In English law a binding contract can be made at whatever point in transactions that both parties are willing to be bound by the contract. There is no magic involved. (Human nature says that both parties want the other one bound but not yourself. Gosh. That's not how it works.)
On the whole the changes needed are not systemic but procedural. It is routine for there to be late faffing, last minute crises, urgent last minute stuff about the practicalities of finance, solicitors and others not getting their act together in a timely and ordered manner. This is nothing to do with law, and all to do with pragmatic competence and timely action.
Actually this is a subject I know quite well, not least as I was involved in discussions with Yvette Cooper's department over HIPS and sadly she did not listen to industry advice and it's failure was no surprise
However, the government are correct on this, and the requirement for written pre contract declarations by a seller, plus a bona fide survey report, all presented in a legally binding sale pack is highly desirable and I would expect supported by the industry
Also reducing the time and modernising the conveyancing process is very desirable
Of course this will change the market fundamentally, finally abolishing 'caveat emptor' though of course it will be a problem for many home owners whose property has structural or location issues
As properties sell, and the faults are recified it will make future sales easier and of couse will save the buyer costs though if they are a seller as well they will face the upfront cost of the pre sale pack
I note they are looking at the Scottish system as well, and that is a far better way of selling than in England and Wales
I hope a pre sale legally binding contract pack becomes law, though I expect it will be a while away
I wouldn’t want to rely upon a report/survey undertaken by a dodgy surveyor in a sales pack. I would want to commission my own in addition.
The packs need to require an RICS member or similar and any other survey would be unnecessary
They would only unnecessary if there is a sufficient remedy for negligence.
How long will a seller have to wait for a RICS member to undertake such a report? How much would it cost?
EPCs are a legal requirement and they are almost worthless.
The proposals are for a legally produced pre-sale pack and survey that may even include a valuation though I am not sure on that
I expect the packs to cost the seller £500-£1,000 but then that is much the cost the buyer pays today
The whole process is to make the home owner (or their solicitor) responsible for the information provided
So if I sell my house and the RICS surveyor is negligent I am responsible for compensating the buyer?
The surveyor will be legally responsible as he already is anyway
To whom? The buyer would have no contractual link to them and as a seller I am expected to take litigation risk, i.e to pay the buyer money I don’t have and try to recover it from the surveyor?
Surveyors already put so many exclusions in their T&Cs that they are almost worthless.
The only winner here is insurers as everyone will need to insure themselves to the hilt and in any event I doubt these surveys will cost as little as £1,000. The RICS surveyors will have a monopoly.
Anything is better than now and
My daughters survey cost £520 for a £300,000 home
Yeah and I bet she had almost no recourse against the surveyor due to exclusions for pretty much everything that wasn’t immediately obvious to the surveyor in an hour.
It was an RICS report and extensive but then if you cannot depend on an RICS report then what is the point
As so often one looks spouth across the border and thinks WTF? given that this happens already in Scotland - RICS survey, comments on work possibly needed, EPC, formal valuation. Further survey work for the buyer permissible by mutual agreement.
When selling my dad's house, I found the pack wqas sufficient to attract several offers above asking price (whjich was slightly below valuation) - the winner did ask for a further check of the roof but that was OK with us and didn't cause any issues.
England and Wales should have adopted the Scottish system decades ago
A further point. The standardised repoirt also includes a thorough questionnaire for the seller on such things as known asbestos, flood risks, remaining valid guarantees for appliuances or work on the house, any neighbour disputes or outstanding planning applications in area, whether light bulbs and curtains and garden plants included, etc. etc. Very useful in zipping through things with the solicitor/conveyancer/estate agent (all one thing in Scotland usually).
Obvs some I didn't know or couldn't tell so just said 'not known to me either way'.
These are all in place in England, but usually in my experience happen after offer but before Exchange of Contracts.
The are called the PIF iirc (Property Information Form).
It would be a simple reform to mandate that those be done before the property is advertised, but the shysters of the Estate Agent industry would try and get around it just as they do for the Mandatory EPC - "EPC Expected Soon". Solicitors are more prone to follow their regulations than Estate Agents *.
