A L Hughes & Co.

Compensation Culture gone barmy

2011-11-10T15:24:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, I received a piece of SPAM email which read as follows:

"Your client is injured following a slip on a floor.

Your client was possibly inebriated, or running or wearing high heels, the defendants have denied all liability because your claimant didn’t take reasonable care for his own safety.

They also claim that their client has a thorough and monitored cleaning regime.

Usually in these situations you would not proceed as the case is weak.

However if FloorSlip Ltd could prove that the flooring was inherently unsafe and unfit for purpose (by failing to meet HSE guidelines), then we can demonstrate that the defendants have been negligent in their “Duty of Care”.

We impartially test floors to determine if a surface is unsafe using equipment approved by the Health & Safety Executive."

Was it a joke? Apparently not. There are still people out there prepared to advise clients to indulge in absurd speculative litigation. Solicitors whose clients have drunkenly toppled to their doom, or gone skating in high heels. No doubt clients who have been referred by claims management outfits. Maybe the same people who sent me texts telling me I could claim £3,750 in damages following an unnamed member of my family unprovokedly driving our car into a wall.

I do wonder if litigation solicitors would be a load better off if they dumped the crooked intermediaries and undertook less,but higher quality work. This strategy certainly works for those of us in the property field. You get more time to deal with matters properly and are able to use your fees to fund your office rather than someone else's.

Going, going, gone...

2011-05-31T12:59:00.001-07:00

After some soul searching, I have decided to dispose of my collection of Home Information Pack Keyrings. That I have such a collection may be a surprise to anyone reading this, but as part of the razzmatazz about this not very much lamented hindrance to Conveyancing in England and Wales, I was sent 100 of them by the Government.

I have managed to lose a few of them, and some have unpleasant marks from having been thrown at pictures of John Prescott, Ruth Kelly and Eric Pickles, but the rest have been listed on eBay under this link here.

To date (31 May) bidding has been brisk, and has settled at 1p. But there is still 5 days to go.

I would hate anyone to lose out on this amazing opportunity to secure a part of our recent legal history, even if one which most people would rather completely forget.

Gherkin Ghoulishness

2011-05-31T07:25:00.000-07:00

It appears to be payback time for humanity, and particularly for vegetarians, as a plague of cucumber and other salad vegetable related death stalks Europe. Resisting a call to modify our national fruit and vegetable health message to: "Five-a-day, but this could be your last", the Health Protection Agency has instead limited itself to warning people to wash, peel or cook salad vegetables.

This may be nature's way of saying that veganism really is an evolutionary cul-de-sac, but it is more likely to be another by-product of the unrestrained industrialisation of agriculture.

Our cheap food is of course picked and processed by underpaid and heavily exploited farmworkers, whose conditions of service owe little to any concept of rural bliss.

Help for Criminal Law practitioners

2011-05-24T05:52:00.001-07:00

We don't often stray outside our comfort zone of property related law, but recent event (or maybe non-event) (not the Royal Wedding) has given us an idea which may be of help to practitioners of Criminal Law.

It can be hard when seeking to advise someone who is under suspicion of doing away with an acquaintance of whom no trace can be found. To maintain that an alleged victim is alive and well can be difficult, particularly if there is circumstantial evidence against your client.

But if your client is absolutely resolute in their protestations of innocence, and there is not too much blood on their clothes, it is surely right to investigate all possibilities; and one such is that the supposed victim has been raptured.

21 May 2011 was supposed to have been the day that the righteous were gathered up into the fluffy cotton wool environment of heaven, according to eccentric preacher Mr Harold Camping. Although Mr Camping seems to be around still, and has revised his predictions of a global apocalypse to 21 October, as one does; it is by no means impossible that the preacher, who has a website fuilled with intolerant ranting, has not fulfilled all of the requirements of righteousness and so has been left behind, unsaved.

Others, more worthy than Mr Camping or the writer, may of course have gone.

2010-10-21T16:39:00.000-07:00

The High Court has ruled that a grapefruit knife is a "knife" (surprising that) and that it may not be sold to minors. This is a proper and excellent decision. A great deal of damage can be done with such things, and indeed it is time that a number of other so-called "kitchen gadgets", which are innocently marketed but have sinister possibilities, were restricted.

I believe that melon scoops are already tightly controlled following a nasty incident in 2008 in Huddersfield, but absolutely no action whatsoever has followed the wholesale abuse of tin openers in fighting between rival gangs in rural Dorset in the summer. We have to stop the spread of these things.

If young people are allowed to get their hands on salad spinners and - heaven forbid - silicone pastry brushes, we will see a wholesale breakdown in law and order. Kitchen shops should be licenced and closed to under 21s, and their window displays obscured with masking tape so as not to tempt youths in with the dubious lure of glamorous weaponry such as pasta machines or cheese domes.

Digital Voice Recognition

2010-10-01T08:00:00.001-07:00

Having just invested in some new dictation machines, I was interested to see that they came with a "free" copy of Dragon software.

