If you were disturbed this morning by a solemn peal of bells from your local church, then your local vicar was probably mourning not the passing of some local churchgoing worthy, but the expiration of the validity of the Land Registration Act 2002 (Transitional Provisions) (No 2) Order 2003

From and after 13 October 2013, anyone purchasing registered land where there is no entry protecting the obligation to contribute towards the maintenance of a chancel of a church, will take free of any such obligation.

This sounds almost as exciting as the Latvian football results. 

But for the last 10 years, purchasers of property have been subjected to the possibility that their property might carry this bizarre and (up until the mid 1990s) almost forgotten encumbrance, and have consequently been advised to pay for searches and insurance to cover this risk.  Simple mathematics will reveal that at around £20 per transaction on average, and with around half a million property sales a year, around £100 million has been spent by buyers of land in the last decade.  This is considerably less than the Church of England has received from chancel payments, even from bodies, such as the Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, whose liability is known to them.

There is no evidence of anyone having received a bill without there being some note on their title prior to 2003, and I would be interested to know if any entries have been registered against people who were not aware of their liability.

It is my view that this is a complete disgrace.

Reason thrown to the wind in Woolwich

The tragic and pointless murder of an unarmed and off-duty soldier in a Woolwich street has not unsurprisingly hit the headlines of our press and appalled pretty well everyone. But what next? The police appear to have mopped up a number of suspects, and no doubt high profile trials will follow.  Those who stupidly typecast all Muslims in the same vein as those seen explaining, with bloody hands, the twisted logic of their actions, are having a field day of racist prejudice. Islamic leaders have joined the condemnation.  And the Government?  They appear to see the need to do something, anything, perhaps, to "stop this happening again". 

This post sets out the reasons why such an approach is misguided. First of all, I think this awful event needs to be seen in context.  We live in a society where a large number of individuals behave as individuals, and where pretty well every aspect of that behaviour confirms to a normal distribution. Statistics in a Solicitor's blog?  Yes, statistics. Now one facet of a normal distribution is that there are extremes.  At the risk of trivialisation, let us take the harmless pursuit of trainspotting.  As a society we range from people whose interest in trains is virtually non-existent, through people who like them to run on time and wouldn't mind a seat please, to those who have notebooks filled with numbers filling shelves of their suburban homes.

Violence conforms to the same pattern. Just as there are those who really would not hurt a fly, at the other end are those who have taken what I believe to be a societal aversion to violence away from their world-view.  Some seek to justify that, others do not. Murder is the result, and I would say that it is an inevitable result, of normality.  The more violent the mid-point of the curve, the nearer to normality is any particular act of violence.

Western societies, and I would suggest Britain is no different here, have become markedly less violent over the last century.  Indeed the publicity afforded to this event is evidence that we are just not attuned to violence.  With murders in the UK hovering around 600 a year, and around two thirds of them being perpetrated by people known to the victim, the chance of being killed by a stranger is around 1 in 300,000 -  around a fifteenth of the chance of being killed in a car accident.  You are over thirty times more likely to be murdered in South Africa.

Still, even in a society such as ours, there will be extreme events. But that is what they are, and they should not dictate policy.

Secondly, what possible steps could be taken to restrain lone maniacs from acquiring standard kitchen equipment and using it to attack someone chosen almost at random?  I possess three meat cleavers, around 15 large and very sharp knives, and two meat hammers, with impressive ends.  Will the possession of these items become a matter for licensing?  I think not. 

We are, I fear on the brink of a knee-jerk overreaction.  in Theresa May, we have a Home Secretary whose insecurity is palpable.  Calling a meeting of the COBRA Committee in reaction to what was obviously an isolated event with no national implications at all is an astonishing miscalculation.  Only today, the suggestion that groups who do not advocate violence but who are "radically islamic" in character may be banned has come from her.

If there is any lesson to be learnt from history relating to such things it is that pushing radicals underground leads to adverse consequences.  It leads to normal people feeling repressed and tending towards violence. Ms May is out of her depth here, and is running with the crowd, not making effective decisions and avoiding statements putting this matter into perspective, It is a crime, a horrid one perhaps, but the law is sufficient to deal with it. Jusitce must be done.