And if their balls don't get cut off the first time, it becomes the custom.
* Fuck, did I just say something good about a lawyer?
I've come up with a solution. When legal threat is used like this for stupid trivia, the following action will be taken
1) The officials involved will be arrested by armed police with maximum door smashing, tasering etc. 2) They will be charged with Misconduct in a Public Office. 3) Threatened that if they don't plead guilty then and there, that they will be remanded in custody with no bail, until trial.
If I have an area of expertise (which is highly doubtful) the EPA 1990, and subsequent amendments and allied regulation, would be it.
I don't have a clue what is going on here. I would associate fly-tipping with emptying out the contents of a Transit van onto the lay-by of a dual carriageway, and that comes under the charge of "illegally depositing controlled waste". I can't really see how this woman hasn't conformed to her Duty of Care under the EPA despite the argument proposed by Flintshire Council. I am considering municipal exemptions and householder exemptions for disposing of waste and I cannot see their point. Depositing the wrong waste stream into the wrong container would seem to me to be an operational occupational hazard best resolved by the waste collection organisation.
What's the alleged offence? is this Flintshire Council, since iirc Wales is all unitaries.
It was a litter bin, not a recycling container.
Reforming the regulation of waste collection looks like low-hanging fruit for Mr Starmer (though this is Wales so I assume it is devolved).
It could be unprivatised from the middlemen who fly tip by providing a better Council service.
You are not supposed to put municipal household waste into a public litter bin.
So if your dog takes a dump on the pavement you should bag it, pick it up, and place it in the public bin. If your dog takes a dump at home you are supposed to put it in your own black bin and not the bin in the park over the road.
One would have thought cash strapped councils have better things to do with their time.
ISTM that if she unwraps it at the depot it is not domestic waste.
Yes she could drive all the way to the Household Waste Recycling Centre ( the tip) having pre booked if pre booking is a requirement and put it in the appropriate container. That is allowed.
I wish they wouldn't keep referring to Camilla as "Queen".
Yes, she legally is (now) but she's also really not.
I mean she is the wife of the King, so she is the Queen. Though I do think they should go with “Queen Camilla” rather than The Queen because it is still rather jarring.
The one that annoys me more are articles referring to The King as “King Charles III”. Again, strictly correct but how many other King Charles’s are there around at the moment?
They should've stuck with Queen Consort as they did in the first few months.
That lasted until the Coronation. Then it stopped. "Queen Consort" was an euphemism designed to get people across the hump of Diana's death and Charles's infidelity. And now it's unnecessary and misleading, it's been dropped.
Russia doesn’t just have a black-market petrol problem, it also has a counterfeit petrol problem - stuff that looks like petrol, maybe even smells a bit like petrol, but isn’t quite petrol.
Presumably it’s home-made by boiling other hydrocarbons, and no you definitely don’t want to put it in any car, except perhaps an old Lada with carburettors.
Ha
Bet Toluene/Benzene combinations are in fashion.
You can probably take a guess that it was something people did back in the ‘90s, and the same people doing it now - except that 2020s cars in Russia are very different from ‘90s cars in Russia!
Putting random fuel in most modern cars will likely screw the engine very quickly!
Benzene/Toluene mixes are very good at giving people cancer.
So good, in fact, that it used to be used to give cancer to lab rats, so it could be studied.
It’s also the reason why no-one makes 180 octane aviation gasoline anymore.
See also some poor bastards in the Italian Army who got sent to Yugoslavia in the 90s. They recalled getting ordered to clean the floor polish of a floor with an odd, sweet smelling liquid….
And in other news. The Conservative Party Conference hasn't made the news bulletin at the start of WATO. Oh I lied, it was story 6. After Mme Pelicot and before Gilly Cooper. Tax cuts for everyone from a half empty conference hall is the analysis.
And in other news. The Conservative Party Conference hasn't made the news bulletin at the start of WATO. Oh I lied, it was story 6. After Mme Pelicot and before Gilly Cooper. Tax cuts for everyone from a half empty conference hall is the analysis.
