The HSE has prosecuted a contractor after it identified multiple health and safety issues during a COVID-19 ‘spot check’ at a site in Manchester. This is the first prosecution to arise from the HSE’s Spot Check programme. Background Throughout the pandemic, HSE inspectors performed a number of proactive COVID-19 spot checks (reportedly over 316,000) at construction sites across the UK ...
(Update following the Scottish Government announcement on 8 October 2021) As discussed in our previous article, the Scottish Government is to provide powers for local authorities to address concerns surrounding the unregulated short-term let market. The Scottish Government proposes to do so by way of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 (Licensing of Short-term Lets) Order 2021 ...
Facts This month, the Inner House (Scottish appeal court) handed down judgment in Van Oord UK Ltd v Dragados UK Ltd, an appeal from the commercial court concerning the interpretation of an NEC3 contract for the dredging of Nigg Bay, part of the Aberdeen Harbour Expansion Project. Dragados Ltd, the main contractor (and Defender and Respondent) was employed by Aberdeen Harbour Board and subcontracted all dredging works to Van Oord Ltd, the Pursuer/Reclaimer ...
If you have ever wondered why property prices in Edinburgh are so high then it is worth considering the relationship between the property market and planning policy. Like most commodities, the prices we pay for properties are heavily influenced by supply and demand. The number of new houses that developers are allowed to build is set by councils using a complicated methodology ...
OSHA has released its long-awaited emergency rule requiring the COVID-19 vaccine or weekly testing for many employers. With compliance deadlines coming up, Bradley is here to help employers navigate this new rule to stay in compliance. While we monitor the outcome of judicial review of OSHA’s ETS, we suggest taking the following steps to prepare your workplace for compliance with the new vaccine or test mandate: Develop a policy. Educate employees ...
Over the last 18 months, nearly everyone has experienced increased stress as once simple decisions about day-to-day routines became more complicated, going to work and school became a potential health risk, and many families experienced financial hardship. Stress associated with the pandemic has exacerbated mental health impairments and other conditions triggered by stress and led people to seek professional help for their struggles ...
The recent decision to quash planning permission for a major urban extension in Canterbury has raised a number of concerns highlighted by the Government in its recent planning White Paper, namely the lack of certainty over delivery, with some 36% of planning decisions relating to major applications overturned, as well as inefficiency and that such decisions simply lead to not enough homes being built ...
[!<CDATA[ Moratoriums on foreclosures due to COVID-19 ended this summer, prompting concerns of a shock similar to the 2008 housing crisis. While there are numerous differences between today and the previous recession, financial service providers can stay a step ahead by arming themselves with a few lessons learned ...
At the recent Scotland Development Conference hosted by Built Environment Networking, major residential developers and housebuilders, social housing providers and leadership from the housing sector joined a panel discussion to share details of the biggest housing projects currently planned for Scotland and how the sector can ensure a focus on creating community is retained, as well as the push for an increase in the rate, volume and affordability of housebuilding ...
Over the past couple decades, building codes have responded to disasters, rather than averting them. Resilience is now an essential design element needed to withstand our changing climate. In the immortal words of Bob Dylan, “the times, they are a-changin’.” Intensified and more frequent hurricanes on the East and Gulf Coasts, more devastating wildfires on the West Coast and more frequent, powerful tornados in the heartland ...
Dinsmore construction partner Jim Boyers and commercial litigation clerk Mary-Kate Hetzel were published in The Indiana Lawyer this week discussing how building material price increases have created logistical and legal challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. An excerpt is below ...
Two recent articles in The Times and The Sunday Times highlighted the attractiveness of the affordable housing sector to investors keen to promote their ESG credentials. During the pandemic, ESG has gone from being a niche term used mainly by private equity funds and their investors to being a mainstream term used across a range of sectors and industries ...
As with other parts of the UK, the last 18 months have seen a period of exceptional market activity in the living sector in Northern Ireland, despite the economic challenges of Covid. Much of that activity has in fact been driven by the societal challenges and behavioural shifts brought about by the pandemic ...