I thought it might be useful to send a text version of my dictation down with the file, and so, after spending 15 minutes acclimatising my voice to the software, I tried it out on a short tape.

The result:

"At 76 nights at the right answer is that organisms a dumb visit our thoughts needed to attract the is being shown a red Anne and I did not the red on black it is quite clear what of the included the California Corriveau as soon as possible to build onto Borrego Dir jar jar to take 20 September (octagon per amp out by the readers of £7000 as a premium for ham and cheese extension and I get them to do together with our part great show delivery and about whether they can investigate a title and factors in making these emissions middle of the garden as handsets under pounds for the conveyancing and the like back and are reasonably certain that at this stage only copy entries etc and Anne and Anne and November and)

This is the exact opposite is no home preferably within the next fortnight. God frontier for eighth of all that hot brown cities as we e-mail you a revised transfer dedicate some this is not right wing to the photography with the removing to the growth of the transfer do want them to fulfil until it right through no 15th electorate they are total September week we return the documents the last one apologised for not sending them in a last letter. Yours"

It's more James Joyce than Edward Lear, I suppose..

I particularly like the ham and cheese extension - so post-modernist Hänsel und Gretel.

Electoral Lottery Law

2010-05-07T14:39:00.000-07:00

So the results are in, but there is something dodgy about them. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to work out that it takes 35,000 Conservative voters to elect one Conservative MP, 33,350 to elect one Labour MP, but 120,000 voters to elect one Liberal Democrat MP. On the votes cast, there should be another 138 Liberal Democrats in Parliament. So where are they all?

The truth is that votes have been stolen by the corrupt electoral system.

In Scotland, 412,386 votes cast for the Conservatives (a sixth of the poll) realised 1 seat.

In the South East, the Conservatives polled almost exactly half the vote and snaffled 89% of the seats.

In the North east, Labour polled 43.6% of the vote and took 86% of the seats - almost double their true entitlement.

That a modern democracy should allow its Government to be chosen by what amounts to a lottery is a disgrace.

Stamp Duty update

2010-03-25T17:40:00.000-07:00

I thought it might be fun to call HM Customs and Revenue to ask them how to identify first time buyers.

It looks like I am right about them distinguishing marks. One suggestion that if they had borrowed money on mortgage they would be missing an arm and a leg seemed initially promising but eventually had to be dismissed.

The chappie I spoke with was very friendly and said, with commendable understatement, that he had had a fair number of enquiries about the new rules.

He said that at the moment individuals had to certify themselves as first time buyers on their Stamp Duty Land Tax return.

"But just suppose", I said, "that one of these dear people said that they were first time buyers when they were not." Unthinkable, of course, but you never know.

This would be their responsibility. It would be on their conscience for life. It is unclear whether a solicitor who knew a client was telling lies could be held responsible for wrongly completing a form on their behalf.

There are of course several legal ways round this anyway, so who needs to break the law?

Here are some ideas for you. They might work or they might not. They are less easy if mortgage finance is involved. No warranty is given.

If there are two purchasers and only one is a first-time buyer, then buying the property in that person's name followed shortly afterwards by the other taking a half share, will mean no duty is payable if the property is worth £250,000 or less.

If you have a tame but penniless first time buyer, and two non first-time buyers who want to buy a property, then a sale to the penniless buyer with loans from the others, followed by two separate sales of half shares in satisfaction of the loans, should once again lead to no duty being paid.

But the fact that anyone who has given this 10 seconds' thought realises it is completely unworkable is a sad reflection on Government and (as the idea was nicked off the Conservatives) opposition intellectual capacity.

Planning the Future?

2010-03-25T17:32:00.000-07:00

With the election coming up it is instructive to look at the Conservative opposition's plans for planning reform. To sum up, they are a terrible mess. There is a lot of cuddly language, but any idea of seeking to ensure that there is a half decent supply of new housing will be dumped in favour of locally set development plans generated by self-selected "local people" who are unlikely to be people seeking accommodation, but rather those who wish to protect the status quo.

The idea that councils will be able to retain 6 years' council tax in its entirety - which for most councils means a bonus of around 4 years' tax will lead both to accusations of the council being bribed by developers whilst the scheme not actually being an incentive as it is just not enough money.

At the same time, it will be "easier" for developments to take place where a "significant majority" of the immediate residential neighbours raise no objection. Quite what this means as most properties have just four or five such neighbours is hard to see. In practice this will mean abandoning the current test of planning harm in favour of a system based on neighbours bothering to object. Where people are inarticulate or disempowered, anything will be allowed, whilst in areas where residents are aware of what is going on and how to object, nothing will ever happen.

They also consider that it is possible for large local projects to be designed through a collaborative process. The problem with that is that where such collaborative processes are tried out, each choice made by those involved leads to support withering away. It is not a good way of dealing with contentious sites.