A scrap inheritance tax pledge would have made headlines as I said
And in other news. The Conservative Party Conference hasn't made the news bulletin at the start of WATO. Oh I lied, it was story 6. After Mme Pelicot and before Gilly Cooper. Tax cuts for everyone from a half empty conference hall is the analysis.
And in other news. The Conservative Party Conference hasn't made the news bulletin at the start of WATO. Oh I lied, it was story 6. After Mme Pelicot and before Gilly Cooper. Tax cuts for everyone from a half empty conference hall is the analysis.
A scrap inheritance tax pledge would have made headlines as I said
Given that the announcement was keeping about keeping small pubs and restaurants open I doubt it. The plan wasn't cheap but it does sound like it would work.
OT. The gathering in Manchester mourning the killing of the two people last week was presided over by Sharren Haskel Israel's deputy Foreign Minister. Indeed Manchester City centre was full of Israeli flags. On that same day in Gaza Israel killed 53 people by bombing high rise blocks. That was the day Mahmood told people not to demonstrate against the genocide out of respect for the Jewish community. This was the interview carried out by Sky of one of the Board of Deputies explaining how Israel has nothing to do with them. Bizarre doesn't begin to explain it
I was discussing this with my wife over the weekend. I can understand why Mahmood said that the protests should be delayed. We have no desire for these conflicts to be played out in our streets. But if I was of Palestinian origin I would find this consternation about the death of 2 people, one shot dead by the police, in the context of an ongoing genocide morally outrageous and infuriating.
Indeed. I also think it muddies the (100% correct) argument that British jews should never be blamed for Israel's actions.
And in other news. The Conservative Party Conference hasn't made the news bulletin at the start of WATO. Oh I lied, it was story 6. After Mme Pelicot and before Gilly Cooper. Tax cuts for everyone from a half empty conference hall is the analysis.
And in other news. The Conservative Party Conference hasn't made the news bulletin at the start of WATO. Oh I lied, it was story 6. After Mme Pelicot and before Gilly Cooper. Tax cuts for everyone from a half empty conference hall is the analysis.
A scrap inheritance tax pledge would have made headlines as I said
So far in the main programme we have had the French Prime Minister and now Gilly Cooper.
It's Sarah and I normally accuse Sarah of being a Tory shill. Hell is freezing over
It’s hard to argue that part of the reason the English housebuying process is so horrendous is the sheer amount of time everything seems to take.
If you could get to a situation where when a chain is complete everyone is more or less ready to go to exchange in a fortnight or so (even if completion takes place a few more weeks hence) it would significantly reduce the problems.
The waiting game is the culprit for most of the issues. It gives more time for an issue to arise, someone to get cold feet, someone find an alternative property etc.
I also think that any party that withdraws before the sale contract should be required to pay for the other parties costs. That would wipe out at least half of the problems overnight, IMHO.
And in other news. The Conservative Party Conference hasn't made the news bulletin at the start of WATO. Oh I lied, it was story 6. After Mme Pelicot and before Gilly Cooper. Tax cuts for everyone from a half empty conference hall is the analysis.
And in other news. The Conservative Party Conference hasn't made the news bulletin at the start of WATO. Oh I lied, it was story 6. After Mme Pelicot and before Gilly Cooper. Tax cuts for everyone from a half empty conference hall is the analysis.
A scrap inheritance tax pledge would have made headlines as I said
I don't want to discourage the Conservatives from promising relief to this country's overburdened taxpayers, but I'm not sure any pledge from an Opposition third in the polls, facing a huge government majority, four years from an election and with a leader who is likely to be gone soon would make any headlines.
And even if some pledges might, a scarcely plausible tax cut promised and not delivered several times before probably wouldn't be it.
I wish they wouldn't keep referring to Camilla as "Queen".
Yes, she legally is (now) but she's also really not.
Queen Consort Camilla would be better
King's fancy piece sounds better
Except she’s not very fancy.
FFS, she's 78! And nobody was ever going to stack up in the public's affections against Diana.
