Lecturing for CLT

As some of you will know, today I was speaking at the CLT 12th Annual Residential Landlord & Tenant Update. The great thing about speaking at one of these events is that there are eight other brilliant speakers to listen to (and I get CPD).

The day started with an interesting overview of recent developments from Rafael Runco, the Deputy Housing Ombudsman,. There was then an excellent presentation on HMOs and the HHSRS from David Smith of Pain Smith Solicitors (and landlords looking for help in these areas could do a lot worse than instruct his firm, one of the few who have real expertise in this area). I also enjoyed the talk from Tracey Bloom on possession orders and the problems with suspended orders and tolerated trespassers.

In the afternoon we had a great talk from Professor Martin Partington, who some of you may remember was responsible for overseeing part of the Law Commissions housing law reform program. This was followed by a fascinating talk from Sue Highmore, formerly of Linklaters and now a freelance writer and trainer, on the new Equality Bill which is currently going through Parliament. The day finished with talks from Professor James Driscoll, and Siobhan McGrath, Senior President of the Residential Property Tribunal (which I was not able to stay for).

The main ‘new’ thing I learned on the day is that the government is likely to increase the rent limit for assured shorthold tenancies from £25,000 to £100.000, probably with effect from April 2010. Which will of course bring many more properties into the ambit of the tenancy deposit regulations. But I will write more about this if it is confirmed.

But a good day all round and I now have lots of notes and new information which can form the subject matter of new blog posts (unless I can persuade the speakers to write the posts themselves as a guest blogger!).