It seems to me that what is set out in the Green Paper is designed to appeal to middle class voters who want development in other places. It will do nothing to alter the current underprovision of new dwellings, which the Shadow Planning Minister recently rightly pointed out was at the lowest peacetime level since 1924, and far from empowering local communities, it will politicise and therefore corrupt town planning and will take away from owners of land the fundamental right to use their land according to their wishes, so long as no harm is done to others.

It is no surprise that this is a mess as there seems to be no-one doing any thinking at the moment. Since my last posting, about the Stamp Duty changes, it has been pointed out to me that the poorly considered idea for reducing duty for first time buyers came from the Conservatives and was nicked by Mr Darling for his last Budget.

The Budget - not of this world.

2010-03-24T11:51:00.000-07:00

Fresh from the Department of Silly Ideas is the provision that "first time buyers" will be allowed to escape 1% Stamp Duty Land Tax on properties purchased for between £125,000 and £250,000.

The rules are:

• The purchaser - or all purchasers if buying jointly - must be buying their first home

• They cannot have previously owned another property anywhere in the world

• They must be buying somewhere that will be their only or their main home

• The completion date is on or after 25 March 2010 and before 25 March 2012.

The question is: how will anyone be able to check up on this? I have over the years seen many people buying property, some for the first time, and others for the second and subsequent times; and I could not tell them apart purely on that criterion. Unfortunately, or maybe not, second-time buyers do not have green hair, or warts on the ends of their noses.

The good news: people who have title deeds to bits of the moon won't have to worry about that.

O tempora, O mores!

2010-03-17T18:33:00.000-07:00

What would Cicero have made of the dumbing down of the Land Registry? Certainly patienta nostra has been most certainly abused: "You are 25th in the queue...."

Not long ago, you could ring up the Land Registry which dealt with your area and chat to someone who knew what they were talking about or who could shout across the office to someone who did.

But in the last year that has all changed. Now there is a Customer Support line staffed by Customer Support Agents. When they are not answering the 'phone are they spying on the Stamp Duty Office or inflitrating the Council of Mortgage Lenders?

Standards have definitely dropped. Courtesy and friendliness are still there, but the edge has gone from the expertise.

In addition, a number of offices are being closed. That isn't so much of an issue as no-one ever visits Land Registry offices any more; but one can't help wondering if this is affecting morale.

The reason for the closures is the economic downturn. But what will happen when things recover? Sadly the answer is likely to be massive delays. The Land Registry deal with things very quickly generally, and we are used to this.

It is probably too late to stop the centralising of Land Registry resources, but what about a contact line for practitioners aimed perhaps at those who have finished the Ladybird Book of Land Registration?

The Conservatives' Housing Policy - will it help?

2009-10-29T17:30:00.001-07:00

One of the big issues of our society is how to house people. But there are conflicting issues:

A basic shortage of accommodation, leading to high housing costs, particularly in areas of the country with high employment;
Popular resentment and opposition to new development, particularly on greenfield sites, and where back gardens or other "empty" space is used up;
Pressure on parking infrastructure;
A need to replace old housing stock with new in order to raise standards and save energy;
An opposition to losing older property where this raises density.

The Conservatives plan to change planning rules to as "prevent the bulldozing of homes with gardens" and so as allow the market to build "new homes with parking spaces and gardens". But where? But how? This is not explained.

The Conservatives will abolish stamp duty land tax on properties selling for less than £250,000, so that "nine out of ten pay nothing". This will cost a great deal of money of course, and lead to the current "dead zone" between £250,000 and £260,000 being extended by £10,000.

It is hard to conclude that these measures will assist anyone.

The Labour Party appears to promise little of any use, with a pathetic promise of 5,500 new rented homes over the next 18 months. In the 1930s, around 300,000 new homes were built each year, with a recession deeper than we can imagine now. Around 130,000 private homes are built each year; half of the level 75 years ago.

The only way to deal with the housing crisis is to use land efficiently. If this means pulling down bungalows and replacing them with terrace-houses; if it means high density development with limited provision for car parking, then this is a price which our descendants will be glad we paid. If the same approach to housing need as we have now had obtained for a century rather than a quarter of that time, we would have shanty towns outside every city. It is time we grew up.

Will the Tories get rid of HIPs?

2009-10-14T15:39:00.000-07:00

They say they will, of course, but will they, and will it be a good idea? Will there be mourners, and will we, like the people in the picture standing waiting for a glimpse of Stalin's coffin, both delight in the end of a pointless tyranny and yet miss the passing of opportunities for improvement?

Everyone hates HIPs of course. Sellers resent paying out £350 or so. Buyers dislike being told by their Solicitors that personal searches are unreliable and out of date. Only lawyers read them, and they don't understand the Energy Performance Certificates; or maybe they do but don't want to.

Estate agents keep them hidden and bring them out only when offers have been accepted if they can't avoid it. They don't understand them and fear that in the right hands they might contain inconvenient truths. The potential for using them as a selling aid is vast but unexplored.

