On Dec. 29, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published a final rule amending Regulation Z’s Ability-to-Repay/Qualified Mortgage (QM) requirements (the New Rule). Regulation Z requires creditors to make a reasonable, good-faith determination of a consumer’s ability to repay their residential mortgage loan. Loans that comply with Regulation Z’s requirements qualify for certain protections from liability ...
The Building Safety Bill was finally introduced into Parliament on 30 June 2021 with the aim of delivering fundamental reform to the building safety system. The Bill’s progress through Parliament will be closely monitored as the construction industry looks to prepare for the potentially wide-ranging impact of this complex piece of legislation. The Bill was published in draft form in 2020 to enable pre-legislative scrutiny ...
COVID-19 came upon us all like a tsunami, leveling life as we knew it and causing an entirely new paradigm of behavior to be necessary. No segment of the population was hit harder than seniors, both in our communities and in senior care facilities. Long-term care facilities were on the frontlines of the battle, being one of the first industries to be required to wholly alter traditional behaviors to try to stop the inevitable spread of this deadly virus ...
Chapter 53 of the Texas Property Code just received major updates for the first time in years. On June 15, 2021, Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law HB 2237. This bill makes many notable changes to Texas’s lien laws. The construction industry and construction lawyers should take note of these changes to the complex and often confusing world of mechanic’s, contractor’s, and materialman’s liens in Texas ...
We would like to inform you of several draft laws in the TMT area, that were adopted by the Russian Parliament, and finally signed by the President. We have prepared a short description for you below ...
Key Points Eviction protections that were set to expire June 30, 2021, have been extended to September 30, 2021. New notice requirements took effect on July 1, 2021; additional notice requirements take effect on October 1, 2021. Governmental rental assistance is now available to pay 100 percent of a qualified tenant's rent. On June 28, 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 832 into law, effective immediately ...
A party making a claim bears the burden of proof, meaning that it is responsible for proving its claim. In civil disputes (as opposed to criminal matters) a claim generally must be proven ‘on the balance of probabilities’ if it is to be successful. How is this achieved? The answer is that the claimant must present sufficient evidence to persuade the decision maker that its case is more probable than not ...
As we emerge from lockdown, the pace of change in the real estate world is increasing once again. Michael Callaghan looks at what the legal landscape looks like in the coming months. Climate change The Government is planning significant changes to the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) and the provisions that apply to Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) to drive down carbon emissions from buildings ...
Following the latest government announcements, where do landlords and tenants stand in relation to the recovery of rent unpaid during the Coronavirus pandemic? The simple answer is there is a significant degree of uncertainty, and an awful lot of detail around the government’s proposals and that has yet to be resolved ...
Wednesday June 30 2021 is when the Stamp Duty ‘holiday’ in its current form at least will end. The Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, introduced the temporary Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) in July 2020 to boost the housing market following the first national lockdown. The aim was to save buyers from paying stamp duty on any properties valued at up to £500,000 – a saving worth up to £15,000 ...
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the telecommunications business has not grown as substantially as anticipated. However, based on a forecast of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (the “NBTC”), the business should have an opportunity to grow in the near future ...
On June 23, 2021, the Department of Telecom (“DoT”) released revised regulations relating to Other Service Providers (“OSP”) replacing the previous OSP regulations that were issued last year. This client update provides a summary of key issues that have been addressed by the new regulations. SUMMARY OF NEW OSP REGULATIONS Effective Date. The regulations are stated to come into force immediately ...
If you work in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) space, you are certainly aware of the landmark unanimous decision by the United States Supreme Court in Facebook v Duguid[1], in which the Court narrowed the definition of an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) to equipment that has the capacity to either store or produce numbers using a random or sequential number generator. On its face, this decision seemed benign (the definition of an ATDS is unchanged) ...
The Planning and Development (Amendment) (No. 3) Bill 2021 is being expedited through the legislative process. It will provide for extensions to a number of time limits, including for the passing of development plans. Importantly however it will also allow for extensions, or additional extensions, to existing planning permissions to allow projects be completed. Planning permissions have a fixed duration, usually five years ...
Dear valued clients, colleagues and friends,Our TMT Partners, Christina Kow and Timothy Siaw, have co-authored the Malaysian chapter of The International Comparative Legal Guides – Fintech 2021. The chapter covers a broad overview of common issues in fintech laws and regulations in Malaysia.The Fintech LandscapeFunding For FintechFintech RegulationOther Regulatory Regimes / Non-Financial RegulationAccessing Talent TechnologyTo read more, please click here ...
Dear valued clients, colleagues and friends,Our Head of the Intellectual Property Practice Group, Karen Abraham, has authored the Malaysian chapter of The Intellectual Property Review, 10th Edition published by The Law Reviews. The chapter provides a summary and overview of the types of intellectual property coverage available in Malaysia, together with updates of recent legal developments.1 ...
There are a plethora of issues that parties need to work through to make a strategic land project viable; not least, the UK tax system which has a number of potential pitfalls that can materially impact returns. At present, there is no single tax efficient model catered for in UK legislation to enable parties to come together ...
Agricultural rent reviews have been a source of controversy within the industry for many years. After a period of 15 years or so where there was little rent review activity in the agricultural tenanted sector between the early 1990s and the mid-2000s, a sharp spike in commodity prices during the course of 2007 led to a large number of rent review notices being served ...
On 22 May 2021, SPV77 Co. Ltd., a special purpose entity set up to issue and offer Siri Hub Investment Digital Tokens (“SIRIHUB”) to investors secured approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) for the country’s first Initial Coin Offering (“ICO”). The first ICO approval by the SEC follows three years of legal changes starting with the passage of the Emergency Decree on Digital Asset Business Operation B.E. 2561 (2018) ...
The COVID pandemic has catalysed the decline of traditional retail as the dominant offer in our town centres. There is a growing consensus that a significant part of most town centres needs to have a greater focus on the local community, be experimental and better address local needs. Alongside this, we have the government agenda to ‘level up’ and to ‘build back better’ ...
As we emerge from the pandemic, UK cities have a positive future – from the growth of digital broadcasting in Manchester to the positive future for inward investment; from what is needed to preserve our high streets to excitement around the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. The UK Cities Investor Guide is a bi-annual publication produced in partnership with EG, and tackles some of the key challenges and opportunities facing the real estate investment market ...
Commercial landlords have, in the past year and a half, dealt with many novel issues in relation to COVID-19, often on an emergency basis. Few landlords have had to deal with both public health order violations and gang crime relating to the same tenant, as in a recent decision of the B.C. Supreme Court, Ivy Lounge West Georgia Limited Partnership v. TA F&B Limited Partnership, 2021 BCSC 997 ...
The rapid spread of Covid-19 has placed the healthcare system in Thailand under severe pressure. Following the outbreak of the pandemic, new startups focusing on telemedicine have sprung up to take on the challenge of innovating the way healthcare services can be provided to patients ...
The final phase of the Esterra Park development in Redmond, Washington, is a carbon-neutral development. Schwabe client JTM Construction is the general contractor for that project. As attorneys, we are interested in staying up to date on market trends, so we asked JTM to put together a panel to brief Schwabe’s Real Estate and Construction industry group on the carbon-neutral aspects of the project ...