So is there anything that can be done at all?  In the short term, there is nothing, but in the long term maybe the Government's attitude towards religion needs rethinking.  Mr Gove's education "reforms" have facilitated the setting up of schools run by cranky Christian sects as well as Islamic ones.  Children are increasingly being segregated on religious lines, and the last thing we need is a society where faith determines everything, such as exists in Northern Ireland, and where divisiveness is a feature of normal life; and where tolerance is hard won rather than expected. 

Fun with the Daily Express

A little little known fact is that Solicitors eat; and occasionally my hunt for something to eat for lunch takes me past the news-stand in my local supermarket.  Daily Express headline analysis has become a mild obsession.  My object; to discover what is going on in their editorial department.


One thing is certain, news as such plays little part in the settling of the front page.  An obvious conclusion is that the editorial department is situated somewhere where there is no news. No news at all.  Perhaps a local black hole. Or some strange experiment in social isolation. Maybe a practice run for a trip to Mars, or even the real thing.


London is  hosting the Olympic Games this year.  But no mention of it or the associated muddles in the main front page headline in the Express.  Also recently absent: The LIBOR fixing scandal, the acquittal of PC Harwood, and The civil war in Syria.


Here is an analysis of recent headlines showing a curious distaste for reporting anything newsworthy.

 


before that, these themes continue:



22 June: Summer of Flight Chaos
21 June: £67 Billion - the amount we must pay to support doctors' pensions (vaguely related to the doctors' "strike"
20 June: House Prices on Rise at last
18 June: New Pension pain for millions
15 June: Summer starts in September
14 June: 80mph Storm chaos on way
13 June: Arthritis test will end pain for millions
12 June: Now 80% demand vote to Quit EU
11 June: Britain wants Charles as King
10 June: We must stop Germany now
9 June: 70mph Gales to batter Britain.
6 June: Thank you all (they had noticed the Jubilee)
5 June: Show must go on (Jubilee)
4 June: Our Diamond Queen
1 June: Now EU vote is a step closer
31 May: £110,000 a year doctors to strike.. (real news)
30 May: Interest rates on hold for 5 years.
29 May: Benefits Family is "too rich to work"
28 May: EU force new rise in price of petrol
25 May: Seaweed pill will help beat Arthritis.
24 May: Heart attack risk in Health tablets.
23 May: Prisoners to be given the vote.
22 May: Mortgages to soar in Euro crisis
21 May: Simple checks to stop heart attacks
18 May: Easy way to halt misery of arthritis.
17 May: Death of the Euro.
16 May: 25% off your summer holiday.
15 May: New Cold snap to last a month.
14 May: Go to Britain for benefits, says EU
11 May: Pension Pain for Millions
10 May: Kate's daughter will be Queen
9 May: Best way to battle arthritis
8 May: Britain snubs Euro Bail out
7 May: All migrants to get a British pension.
4 May: EU plot to scrap Britain.
3 May: Britain facing new big freeze
2 May: 1 in 6 Patients at Risk from GP Blunders
1 May: How Millions miss out on better pensions
30 April: Flood chaos to last all week.
27 April: 60mp Gales to batter Britain.
26 April: Madeleine: she is alive.
25 April: New Pill stops Arthritis Pain.
24 April: Europe to Ruin British Pensions.
23 April: Outrage at Care Home Abuse
20 April: Proof Aspirin is a life saver.
19 April: Coldest May for 100 years.
18 April: Madeleine spotted in Spain.
17 April: Simple Way to boost pensions.
16 April: New test for Alzheimer's.
15 April: New battle to cure dementia (if only they had waited a day)
12 April: Now Britain is on flood alert.
11 April: Energy Bills to be slashed.
10 April; Eye test to beat heart disease.
9 April: Pension Boost of £312 on way.
6 April: New Hope for Arthritis cure.
5 April: Millions miss out on decent pensions.
4 April: Statins halt Alzheimer's
3 April: Mortgage rise to hit millions.
2 April: Britain facing week of snow.
30 March: Time to stop Petrol Panic.
29 March: Pumps run dry in Petrol Panic.
28 March: £1 for a first class stamp
27 March: Petrol Strike chaos to cripple Britain. (Maybe this helped create the panic).
26 March: Now EU bans plastic bags.
25 March: New Arthritis Cure for £1 a day.
24 March: 5m Pensioners robbed in the Budget.
23 March: Aspirin is key to beating cancer.
20 March; End of free cashpoints.
19 March: Toll roads to cover Britain.
16 March: Diabetes warning on white rice (probably a small one)
15 March: New EU Rules wreck pensions.
14 March: Water Bills to soar in hosepipe scandal.
13 March: £1,000 for using hosepipe.
12 March: How to double your pension.
9 March: Pension bonus for millions.