Documents are often missing or useless. If a lease has been extended, you'll only get the document which extends the original lease and none of the terms to which is subject. Off title documents, such as restrictive covenants, are never included unless care has been taken in preparing a HIP, which excludes any done by HIP "specialists".

So why should anyone complain at their disappearance? Well, the HIP firms will. They lobbied hard for them to be introduced, and it is hard to believe that Ruth Kelly and Yvette Cooper, who were the architects of this fiaco, were not touched to the very heart by their entreaties. Will their successors be prepared to write off this useless sector of our economy, and the considerable investment that they have foolishly underwritten? Maybe not.

Also it is fair to say that the legal profession, with its customary adaptability, has taken on board the HIP project and uses them, grumbling away, to the best advantage available. More change we don't want either.

So the alternative is to fix them. This could be done:

Ensure that the Searches used are official searches only unless the local authority in question cannot supply these within 21 days.
Provide for a cheap "Official Search update" to allow Buyers to update an Official Local Search within a year for a modest fee - perhaps 25% or 33% of the original fee.
Get rid of the useless and misleading Property Questionnaire.
Ensure that off title documents and other documents which are necessary are included.
Provide for public access to HIPs once done, or at least to EPCs; no more hiding them away.

But what are the chances of this happening?

2009-10-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

The 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom is drawing to its inevitable close with elections expected next May. It seems very likely that our bizarre electoral system will result in a substantial majority of seats for the Conservative Party, led by Mr David Cameron, who if they are fortunate, may poll around two fifths of the votes. This may be regarded as a suitable punishment for 12 years of increasingly lacklustre and arrogant rule by the Labour Party, who have in elections since 1997 been able to command majorities in the House of Commons yet without getting anywhere near plurality of the votes.

For the record the figures cast for Labour were:

1997 43.2%
2001 40.7%
2005 35.3%

The last time a winning party polled a majority of the votes cast in a UK election was in 1931. The Labour landslide in 1945 resulted from their polling 49.71%; and the Conservative high point was in 1955 (49.7%).

So how is that the "Mother of Parliaments" is elected in this ramshackle fashion? The answer is of course that because the threshold of absolute power is set so low it is tempting for those in power to think that they can scrape through next time just by doing a bit better than the party which comes second.

This is quite correct of course. In 1945, the defeated Conservatives polled a higher percentage of the vote than the winning Labour party did in 2005 - winning 197 seats in 1945; and with Labour winning 356 seats in 2005.

The reason for this is the gradual decline of the two party system. From the mid 1970s, the Liberal Party, in its various guises, started to poll between 15% and 20% of the vote, figures not seen since the 1920s. In Scotland and Wales nationalist parties started winning seats. Consistuency fights were no longer two horse races; in some cases any one of four parties might be in with a chance.

The "first past the post" system is therefore no longer fit for purpose, and the truth is that a Government elected by it lacks legitimacy. Respect for politicians is at an all time low, and maybe these two things are connected. We have knee jerk policy making because no party can be seen to be ignoring the "public opinion" (expressed by newspapers of course(!)) that the electoral system does not take into account.

With that in mind, we can expect no more rationality from the Conservatives than we have seen from the Labour Party.

I hope to explore some of the likely legislative initiatives of the next Government over the next few months.

Taking the High Road out of Scotland

2009-08-25T16:47:00.000-07:00

The release of the convicted terrorist Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds has sparked a great deal of controversy. Mr al-Megrahi was, at the time of the Lockerbie bombing, in 1988, a Libyan intelligence officer, and if he was guilty of planting the device which destroyed Pan Am Flight 103, then it is almost certain that he was acting under the instructions of his employers, the Libyan Government.

Whilst this does not absolve him of responsibility in any way, the bombing by the United States of Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986, which killed around 15 civilians including the adopted 15 month old daughter of Muammar al-Gaddafi; which was itself a reaction to a terrorist attack in West Berlin which appears to have been masterminded by Libyan intelligence and was itself a reaction to various US-Libyan aerial and naval engagements in the Gulf of Sidra, appears to have been the catalyst for the planting of a bomb in Pan Am Flight 103.

The Libyan Government surrendered Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi and also Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah both of whom were tried by a Scottish Court sitting in the Netherlands. Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah was acquitted and Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi convicted.

Others who presumably are both nameless and unpunished share his guilt.

Since 1988 the world has moved on. The political divisions in Europe which allowed Muammar al-Gaddafi to pursue his strange brand of revolutionary politics which in many ways mirrors the fascist regime in which he grew up in an unrestrained manner have changed. Libya's militancy and status as a rogue state has diminished, at least in theory, and one of the consequences of this sort of rapprochement has to be a degree of forgiveness, at least at state level, for outrages of the past. That this is a successful strategy is demonstrated by the current state of Northern Ireland and of course the relations which now exist between the former Comecon states and the rest of Europe. Muammar al-Gaddafi has made some financial reparation for both the Berlin and the Pan Am 103 bombings.