She's actually quite good fun though.
Yeah people need to leave this poor woman alone. She makes the king happy and that's basically her job. They should have let him marry her in the first place, it would have saved everyone a lot of grief.
In English law a binding contract can be made at whatever point in transactions that both parties are willing to be bound by the contract. There is no magic involved. (Human nature says that both parties want the other one bound but not yourself. Gosh. That's not how it works.)
On the whole the changes needed are not systemic but procedural. It is routine for there to be late faffing, last minute crises, urgent last minute stuff about the practicalities of finance, solicitors and others not getting their act together in a timely and ordered manner. This is nothing to do with law, and all to do with pragmatic competence and timely action.
Actually this is a subject I know quite well, not least as I was involved in discussions with Yvette Cooper's department over HIPS and sadly she did not listen to industry advice and it's failure was no surprise
However, the government are correct on this, and the requirement for written pre contract declarations by a seller, plus a bona fide survey report, all presented in a legally binding sale pack is highly desirable and I would expect supported by the industry
Also reducing the time and modernising the conveyancing process is very desirable
Of course this will change the market fundamentally, finally abolishing 'caveat emptor' though of course it will be a problem for many home owners whose property has structural or location issues
As properties sell, and the faults are recified it will make future sales easier and of couse will save the buyer costs though if they are a seller as well they will face the upfront cost of the pre sale pack
I note they are looking at the Scottish system as well, and that is a far better way of selling than in England and Wales
I hope a pre sale legally binding contract pack becomes law, though I expect it will be a while away
I wouldn’t want to rely upon a report/survey undertaken by a dodgy surveyor in a sales pack. I would want to commission my own in addition.
The packs need to require an RICS member or similar and any other survey would be unnecessary
They would only unnecessary if there is a sufficient remedy for negligence.
How long will a seller have to wait for a RICS member to undertake such a report? How much would it cost?
EPCs are a legal requirement and they are almost worthless.
The proposals are for a legally produced pre-sale pack and survey that may even include a valuation though I am not sure on that
I expect the packs to cost the seller £500-£1,000 but then that is much the cost the buyer pays today
The whole process is to make the home owner (or their solicitor) responsible for the information provided
So if I sell my house and the RICS surveyor is negligent I am responsible for compensating the buyer?
The surveyor will be legally responsible as he already is anyway
To whom? The buyer would have no contractual link to them and as a seller I am expected to take litigation risk, i.e to pay the buyer money I don’t have and try to recover it from the surveyor?
Surveyors already put so many exclusions in their T&Cs that they are almost worthless.
The only winner here is insurers as everyone will need to insure themselves to the hilt and in any event I doubt these surveys will cost as little as £1,000. The RICS surveyors will have a monopoly.
Anything is better than now and
My daughters survey cost £520 for a £300,000 home
Yeah and I bet she had almost no recourse against the surveyor due to exclusions for pretty much everything that wasn’t immediately obvious to the surveyor in an hour.
It was an RICS report and extensive but then if you cannot depend on an RICS report then what is the point
As so often one looks spouth across the border and thinks WTF? given that this happens already in Scotland - RICS survey, comments on work possibly needed, EPC, formal valuation. Further survey work for the buyer permissible by mutual agreement.
When selling my dad's house, I found the pack wqas sufficient to attract several offers above asking price (whjich was slightly below valuation) - the winner did ask for a further check of the roof but that was OK with us and didn't cause any issues.
England and Wales should have adopted the Scottish system decades ago
A further point. The standardised repoirt also includes a thorough questionnaire for the seller on such things as known asbestos, flood risks, remaining valid guarantees for appliuances or work on the house, any neighbour disputes or outstanding planning applications in area, whether light bulbs and curtains and garden plants included, etc. etc. Very useful in zipping through things with the solicitor/conveyancer/estate agent (all one thing in Scotland usually).
Obvs some I didn't know or couldn't tell so just said 'not known to me either way'.
These are all in place in England, but usually in my experience happen after offer but before Exchange of Contracts.