What can we infer?

1. The staff are at or fast approaching pensionable age.
2. They suffer badly from arthritis, and other ailments.
3. There is a lot of repetition.
4. They don't like the EU.
5. They worry about the weather, a lot.
6. Little respect for statistics.

The Blindness of the Great

It is quite remarkable, one might think, how chronic ignorance afflicts those in charge of organisations whose employees break the law to profit those organisations.  "We didn't know anything about it" - a mantra you will hear chanted in boardrooms in the banking sector about interest rate fixing, and, as the Leveson Inquiry has been told many times, also in the offices of News International.


They may even be telling the truth.  They may all have no idea how their companies work: no idea how profits bear no resemblance to performance. That might explain a lot.... 





O Blindheit der Großen! Sie wandeln wie Ewige
Groß auf gebeugten Nacken, sicher
Der gemieteten Fäuste, vertrauend
Der Gewalt, die so lang schon gedauert hat.
Aber lang ist nicht ewig.
O Wechsel der Zeiten! Du Hoffnung des Volks!


from Brecht's "Caucasian Chalk Circle"

It's a tricky question, isn't it? How does one conclude that someone is "not a fit person" to run a major international business?


The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee's report into News International and Phone-hacking, published on 30 April 2012, reaches this conclusion.  However a minority of MPs, all made up from the Conservative Party's ranks, begged to differ, not with the facts set out in the report, but with its judgement of unfitness; saying instead that such a view was outside the scope of the enquiry.


It is, I think, beyond question that 'phone-hacking took place in News International newspapers almost as a matter of common practice.  We do not know how many other newspapers indulged in this practice, and we may find out at some time.


The phone-hacking led to newspaper articles which brought the personal details of victims' lives into the public domain, and which in many cases were sensational. 


The mindset which produced these articles was one which asserted that there was no real right to privacy from the rich, the famous, and those who had been exposed to the public eye, sometimes unwillingly, such as the parents of Milly Dowler.


Despite what has been said by various witnesses, who have sought to play down the degree to which those "in charge" were complicit,or even aware, of what was going on; it is hard to believe that these people, who read the headlines, who paid the bills, who were supposed to know how information was gathered and used, did not well know what was happening. It is as if they concluded time and time again that these scoops resulted from the intervention of a journalistic fairy godmother; as if Eichmann had told his trial that he thought the massacred Jews of Europe had all gone on holiday. 


But let us cast aside our doubts and assume that the Murdochs are telling the truth, concealing nothing, that these things went on under their noses, unseen and unsmelt; emails went unread, minions were dutiful enough not to pass on their knowledge of illegality, but happy to be complicit in it, the sources of incredible stories not questioned.


In such a case, I submit that there is a total failure of oversight here. And this failure of oversight, if a deliberate withdrawal from the management of his business, would be an outrageous and reckless abandonment of responsibility warranting an assertion of unfitness; if a failure through incapacity then an admission of unfitness.


In every case there is no logical alternative to the majority conclusion of the Committee.


It is the function of our legislators to seek to protect the public, and to suggest that it is not is fatuous in the extreme.

Plot Sale Scams

Over the past couple of years, I have had a number of enquiries from people who have "invested" in land plot sale schemes.

Beguiled by hard selling boiler room style salesmen, they have parted with sums from £5,000 to £20,000 in exchange for small plots of land.