All this would point towards the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi in the near future even if he had not been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

As it is, there is a power to release on compassionate grounds, and this appears to have been exercised by the Scottish Justice Minister strictly in accordance with Scottish Law. There was nothing to be gained by keeping a sick man in prison whilst he died, and those whose relatives died in this outrage should consider that retribution should have its limits.

It was a cycle of action and reaction which created the circumstances in which the bombing took place and was presumably approved by those high up in the Libyan Government.

The important message of his conviction was that terrorist outrages deserve to be treated as crimes and be subject to the rule of law rather than excused as an incident of conflict, declared or not. In a way that message has been perverted by the United States over the past few years in that terrorism has been used as an excuse for ignoring the Geneva Convention and even the most basic standards of human rights.

It is therefore no surprise that law officers of the United States are complaining loudest about what was at all stages a matter for the Scottish legal system. The decision cannot be reversed, and it is to be hoped that the Scottish Government will support the proper application of a legal system which has few equals in the world. It is a matter of regret that the British Government, which ought to share the same values, cannot bring itself to speak out in favour of what was clearly a correct decision.

Fun with spam

2009-07-24T11:42:00.000-07:00

We recently received this:

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Hillyard [mailto:jeff.hillyard@harperoffice.co.uk]
Sent: 24 July 2009 10:14
To: mail@alhughes.co.uk
Subject: Enquiry

Good morning,

Please excuse the informal use of email for this enquiry.

Can you please confirm who would be responsible for reducing the cost of your stationery purchases, within your office please ?

Also could you advise me of their mailing address.

Many thanks

Jeff

Jeff Hillyard

Harper Office

Unit 6 Ashton Gate

Harold Hill

Romford

Essex RM3 8UF

We felt he required a response:

Dear Mr Hillyard:

It’s a long story, I am afraid, but one filled with hope for us all.

We used to have someone who was specifically responsible for this task. His name was Cornelius Dagblatt. We sent him on a fact finding mission across the seas to source raw materials so we could make our own supplies of paper, staples and writing materials. Wood, steel, porcupine quills and that sort of thing. He set sail from Gravesend on 24 October 1998; a day we remember well. Our staff went to see him off, tears of parting joy rolling down our cheeks and grubby handkerchiefs waving in the sullen grizzle of that autumnal day.

Little did we know what trials and tribulations he would face as he chirpily walked up the gangway to the neat three masted schooner which would carry him away, together with his case of Land Registry forms and pencils, sharpened to clinically perfect points, to the tropics and beyond.

Three years later, the postman delivered a tatty envelope with postage stamps from the Estados Unidos do Brasil. In it was a letter, folded twice, and inscribed in familiar copperplate on the most beautiful paper we had ever seen. As light as the finest India paper, but retaining a sheen redolent of the soft first dew of the day; blocked with gold leaf; and cut to A5 size with a precision beyond that of machine, or man, or beast.

The letter told of Mr Dagblatt’s landing in the delta of the Orinoco, in the Republic of Venezuela and his hiring of a native canoe wherewith he paddled up that River for hundreds of miles. It told of the sad loss of one of his thumbs to piranha fish and how he struggled with his load of forms across the highlands of Tapirapeco, plagued with poisonous spiders and vengeful armadillos, to the upper reaches of the Rio Negro, and how, in a forest clearing, where the light from the sky penetrated down between the high trees like a shaft of golden rain, he came across the Lost Papermakers of St Ationery, whose remote ancestors had originally settled with the Jesuit Missionaries of Nuestra Señora de Loreto and who, after the forcible dissolution of those Missions, had come northwards to find peace and simple satisfaction in the making of paper and other items of stationery.

They had had no contact with the rest of the world since 1780, when they came across a blind Prussian engineer wandering in the jungle and adopted him into their ragged but determined group. He taught them the arts of office administration and independently invented the typewriter, the dictation machine, and carbon paper. His daughter, Magdalena Schwarzwurzel, carried on the family tradition of innovatory excellence and by 1832, when she died, the small settlement in Northern Brazil, then of course an Empire under the rumbustious Emperor Pedro II, of which they knew nothing, had an efficient network of computers with LCD monitors and attached colour printers. Paper production was standardised and the metric system of paper sizes adopted quite by chance in the 1920s.

The stapler came quite late to them; with monkey’s teeth being used to keep papers together right up to the 1960s, but a source of iron ore was available for the manufacture of staples of an extraordinary purity.