The are called the PIF iirc (Property Information Form).
It would be a simple reform to mandate that those be done before the property is advertised, but the shysters of the Estate Agent industry would try and get around it just as they do for the Mandatory EPC - "EPC Expected Soon". Solicitors are more prone to follow their regulations than Estate Agents *.
And if their balls don't get cut off the first time, it becomes the custom.
* Fuck, did I just say something good about a lawyer?
Estate Agents should not be given any opportunity to circumvate the law
PIF and local search do arrive in the present process but often weeks after the sale has been agreed subject to contact
For the new system to work it needs to mandate all that and a survey before a house is permitted to be marketed
Just going to leave PB with this before I go about my day:
Completely ignoring demographic changes which mean that there are far more people alive today in the family home they brought their kids up in, but sans kids. 🤦♂️
We need massively more houses than we've got.
Like us, who have no intention of leaving our family home of nearly 50 years until it is our time to meet our maker, or need dementia care which at 81 and 85 is thankfully not a problem for us
Indeed and there's nothing wrong with that, good luck to you, but not just your kids but likely your grandkids and before long potentially great grandkids need a home of their own too.
Whereas once you'd have had kids living with you.
This is why we have a huge housing shortage.
Our three children who are now 59, 54 and 51 all own their own homes with a mortgage and have done so for over 20 years
Precisely the point, over 20 years ago the housing market was much, much better than it is today and the demographics were different to today.
The issue isn't your kids, its what about your grandkids?
Presumably many of them will now be adults and should own their own homes too. Do they all? Its a massive failure that too many don't nationwide.
The eldest is 22 and presently living with her Mum
I agree it is a real problem for our grandchildren
Like myself BigG. our children and grandchildren will be fine when we shuffle off our mortal coils, particularly if "repeal all inheritance tax laws" HYUFD is in Government.
The majority of potential young home buyers will take years to scrape a 5% deposit let alone have the ability to put down a 50% inherited lump sum when a relative falls off the perch.
That's a ridiculous attitude, when you shuffle off your mortal coils your children and grandchildren could be by then at or approaching pension age themselves. So it would be far too late to be "fine".
I'm in my mid-40s now and still have living grandparents. My parents are pensioners and have living parents. The idea inheritance solves anything is preposterous given that people need houses to live in from their 20s, not from their 60s or 70s when their parents die.
Did you read, or just fail to comprehend what I was writing.
I was not advocating for an inheritance bonus, quite the opposite. My point was a tiny percentage of our children/ grandchildren will benefit from a bung when granny dies, whilst most people struggle to get going on the housing ladder.
HYUFD has stated today that the way to set the Tories after Reform is to dispense with inheritance tax. I suggest if you do the opposite the redistribution bonus could be used to help the majority rather than the few onto the housing ladder.
The average property in London and the South and even parts of the North and Midlands and Scotland and Wales is now liable for inheritance tax. Hence inheritance tax is one of the most unpopular taxes there is.
Even after the Osborne inheritance tax exemption for the first £1 million value of the family home many homes in Tory seats and target seats in West London and the Home Counties are still hit by inheritance tax
Just shy of a tax free million pound Brucie bonus for those people whose parents bought a house in Solihull for £5,000 in 1960 is an utter disgrace when working people, WORKING PEOPLE, are reliant on Universal Credit.
And Labour bungs them even more benefits as Starmer chickened out of any welfare cuts even to those out of work and able to work.
Tax cuts for Tory voters and potential Tory voters ie especially wealthy homeowners and their heirs is what Kemi has to do to get back in the game. Osborne knew how to get their votes, does she and Mel?
You have just made a compelling case for wealth and inheritance taxes.
Edit. And your Party was the Party of burgeoning welfare benefit payments particularly under your Superstar Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Agreed. I’d rather be growing the pie than just grabbing spoils for my supporters.
Osborne sought to enrich pensioners, to the benefit of the Conservatives in the short term, but to the detriment of them, and the nation, in the longer term.
Osborne did though help the Conservatives win the 2015 general election
That shouldn’t be an end in itself, otherwise it’s just cynical.