The premise behind such sales is generally that sooner rather than later planning consent "will" be granted for the development of the plots and instead of a field or wood, we will see rows of neat little houses, smoke gently swirling from chimneys, happy children playing with their hoops in the tidy streets.

Nice, eh?

But unfortunately fantasy.  What actually happens is that unscrupulous and greedy swindlers purchase agricultural or forestry land for peanuts and then sell portions of it to the gullible for maybe twenty or thirty times the amount they paid for it.

The land will generally have absolutely no development value at all. if you are being told otherwise, then you are being lied to. Frequently the plots offered are too small for much more than a shed.

The Government has done little about this scam, which if done "properly" is perfectly legal.  The FSA is powerless unless the promoters can be caught running an unauthorised "collective investment scheme", which they often are not. By the time the slow moving and underfunded trading standards staff get to these operations, they have moved on, cash rich and chuckling, to their next venture.

So could anything be done?

A simple step would be to deprive these schemes of the veneer of legality by making the offering for sale, either as principal or agent, of multiple plots of undeveloped land without planning consent, a regulated activity under FSA supervision.

Exceptions would need to be made for land sold for agricultural purposes only of at least 4,000 square metres.


I have started up a petition about this on the No 10 website, and will post the link shortly, when it has been "vetted" and, one hopes, approved.


If you have any sudden urge to invest in a plot of land, you should see a Solicitor before signing anything or paying over money.  Sites maintained by these swindlers will suggest that you don't need a Solicitor - "would you use one to buy a car?" - one of them says - but the answer to that is that you can check the car and see if it works before you buy it. Don't become another victim.

The power of indecision

"What would you do?" I have lost count of the times I have been asked this question by people buying property, particularly if something "comes up" which means that what they thought they were getting isn't quite what they are getting as a result of defective or prejudicially drawn documents, unco-operative freeholders, missing planning consents, removed walls, or a combination of those things.

"Would you buy it?" Or more usually: "Would you buy it if you were me?" I do conveyancing, not out of body experiences. "I just need your 'off the record' view." By email, preferably of course.

What is really required of course is a plug in decision machine, attuned perfectly to the needs and desires of the pluggee, which will produce a judgement which the pluggee can ignore just the same.

In the absence of such a device, maybe this will assist.

First question. Will the problem affect your enjoyment or use of the property?

The Lease says: "No pets", and the managing agents don't like little Fluffy the loveable cat. No problem as long as you can bear to leave your snuggly friend in the hands of the taxidermist.

But if you hate cats, and Fluffy belongs to a neighbour, what's the problem?

We all hate carpets, but sorry, "you need to keep your floors carpeted." That's fine if you don't mind your friends laughing at you, and you can control your asthma with drugs.

And on the other hand, if you live in the flat under the man who does tango in stiletto heels, carpets might not be quite so risible.

You are buying a flat with the intention of letting it out. the Lease says that you need to get written permission for each time you let it. There will be fees to pay - perhaps £800 or more, each time; and delay. Is it a good idea to buy the flat for letting?

On the other hand, take the same facts, except for the fact that you intend to live in the flat. No temporary residents might well be a good thing,

A key wall has been removed without any building regulation approval. The seller refuses to have the council round to inspect. Will an indemnity policy be the solution? Will it protect you if the roof falls in on your head? You decide.

Second question. Will it make selling your property more difficult? You should bear in mind that the harder a property is to sell, the less money it will realise. Is that obvious?

Imagine, if you will, a large room. A very large room in fact. It's filled with all the people who are looking to buy a property.

You stand in front of them behind a powerful microphone and one by one you list the attributes of your property. After each announcement, people will leave. They don't want your property.

After you have announced that the property is a flat on the second floor, has no garden and is in Penge, only a few people remain. "No pets", and leashes strain as owners are dragged out. "Lease only 75 years." Just a few faces remain to look at you eagerly. A man with a parrot on his shoulder is gently escorted out by an attendant dressed in white.

You mention that letting needs permission, and that it could do with a bit of paint, and suddenly you look down, and there is one person left. You announce the price with trepidation.

She laughs at you. As she leaves the hall to you and, you alone, you can see Fluffy's beady eyes staring at you through the window.