Having found the settlement, Mr Dagblatt stayed for a year and a month, coming to a natural understanding with the processes of paper making and pencil sharpening which he had never encountered in his years as a stationery clerk. His experiences had transformed him and he felt unable to return to what he described as the “humdrum and sordid life of shame and loathing of people trying to sell you things” which he had been part of in Streatham. His letter, posted from a post-office in the state of Amazonas, ends with a paragraph which we have now had ten years to come to terms with: “Although I hold my position of stationery clerk at your firm in the highest esteem, I now feel that my life belongs with the simple people of St Ationery. I ask that you use the arrears of salary I am owed by you to benefit those who are injured by paper cuts or accidentally disfigured by office guillotines, but not those whose hands are pierced by staples as they should know better. I bid you adieu.”

Since then we have heard nothing. His mission had succeeded beyond our wildest dreams, but sadly we could not reap the benefit thereof.

We have no plans to replace him as we hold his memory so dear. His chair awaits him should he change his mind, and it is cleaned using hygienic wipes every five weeks, as we are sure he would have wanted.

As such I regret that there is no person who is responsible for reducing the cost of our stationery purchases within our office.

Laurence N. Mann

Solicitor

Messrs A. L. Hughes & Co.

Solicitors

340 Streatham High Road

London SW16 6HH

Cycling on the pavement

2009-07-03T12:29:00.000-07:00

If there is an issue which divides society in the country, it is not religion, which is generally scoffed at, nor taxes, which are mostly disliked, nor even drugs; but cycling on the pavement.

On the one hand are those that fear (often in this order) for the safety of their dogs, their neighbours' toddlers and for the elderly, who are always said to be in peril of anything moving faster than a snail. They say that cyclists pay no attention to road signs and traffic lights and riding on the pavement is a further symptom of their evil intent and reckless lifestyles. On the other are those who say it does no harm, that only a very small minority of cyclists are irresponsible, and certainly they are fewer in number than the white van men whose lives are devoted to ending those of persons perceived to be of lesser status, with cyclists their principal targets.

The law is archaic and unhelpful.

The Highway Act 1835 is the source of the present regulatory regime. It provides that:

If any person shall wilfully ride upon any footpath or causeway by the side of any road made or set apart for the use or accommodation of foot passengers; or shall wilfully lead or drive any horse, ass, sheep, mule, swine, or cattle or carriage of any description, or any truck or sledge, upon any such footpath or causeway; or shall tether any horse, ass, mule, swine, or cattle, on any highway, so as to suffer or permit the tethered animal to be thereon...[they shall be guilty of an offence].

Just in case is any doubt, and I think there was, in 1888, Parliament, with the speed and efficiency which has always distinguished its operations, provided further, in the Local Government Act of that year that:

Bicycles, tricycles, velocipedes, and other similar machines are hereby declared to be carriages within the meaning of the Highway Acts

Now there are some interesting points arising from this legislation, enacted at a time when the fastest thing on the roads was probably the bicycle:

The definition of carriage logically must include a pram or baby buggy, a wheelchair, and in particular a motorised four wheeled scooter of the sort increasingly seen in our town centres. The Surrey police, who responded to a Freedom of Information request about the status of prams cited a case from 1861 (R v Mathias) which seemed to suggest that the right of a member of the public to abate the use of a pram on a highway was related to whether or not it was a nuisance. Contrary what the Surrey Police say in their answer, this is not an authority for the proposition that the use of a pram is not a breach of the Acts: indeed it is the opposite. It is simply supports the proposition that a member of the public cannot restrain the use of the footway by a person in breach of the Highway Act unless there was a nuisance.
The Highway Act does not apply to any footway which is not both next to a road and set aside for the use of pedestrians. It does not therefore apply to paths which are not next to roads such as those in shopping centres. There may be bylaws in relation to those which restrict user, but this is a separate matter. A Highways Act ticket issued for these streets is invalid.

This is most unsatisfactory. Not only does it not tie criminality into harm done, which inevitably undermines the law by leaving those who break it feel not at all guilty, just resentful; not only is it selectively enforced, with wheelchair users in particular allowed to roam our streets without sanction - not that anyone outside an asylum or perhaps parliament would suggest otherwise; but in addition, it is out of date, with the bicycle very much at the soggy end of the road traffic food chain, and its user at daily risk of serious injury or death from careless drivers. Fewer than one person a year is killed by cyclists on pavements, hundreds of cyclists die under the wheels of motor vehicles of all sorts.

In other countries, where cyclists may use the footways unless specifically forbidden, there are no heaps of dead pedestrians at every corner, and people are of course attuned to the presence of cycles.

The obvious solution is that cyclists should be allowed to use the pavement, providing they give way to pedestrians, and providing they hold insurance. Dangerous cycling should be treated as seriously as dangerous driving, but simply cycling along a virtually empty footway should be regarded as normal.

2009-06-25T02:18:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of our Bank manager, Mr Tim Hastie, of HSBC. We have banked with this company and its predecessor, Midland Bank, for nearly 60 years. We lend the Bank substantial sums of money which it uses to fund its core activities, including carefully chosen and monitored investments.