Saw this earlier and it’s staggering how the US has changed and how George W could seem like a titan of statesmanship, humanity and sense based on where we are now.
I wish they wouldn't keep referring to Camilla as "Queen".
Yes, she legally is (now) but she's also really not.
Queen Consort Camilla would be better
King's fancy piece sounds better
Except she’s not very fancy.
FFS, she's 78! And nobody was ever going to stack up in the public's affections against Diana.
She's actually quite good fun though.
Yeah people need to leave this poor woman alone. She makes the king happy and that's basically her job. They should have let him marry her in the first place, it would have saved everyone a lot of grief.
Given that the purpose of the CoE is to allow the King to marry whoever he wants…
Personally I would have been impressed if Charles had told the Archbishop of Cantebury that
1) he (AofC) was going to do wedding 2) do it with a big smile 3) otherwise, the CoE would get reformed when he (Chas) got to be king.
Russia doesn’t just have a black-market petrol problem, it also has a counterfeit petrol problem - stuff that looks like petrol, maybe even smells a bit like petrol, but isn’t quite petrol.
Presumably it’s home-made by boiling other hydrocarbons, and no you definitely don’t want to put it in any car, except perhaps an old Lada with carburettors.
Ha
Bet Toluene/Benzene combinations are in fashion.
You can probably take a guess that it was something people did back in the ‘90s, and the same people doing it now - except that 2020s cars in Russia are very different from ‘90s cars in Russia!
Putting random fuel in most modern cars will likely screw the engine very quickly!
Benzene/Toluene mixes are very good at giving people cancer.
So good, in fact, that it used to be used to give cancer to lab rats, so it could be studied.
It’s also the reason why no-one makes 180 octane aviation gasoline anymore.
See also some poor bastards in the Italian Army who got sent to Yugoslavia in the 90s. They recalled getting ordered to clean the floor polish of a floor with an odd, sweet smelling liquid….
I worked as a Manager for Safety Kleen in the 1990s. It was very hands on and I would often go out into the warehouse in my suit and move drums around sans gloves to make the place compliant in relation to it's Environmental Permit. Before I went back to my office I would clean my hands in the recycled kerosene product, which after I left I found was, according to a sealed California litigation case on the Raphael Metzger website, full of benzine, toluene and PCBs. I also found banned Trichlorethylene aerosol brake cleaner brilliant for cleaning down my white boards.
I wish they wouldn't keep referring to Camilla as "Queen".
Yes, she legally is (now) but she's also really not.
Queen Consort Camilla would be better
King's fancy piece sounds better
Except she’s not very fancy.
FFS, she's 78! And nobody was ever going to stack up in the public's affections against Diana.
She's actually quite good fun though.
Yeah people need to leave this poor woman alone. She makes the king happy and that's basically her job. They should have let him marry her in the first place, it would have saved everyone a lot of grief.
I’ve met Queen Camilla and the Queen’s son, Tom Parker-Bowles (at different times). They’re both engaging, self effacing, literate, with no obvious arrogance. Tom is apparently genuinely knowledgeable on food
A contrast, then, with a moral gargoyle like Prince Andrew
At the Tory gawp show, not even their remaining members could be bothered to listen to Mel Stride's "plans" for the economy
Were it not for the prospect of their being replaced by something worse, this would have been a lifetime’s dream come true. I spent a lifetime campaigning against, and beating, Tories, and it was always the case that our country deserved something better, not worse.
Further to my lament earlier this morning about the refusal of our political class to come to terms with our predicament we had the interview with Mel Stride this morning. God, it was embarrassing.
So, why didn't you support Starmer and Reece's cuts? "Well, err, the wrong kind of cuts, all last minute etc". Complete garbage.
No benefits for those on ILR. So, what is going to happen to these people? "Well, some of them might go home..."
Funding £5K for those starting work and buying their first home.. Supposedly funded by cuts in public spending amounting to £42bn over the Parliament. I repeat "over the Parliament". This for a country borrowing £150bn a year. And this is supposedly responsible! It doesn't even touch the sides of our issues. By the end I was nearly banging my head off the steering wheel.
