Amendments to the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 will add to the existing responsibilities of Responsible Persons under the Order which were expanded earlier this year by The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022[1]. Who is the Responsible Person? Under the Fire Safety Order, the Responsible Person is the person who has control of the premises ...
Shoosmiths has been ranked as a recommended firm in the newly published Legal 500 Green Guide UK. The Guide recognises firms with a clear focus on sustainability, climate change mitigation and supporting the green transition. Shoosmiths is recognised for the pre-eminent legal expertise its team are providing to clients, as well as the firm’s internal practices and net zero ambitions ...
Landlords and tenants have a love/hate relationship with the principle laid down in O'May v City of London Real Property Co Ltd. On renewal under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 the terms of the new lease will generally follow the terms of the existing one and the onus is on the party proposing a change to show that it is fair and reasonable ...
18 – 24 March 2024 marked Neurodiversity Celebration Week, a week held annually which aims to challenge misconceptions regarding neurological differences. We look at what employers can do to improve neurodiversity support in the workplace going forward. Neurodiversity is an umbrella term which is used to describe alternative ways of thinking and learning and it includes conditions such as autism, dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) ...
The recent decision of an Inspector not to confirm a compulsory purchase order (CPO) sought by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham is a key reminder of the need to fully justify the use of CPO powers and provide appropriate supporting evidence. The decision On 4 October 2022 an Inspector decided not to confirm a compulsory purchase order (CPO) sought by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham (Borough) ...
On 23 September the Government announced its ‘Growth Plan 2022’ (Growth Plan). It was intended, the Government said, to tackle rising energy costs, bring down inflation and help businesses and households alike. Instead, it caused a sudden and significant rise in interest rates which caused havoc for defined benefit (DB) pension schemes with liability driven investment (LDI) strategies ...
The London Court of International Arbitration recently published its caseload statistics for 2021, which can be found here. The LCIA is one of the world’s leading international institutions for commercial dispute resolution and administers arbitrations and other alternative dispute resolution proceedings, regardless of location and under any system of law ...
On 15 April 2009, the Law Society published an updated practice note on mortgage fraud ...
A new report published today (28 June 2023) by The Law Commission of England and Wales has recommended a variety of law reforms to better integrate and deal with digital assets (like cryptocurrencies, tokens and NFTs to name a few), to promote certainty, and boost the UK’s position as a global leader for the crypto industry ...
There is no doubt that the pandemic catapulted society and businesses into a new and different world, which saw old working practices replaced by new and which advanced the adoption of new technology at a rapid pace. However, one thing didn’t change at law firm Shoosmiths, and that was how Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations still firmly lay at the heart of the business strategy ...
Recent months have seen sustained industrial action in the rail sector. On 20 February 2023, the government launched a 12-week consultation on setting minimum service levels for passenger rail. Unlike in many European countries, there are currently no limits in the UK on the number of employees who are able to take part in strike action together ...
Early last month, all companies, charities and public sector departments with 250 or more employees were required to submit their gender pay gap reports for the financial year 2020/2021. So what did the reports show? Progress is slow The initial analysis by the BBC showed little change since the last financial year. Whilst there were more businesses reporting in time for the deadline, this hasn’t affected the overall gender pay gap of 10.4%, which remains as it had been ...
Boomer’s accommodation is booming. Investors are keen on Later Living as an area with incredible demand and limited supply. So, to ensure you are talking the right lingo, we thought we could help out with an alphabetical glossary of key terms. Later Living, as a phrase and a distinct subsector of the residential property market, is the “catch all” term used for the assorted types of accommodation available to people in later life ...
Commercial landlords and tenants have less than five months to go until the first major change comes into force following the government implementing the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) in 2018. Currently, a commercial landlord cannot grant a new lease of a property that has an energy performance rating of less than E - unless an exemption applies ...
“Why don’t I own this?” The words of oil prospector Daniel Plainview to his property advisor, querying the land rights for his oil pipeline to the California coast in the Oscar winning film ‘There Will Be Blood, and a blunt, single sentence reminder of the need for early due diligence on large scale developments ...
The House of Lords has today given its long awaited judgement in the Stringer case (previously known as Ainsworth). The House of Lords allowed the employees' appeal, overturning the Court of Appeal's earlier decision and substituting the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal ...
The Court of Appeal has unanimously held that a tenant’s statutory declarations given to landlords were valid even though they did not specify the precise term commencement date of the leases to be contracted out. Landlords will be relieved that the Court of Appeal did not adopt an overly legalistic and commercially impractical interpretation of the contracting-out requirements ...
The High Court has held that a tenant's short-term storage of documents using just 0.2% of a warehouse's floor space enabled the owner to successfully claim a period of rates relief once the property became vacant again. Under current legislation empty retail property enjoys 100% rates relief for a three month continuous period. Industrial and warehouse property enjoys the same relief for a six month continuous period ...
Residential developers should be aware that agreeing to enter a Land Registry restriction on the title to a property may inhibit their ability to manage it. A positive obligation relating to land will not, as a matter of law, bind future owners of the land. To ensure that it will, the original parties to that land obligation will often agree that any future owner enters into an identical obligation on its purchase of the land ...
In an effort to support women to stay in or return to the workplace, the Labour Party have recently announced new plans aimed at supporting the wellbeing of women in the workplace, particularly surrounding menopause. According to The Fawcett Society, a membership charity which campaigns for women’s rights, a staggering eight in ten women receive no support from employers for the menopause, with one in ten women stating that they had left a job due to their menopausal symptoms ...
The gig economy was created out of a desire for services to be on demand with limitless flexibility. If elected, Labour has pledged to provide greater job security and remove the distinction between worker and employee – are the two in conflict? The gig economy is a term that describes a labour market where workers are hired to perform tasks on a short-term, flexible basis, rather than into permanent or full-time jobs ...
Do you have a unionised workforce? If so, the Kostal (Kostal UK Ltd v Dunkley and others [2021] UKSC 47 (27 October 2021)) decision is a must read. If you are an employer which recognises a union - or unions - then the Kostal decision is unlikely to have escaped your notice. The case was brought because an employer ‘went around’ the recognised union and made a pay offer direct to employees despite there being an agreement with the union in place ...
Many charities occupy property, whether as offices, shops or for other charitable purposes from hospices to food banks ...
The number of knife offences is going down but are still higher than at the start of the pandemic. Will the new Sentencing Guidelines for sales of knives to those younger than 18 (which come into effect on 1 April 2023) reduce the number further? Certainly, that would appear to be the intention of the Guidelines which significantly increase the potential consequences for retailers who break the law ...
The demise of Kids Company and its aftermath has unfortunately overshadowed the pioneering work that charity did for nearly twenty years with some of the most damaged children and young people in our society. In the words of its founder “making a commitment to help maltreated children heal through unrelenting love by being resolute and kind, and over the years understanding how to help children acquire mastery over their traumas ...