Every few weeks, we receive an email from Mr Hastie, enjoining us to take advantage of the Bank's financial advice, honed up no doubt from their experience with the funds chosen by them and operated by Mr Bernie Madoff. The latest edition included some cutting edge stuff about trading with Argentina.

Mi Buenos Aires querido,
cuando yo te vuelva a ver
no habrá más pena ni olvido.

We wouldn't mind this, and have no objection to the familiar use of first names, but for some reason he is unable to spell them correctly despite their appearing on Bank Mandates, etc., and despite a number of requests, some of which have descended into sarcasm.

If you see this man, would you be kind enough to mention our difficulty, as we are unable it appears to communicate with him directly.

Poacher turned gamekeeper

2009-02-17T15:13:00.000-08:00

Question: what does one do when a former Chief Executive of Tate & Lyle says that people are eating far too much sugar? If it doesn't make you pause just a second before that second lump, maybe you need to think about it. So when Stella Rimington, the former head of Britain's security service, says the Government is overegging the terrorist pudding to the extent that basic civil liberties are under threat should we listen? For the last seven and a half years we have been told we are at war. A war that has lasted longer than the second world war and has claimed fewer civilian casualties in the UK than the second world war did in an average day and a half. A war against an idea, with our national adversaries allegedly led by a shadowy figure who may not even be alive.

And in this "war", which has cost billions of pounds and has no end in sight, for the enemy cannot surrender and victory cannot be claimed, it has been thought necessary for our leaders to lie about risk, to conceal evidence of torture connived at by British citizens, and to promulgate a series of restrictions on the freedoms of ordinary people which were not even thought necessary when our country faced imminent invasion and daily bombardment.

The Rule of Law is an essential ingredient of a state which deserves the respect of its citizens. It is a more important value even than democracy. And yet even this has been set aside by ministers who have subverted and maligned the courts who have interpreted the complex and sometimes contradictory web of legislation enacted in order to "counter the threat of terrorists".

The vast sums of money spent to create this apparatus of intolerance and "counter-terror" has been diverted from more worthwhile projects. How many people have died and will die through lack of NHS research funds or road safety schemes? Far more than have been killed by terrorists.

In the process of this, a substantial section of the population has been alienated. Racism has been encouraged by the perpetuation of the idea that terrorists threats are ubiquitous and a constant and present danger. This racism, and the actions of Government, are the best possible incubator for the very small number of extremists who are actuated by hatred and intolerance.

The truth is that those involved in terrorism are generally amateurs, some even weak-minded, with unclear ideas about how to carry out their terrorist acts. There is a significant chance that some at least of them have been egged on by agents provocateurs. Compared with the threat posed by the IRA in the 1970s and 1980s, which did not seem to require the same clampdown on civil liberties, they are a mere bagatelle. There will always be some people who take their causes beyond the limits of acceptability. Animal Rights Activists don't always stop at placards.

The question is what to do about it. The message that we are at risk is being spread daily by the tabloid press and by officialdom. By contradicting this gloomy and distortive message and putting the small risk into perspective, we can each do a little.

International Justice for some

2008-07-22T16:10:00.000-07:00

The news that Radovan Karadzic has been arrested and, one hopes, will face justice, is a welcome sign that Europe's most restless area is perhaps settling down. But what justice will he face? The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (http://www.un.org/icty/) was established in 1993 to deal with war crimes committed within the territory of the former Yugoslavia. As such Mr Karadzic's actions, if proven to be crimes, will be punished.

Following the Tribunal's establishment, the International Criminal Court was established in 2002 to deal with genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed after 30 June 2002. However, despite the ratification of the Rome Statute by 106 countries, the United States of America has failed to take part and has indeed been campaigning against the Court.

It is alleged that the reason for this is that the USA wishes to afford immunity to its citizens in relation to what it euphemistically refers to peacekeeping operations. One has to ask by what perversion of logic can a nation seek to be excused from responsibility for actions which since Nuremberg have been regarded as worthy of condemnation and sanction? Justice should be multilateral, and not just for the "other people".

If Mr Karadzic is not just to be subject to judicial proceedings, but if convicted to be the recipient of a message from the entire world that his actions were unacceptable; a message which needs to be heard in many other places: then the processes of international justice must not be tainted with the notion that they are organs of "victors' justice". To that end the USA, and other refuseniks must take part.

Apocalypse Soon?

2008-07-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

Is the world coming to an end? Economy in recession, house prices through the floor, and rain in the week after Wimbledon. Something has clearly gone wrong, and this may lead you to ask whether a deity of one sort of another has it in for Streatham. Of course most people won't care very much about that one way or another, and wouldn't turn a hair even if a lake of fiery brimstone were to appear adjacent to the Bus Garage.

However, on balance, the lack of the brimstone lake, or even a small crack in Streatham High Road leading straight to Hell, tends to militate against divine intervention in our lives.

