direct advice to clients in the United Kingdom on litigation or international transactions, provided that they remain paid and employed overseas.

Tier 2

The Home Office will now make an assessment as to whether a genuine vacancy exists for Tier 2 (Intra-company transfer) and Tier 2 (General) applications. This change empowers entry clearance officers and in-country caseworkers to refuse applications where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the job described by the sponsor does not genuinely exist, has been exaggerated to meet the Tier 2 skills threshold, or – in respect of Tier 2 (General) – has been tailored to exclude resident workers from being recruited, or where there are reasonable grounds to believe that the applicant is not qualified to do the job. As the Sponsor Licence Unit already performs this function when assessing restricted certificate of sponsorship applications, it will be a duplication of effort if entry clearance officers also perform this genuine vacancy assessment. For those migrants earning in excess of £153,500, the resident labour market test requirements do not apply.

An existing requirement in the published guidance for sponsors is that Tier 2 migrants cannot be sponsored to fill a position, undertake an on going routine role or provide an on going routine service for a third party which is not the sponsor. This requirement is being replicated in the Immigration Rules. This enables applications by individuals for entry clearance or leave to remain and applications by sponsors for restricted certificates of sponsorship to be refused in line with any wider compliance action relating to the sponsor in question. This applies to so-called ‘contract cases’ where migrants are based at a client site and is of particular significance for the IT sector. These cases will now incur greater scrutiny to ensure there is a genuine provision of services by the sponsor and no disguised employment by the third party.

A change is being made to the Tier 2 (General) provisions for extension applications where the applicant is continuing to work in the same occupation for the same sponsor. Such applicants are exempt from the resident labour market test; at present, the exemption applies only if the applicant still has current leave as a Tier 2 (General) migrant when they make their extension application. The change will enable the applicant to benefit from the extension if his or her previous leave as a Tier 2 (General) migrant expires no more than 28 days before the extension application is made.

A temporary provision dating back to 2009, which waives the £20,500 minimum salary threshold where companies are reducing their employees’ hours to avoid redundancies, is being removed.

Tier 5 Youth Mobility Scheme

The annual allocations for participating countries on the scheme are being set for 2015. The allocations for New Zealand have been increased (16%).

Tier 2 (Sportsperson) and Tier 5 (Temporary worker – creative and sporting)

A change is being made to the table of governing bodies to include information on the tier(s) in which each body may endorse applicants. Updates are also being made to the list of sports governing bodies.

These changes came into effect on the 6th November 2014.

Original reporting by the International Law Office 14/11/14

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Immigration law proposals

Ed Miliband has promised to generate an immigration costs creating “clear, reliable and concrete changes” within months, if Labour wins next year’s basic election.

The party leader likewise said there would be an end to “false promises” on the subject if he ended up being head of state.

Mr Miliband pledged action on border checks, exploitation and opportunities available to UK employees.

David Cameron has actually promised “more action” to suppress migration.

Official figures published in August revealed UK net migration – the difference in between those entering and leaving – enhanced by more than 38 % to 243,000 in 2013-14. EU residents accounted for two-thirds of the growth.

Mr Cameron has said his aim of lowering the figure to below 100,000 is still attainable.

In current days, it has actually been reported that the coalition could look for an “emergency brake” to stop EU migration after it reached a specific level or to restrict the variety of National Insurance numbers provided to new arrivals from the EU. Mr Cameron is attending an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
‘Standards’.

Mr Miliband was speaking on a check out to Rochester and Strood, Kent, where a by-election is taking place next month following the defection of MP Mark Reckless from the Conservatives to UKIP.

Its predecessor seat, Medway, was held by Labour from 1997 to 2010, when the brand-new constituency was developed.

However a survey by ComRes recommends Mr Reckless is on course to win in Rochester and Strood, putting him on 43 %. It positions the Conservatives on 30 %, Labour on 21 % and the Liberal Democrats and Green Party both on 3 %.

In his speech Mr Miliband repeated Labour’s guarantee to count everyones going in and from the UK and make it a criminal offence when employment recruiter recruit exclusively from abroad.

He added that he would improve and expand apprenticeships and make sure that “public sector workers in public-facing roles have minimum requirements of English”.

These measures would be consisted of in an Immigration Reform Bill, to be detailed in more information in the first Queen’s Speech after a Labour triumph next May, he stated.

Mr Miliband also guaranteed to “seek change in Europe”, including:.

Longer transitional controls on migration when new countries sign up with the EU.
Stopping youngster advantage and youngster tax credits being paid to children living abroad.
Doubling the period of home before people would be entitled to advantages.

However he added: “False promises on immigration just make people more negative about politics. I won’t belong to that. I will not make guarantees I cannot keep.”.

Mr Miliband also stated: “I will certainly never suggest a policy or a course of action which would damage our nation. (UKIP leader) Nigel Farage wants to leave the European Union on which 3 million British jobs and countless companies in our country depend.

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Category Archive London Solicitors

Neighbour Disputes & Sir Paul McCartney

Commercial Property Rents Up 7%

Ex-Wife’s Maintenance Payments Cut

Recent Cases & News Round-Up

Stamp Duty

Stamp Duty Land Tax rates

SDLT rates from 4 December 2014

Residential properties

Corporate bodies

Residential leases

Non-residential and mixed-use properties

Delayed Diagnosis £120,000 High Court Award

Banks Fined – Litigation Tsunami Expected

London’s Hot £1bn Office Buying Frenzy

Immigration Law changes on 6/11/14

Immigration law proposals

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