Enfranchisement 08
Central London
Archive Search
By Subject
By issues
Quick Search

 
You are here: Home » Comment/Analysis
Download Print

Here you will find thought provoking comment and anaylsis on the most interesting and sometimes controversial issues in the apartment sector from a wide range of stakeholders in the industry. If you have something to say, please contact us with your views:


The Editor, News On The Block, One Great Cumberland Place, Marble Arch London W1H 7AL or email editor@newsontheblock.com with “Comment” in the subject heading.


Whilst we cannot answer each individual correspondence personally, we will do our best to publish the most interesting submissions in this section.


Recent Articles

Recent articles

  Welcome to the online edition of January's News on the Block
Feb 1, 2008

From the editor’s desk...
  Your questions answered...
Feb 1, 2008

 We are here to help you with your questions about your flat. Have a question? Then contact us at one of the following: editor@newsontheblock.com with Question in the subject line, or by telephone at 08700 600 663, or by post at News on the Block, One Great Cumberland Place, London W1H 7AL.
  It's time for private sector tenants to fight for more rights
Feb 1, 2008

There’s plenty written about the problems subtenants can cause blocks – drunken parties, noise, fractured communities, as Jane Barry writes. But what about the many subtenants who are responsible, pleasant and thoroughly good neighbours?
  Announcing the News on the Block Property Webinars
Aug 17, 2007
News on the Block and Brethertons LLP Solicitors have joined forces to provide a series of web based seminars (webinars). The topics for these webinars are the 'New Service Charge Rules', 'Right to Manage' and 'Enfranchisement in a nutshell'.
  We need volunteer directors - but
May 22, 2007
... the Government is scaring them off. By Jane Barry
  Leaseholders' rights - now you see them, now you don't
Mar 27, 2007
by Jane Barry Last summer, I was writing that it had never been easier to buy your freehold or extend your lease. There was only one cloud on the horizon. If the government brought in the regulations attached to the 2002 Act, which include the right of participants to dip in and out of the process, enfranchisement would become problematic again. But it was a small cloud – the regulations have been in administrative limbo for four years now, and the hope is the government has abandoned them.
  The Jane Barry Column
Dec 29, 2006
Recently the mother of a friend of mine asked my advice about downsizing. In her eighties and a widow, she rattles around her three-bedroom detached suburban house, and she’s finding the garden a burden. My advice to my friend's mother...
  Why Get A Survey?
Nov 23, 2006
Although it’s not unusual now for flats in London to cost over a million pounds, few of us bother with a survey when we buy. According to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, only 20% of people buying any kind of property get a survey. Yet 6.3 million UK homes fall beneath the government’s decent homes standard. And one of the DCLG’s original arguments for the Home Information Pack was that it would improve standards because it contained a compulsory survey, the Home Condition Report.
  Remember The Poor Leaseholder, Guv
Nov 23, 2006
Peter Haler, Chief Executive, Leasehold Advisory Service. There is a substantial case to be made that all new Government policies and initiatives should include a ‘leaseholder impact assessment’, to identify the possible implications of the proposals, financial and otherwise, for flat-owners.
  Save those bills! Peter Haler, Chief Executive, Leasehold Advisory Service
Nov 8, 2006
Flat-owners should be thinking now about the implications of Home Information Packs (or the ‘seller’s pack’, as they used to be known).
  Communicate! By Roger Sotham, Managing Director, Chainbow
Nov 8, 2006
I am sitting on a plane in New York waiting to disembark on the 10th August. You may recall this is the day after 20 people wanting to blow up planes to the States were arrested on terrorist charges.
  Getting the price of enfranchisement right
Nov 1, 2006
Long gone are the days when landlords resisted the very idea of enfranchisement and the Duke of Westminster took a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights.
  HIPs for flat-owners
Jul 1, 2006
This government has never been brilliant at the detail of legislation. Take Home Information Packs.
  Nice Business to do People with? by Roger Southam
Jun 14, 2006
If we think about all areas of our personal life, one thing tends to dominate our grievance time and again: poor service. If you’re out shopping, you expect service; if you go for a meal, you would be outraged if you weren’t looked after; you spend your hard-earned money on a holiday, you would not tolerate a hotel failing to look after you.
  Crossing the Commonhold Bar
May 18, 2006
Leading developer, Crest Nicholson, along with the Hyde Group, is developing the Oakgrove Millennium Community in Milton Keynes. For the first time it has agreed to adopt a commonhold structure for people buying properties on the site.
  Nicholas Hurst, managing director, Moretons, weighs up the feasibility of self-management
Mar 1, 2006
In my opinion, in all but the smallest blocks, i.e. less than 10 units, self-management is not an option unless the board is willing not only to invest a substantial amount of time in day-to-day management, but also they must be willing to invest money in computer software to manage the accounts.
  A Curiously British Disease
Mar 1, 2006
We’ve a tendency to delude ourselves that what we do in this country sets a paradigm for the rest of the world. But our leasehold system is uniquely British. And the rest of the world does not envy it.
  Don’t cry for the developers
Feb 1, 2006
Are we building too many flats? Developers think so.
  why the lack of interest in rtm?
Jan 1, 2006
Why has Right to Manage failed to take off? It seemed such a breakthrough when the legislation was passed in 2002.
  Confusion over HMO’s
Jan 1, 2006
Britain’s landlords are struggling to get their heads around some complex and unfamiliar aspects of the Housing Act 2004, according to the latest research from the National Landlords Association.
 
more articles >>