The bottom line is though that we are in for a rough time. The recent increases in food, energy and commodity prices are not driven by temporary fluctuations in markets; they reflect a real fall in the surplus of food production globally, partly it seems caused by an increase in the area of farmland given over to biofuels; and also the inability of oil, gas and commodifties to keep up with expanding demand, especially from the Far East.

The net result is that for the first time in 50 years, we will be seeing real declines in standards of living, although it may be that some of these are balanced by a decline in housing costs.

Certainly the amount of disposable income of most people will fall, and with them the capacity for spending on new homes or secondary investments. In the light of this, the chance of a rapid recovery for the housing market seems remote.

So selling, even at a discount, may well be a sensible option, particularly if in the next three years, you will need to refinance.

Is everyone showing their HIPs?

2008-04-10T04:26:00.000-07:00

The HIP has been with us for several months now, and the expected great excitement of the public about it has been manifested in a number of spontaneous demonstrations throughout the land. We were caught up in one of these in error at Clapham Junction Railway Station as we made our way home recently. Although none of the crowd was chanting: "What do we want? HIPs! When do we want them? Now!", their intention was clear as they made their way to the various platforms.

Several people have remarked to us over the last few weeks how the HIP has transformed their lives. Accolades such as "waste of money", and "pain in the neck" have been bestowed widely, even by people who might not be expected to understand what HIPs actually are, such as mortgage brokers. On that score, we have been holding a daily: "Be Nice to Mortgage Brokers Minute", at 3.05am each day, and if you want to take part, please do. Together we can make a better world.

Going back to HIPs, we have to report that their quality varies widely. Because there is no money in creating them, sadly some of the providers clearly use staff who have a minimal grasp of property law. So you can expect the wrong title details if the property is leasehold, and also long delays whilst copy leases are obtained. It is surely only a matter of time before someone is fined for not having a HIP because the HIP they have been sold is so dodgy.

It's the delays which are the big problem. Previously, Solicitors would isolate what documents were needed and take steps to obtain them. Now, HIP providers struggle with this and Solicitors hang around waiting for the HIP to arrive, conscious that clients will not wish to pay twice for the same documentation to be produced.

Who suffers? Well, it is the consumer as usual. The consumer who is paying extra for the HIP and then not really getting the marketing tool which it is intended to be.

Night of the Zombie ID Cards

2008-03-08T17:02:00.000-08:00

The Government does seem entirely obsessed with ID cards. What annoys me is not the idea of the cards, nor even the fact that they may become compulsory, but the specious justification adduced by the Government. The idea that these things will in some way protect us against terrorism is quite absurd. In all of the trials of terrorist suspects that I have seen, the accused made no attempt to conceal their identity, only their motives and actions, which cannot yet anyway be fitted on to a card. Nothing has prevented a terrorist suspect obtaining a passport or a driving licence. What they may assist in doing, and why I think they may have some value, is cracking down on multiple identities which are used for frauds of various sorts. However I have not seen any figures so far leading to the conclusion that the savings outweigh the costs. It's time we had them.

In the meantime, this is another sure-fire vote loser and suggests that perhaps a significant number of Labour MPs are actually really members of the Conservative Party. The picture reminds us that ID cards are not a new idea.

HIP SURVEY

2008-02-22T08:40:00.000-08:00

We are running a survey to see what the impact of Home Information Packs is on anyone prepared to fill it in.

As such, it is not particularly scientific, but we are always interested in your response.

Click here for our hip HIP survey.

W R Newland & Sons Block of Flats Disposition Certificate of Compliance Form

2008-02-22T07:14:00.000-08:00

Background

W R Newland & Sons Limited are the freeholders of a number of blocks of flats in Croydon, Bromley and North Surrey, which they built and some of which they manage.

Most of the leases provide for a formal Licence to be obtained on a sale or a mortgage. The reason for this is to ensure both that our client knows who the tenant/lender is and also to ensure that the service charges and ground rent is up to date. There are restrictions in the registers of the titles preventing disposals without a Certificate. For new developments it has been decided that a simpler way of ensuring our clients' aims would be a Certificate of Compliance based system where we, as Solicitors for our clients, issue a Certificate dealing with the Restriction. We already do this for remortgage cases. The benefit of this is that it is more straightforward and enables our costs to be lower. This note applies to those developments as well.

Please click on this link:

Certificate of Compliance Application Form

The Memorandum of Rent Review is in the following Form (just cut and paste with or without the camel):

MEMORANDUM of RENT REVIEW

Dated this day of 200

Property:
Name of Landlord: W R Newland & Sons Limited
Name of Tenant:
Name of Assignee:
Title Number:
Date of Lease: Date of Lease
Date: 29 September
New Rent: £

The above named Tenant and the Solicitor for the Landlord have signed this Memorandum and a Counterpart thereof respectively to record that as from the Date the Rent payable under the Lease of the property will be the New Rent.

SIGNED by the Tenant .................................................

SIGNED for and on behalf of the Landlord .................................................