The draft bill to implement the government’s ground rent changes finally reached the House of Lords in May 2021. This legislation had been long awaited and, largely, the provisions were as expected following the earlier consultations and government announcements and discussions. Despite the fact that legislation is still only in draft, the living sector is already pivoting in many respects to comply with the legislation ...
Whether you are a property professional or otherwise, you would have had to have lived in a hole to have missed the EWS1 saga. In the four years following the tragic Grenfell disaster, the industry and the government have been grappling with how to deal with a generation of potentially defective tall buildings ...
In our previous article, we reported that the court had refused to frustrate a tenancy agreement due to the COVID-19 pandemic and social disruption: The Center (76) Limited v Victory Serviced Office (HK) Limited HCA 1020/2020; [2020] HKCFI 2881. In this article, we will discuss several recent decisions on the same subject. The tenants’ arguments in all of these cases, that their payment obligations were discharged/suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic, failed ...
The Tenant Farming Commissioner’s Code of Practice on the Conduct of Rent Reviews contains a useful summary of the law applicable to rent reviews and provides recommended steps for the conduct of the rent review itself. If the rent can’t be agreed by simple discussion or exchange of letters then the Code of Practice sets out a timetable that the parties should follow unless both parties have agreed otherwise ...
The Technology and Construction Court (TCC) in Quadro Services Ltd v Creagh Concrete Products Ltd [2021] EWHC 2637 (TCC) held that a claim referred to adjudication with three separate payment applications was still considered a single dispute for the purposes of adjudication. The adjudicator therefore did have jurisdiction to consider all three payment applications to determine the sum due, and the adjudicator’s decision was enforced ...
As projects become more and more complicated, owners often look to simplify the building process by hiring a single firm to handle both design and construction. This is perfectly legal and commonly known as the “design-build” delivery method. A design-build project has many advantages. There is only one point of contact for the owner to manage ...
Housing Highlights Throughout California, most single-family zoned parcels may now be split into two lots, with up to four primary residences. Density bonus applications may no longer be rejected if a proposed waiver of development standards will cause specific adverse impacts on the physical environment. Developers’ ability to lock in development standards under SB 330 and the Housing Accountability Act has been extended from 2025 to 2030 ...
Our homes have evolved in the last 18 months. They have become a bit more “mixed use” - school, office, gym, doctors’ surgery and even kitchen disco. The enforced focus on the use of our homes during the pandemic - particularly their inadequacies, together with the flexibility that working from anywhere has brought - has created unprecedented demand to move house and / or relocate ...
Toppan Holdings Limited and Abbey Healthcare (Mill Hill) Limited v Simply Construct (UK) LLP In the case of Toppan Holdings Limited (“Toppan”) and Abbey Healthcare (Mill Hill) Limited (“Abbey”) v Simply Construct (UK) LLP (“Simply”) the TCC held that a collateral warranty between Abbey and Simply was not a construction contract and therefore Abbey could not enforce an adjudication between the parties ...
It is apparent that the Covid-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on every business sector. Above all, the hospitality industry has taken the hardest hit, as tourism is its primary source of revenue. Due to a lack of financial liquidity and growing expenditure, it is not an overstatement to predict that real estate owners in the hospitality sector would be compelled to sell their operating assets potentially at an unfavorable price in order to survive during this challenging time ...
The Technology and Construction Court in Downs Road Development LLP v Laxmanbhai Construction (UK) Ltd [2021] EWHC 2441 (TCC) held that an Adjudicator’s decision not to consider a line of defence was a breach of natural justice and was not enforceable, nor could part of the decision be severed. The case also contained interesting commentary as to the ‘intent’ behind the issuing of a payment notice, and how this may affect the validity of the notice ...
“... an adjudicator should think very carefully before ruling out a defence merely because there was no mention of it in the claiming party’s notice of adjudication. That is only common sense: it would be absurd if the claiming party could, through some devious bit of drafting, put beyond the scope of the adjudication the defending party’s otherwise legitimate defence to the claim ...
