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RT @NLC_2019: FirstPort suspended from its trade body the Property Institute @tpi_online @LKPleasehold @TPOmb @josephpowell @DavidPintoD…

Things must be bad when a paper tiger like TPI finally gets around to suspending FirstPort. FirstPort is a sorry excuse for an organisation even considering the low bar set by its competitors. It is also a company that has no business managing anyone else’s money.

RT @LKPleasehold: Our take, plus barrister Douglas Maxwell on human rights and enfranchisement reform. @mtpennycook @josephpowell https://t…

And apparently Gilsenan is not an A1P1 case, albeit I cannot find the 1980 judgment, it appears to have turned on the wording of an Irish statute: I might add even if Gilsenan were an A1P1 case it is from 1980 and the ECtHR decided in 1986 in James v. United Kingdom (a challenge to the 1967 Leasehold Reform Act) that the right to extend the a lease of a house on the terms of that Act was A1P1 compatible. And even if were relevant Gilsensan would only ever be persuasive authority, not binding on any English court because it is an Irish decision. The comments about Norwegian A1P1 precedent that market value compensation is always required are also wrong. There is direct English precedent -- to which the English courts will (and must) give much more weight than ECtHR cases -- that market compensation is not required to comply with A1P1 (including but not limited to cases involving Portman, Cadogan and enfranchisement where A1P1 arguments have failed). The Norway cases of Lindheim and Karibu (and several others) quite clearly state a rent cap and other interferences with landlord rights can be proportionate under A1P1 without market compensation provided the legislature has balanced the interests of landlords and tenants fairly and in the interests of society as a whole.

There is some hypocrisy on the part of NatWest. RBS (part of NatWest Group) has a floating charge (a type of commercial mortgage) over buildings in the ARC Time Freehold Income Fund, albeit the £15 million loan secured by that charge is currently undrawn. NatWest Trustee & Depositary Services (FIT Nominee, FIT Nominee 2 and Freehold Managers (Nominees)) are also the registered legal owners of all the ARC Time buildings. At least some of those buildings (my own included) have EWS1 certificates signed by TriFire / Kiziak. Why no new residential lending if NatWest Group is happy to keep the legal ownership and the commercial lending?

RT @EOCS_Official: "Lenders, including NatWest and Nationwide, are now withdrawing mortgage offers to people hoping to buy flats with fire…

@marksellers8 Permission given orally. No written judgment yet.

@ray_sugden No, I don't think so. Refusing to give consultation results by FOI request is normal, which is what has happened here. I doubt anyone senior at the department considered the answer given.

And whatever happens in July probably won't be the last word on this. Whoever loses will probably seek permission to appeal. This will most likely go on for some time.

@no1patel Today means there will be a trial in July to look at whether the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 is compatible with the freeholders' / bottom-feeders' human rights.