Also: like the housing market needs additional measures to stimulate demand...
Indeed. What we need on housing is to reduce the costs of purchase by transferring the costs to the seller who will normally be sitting on a sizeable untaxed capital gain. But you wouldn't want to upset the wrinklies who are downsizing would you?
That just leads to the sellers passing on the cost to the buyers and also reduces the incentive to downsize.
What we need is to reduce the costs of purchase by minimising transaction costs altogether. Neither the seller nor the purchaser should be paying any more than is strictly necessary.
We should be abolishing taxes on transactions and instead taxing the holding of property annually instead of on transactions so that someone who downsizes doesn't see a huge lump sum bill, they see a tax cut instead. Someone staying in a home much bigger than they need is welcome to do that, but can pay for it.
Also, taking tax little and often is likely to be less unpopular than in large chunks. Replacing stamp duty with an annual charge should result in less hissing from the goose as it is plucked.
A similar argument might also justify a modest wealth tax as a replacement for inheritance tax.
Disagree.
The problem with rolling stamp duty into council tax, is that c.90% of people don’t move in any given year. So 90% of people see their bill go up.
Even worse, the 10% don’t really see theirs go down much, as many lenders will roll at least a proportion of SDLT into a mortgage.
Depends how you do it. A flat 0.7% property tax would cover both council tax and stamp duty and constitute a tax cut for a large majority of households - particularly in the Reform/Labour battlegrounds.
Labour should do it. If they also introduced right-to-buy for private tenants I think you'd find much of the housing crisis (which is really an inflated asset crisis harming the minority of people not on the housing ladder) would dissipate even without much house building.
Right-to-Buy for private tenants would create a different housing crisis.
As a landlord I'd be open to the idea. Would need some conditions like 2+ years tenancy, both parties have to agree to valuation or tenancy continues or similar. Would also require the same kind of protections we have on eviction as we do in Scotland.
Overall, I'd expect it to move the market to a more socially optimal outcome in terms of tenure proportions. Haven't fully thought it through but it's at least interesting.
It deters serious investment and high quality housing, though.
Who is going to spend the £30-60k to do a decent deep renovation on an unsaleable house untouched for 30 years due to a single owner who died in situ, or empty for say 3 years, which requires at least 10 years to make a return, when it can be carpet-bagged after 2 years?
And that 30-60k would require very effective management of the project, as an experienced private renovator can get things done for at least 1/3 less by knowing good workmen, and doing the stuff that needs doing not the expensive fluff.
Deep renovators are rare amongst house buyers, especially FTBs. They have no nouse.
I can't follow this argument. If the tenant bought it I'd expect it to be sold at it close to the market rate, so you'd make your money back from the renovation. It's right-to-buy, not right-to-steal.
If you're renovating a house that you can't sell at a profit then it's an inefficient use of resources.
No. Houses are not renovated just for sale. (And I thought we wanted to get good quality stock, not speculators? )
You are assuming that the market values houses according to whether they are good houses, and also that a good rental house has the same qualities as a good house for sale.
But people do not buy a house depending on whether it is a good long term house. They buy it based on whether it has a shiny bathroom and kitchen, or whatever is in fashion, not whether it is a quality house.
Ask an estate agent what sells houses - it is not that it has eg "high quality double glazing that will last 30 years", it is "double glazing" as a tick box. It is not "drains that have a one way valve involved so they won't back flood with shit when there is a rainstorm" and so on.
Or watch out for what developers choose NOT to spend money on. They won't spend money on things that add long-term value, to the house or to the community. They sell it and walk away.
A good example is EPC numbers. We knew from 2013 that EPC C-Grades were coming in as a requirement in 10-15 years for rentals, so anyone who renovated a house without appropriate measures in the interim was silly (and un-Green); it would require kitchens and interiors to be ripped out again to put it in later.
But EPCs did not get any market recognition for almost a decade (especially in the war bounce in energy prices). In contrast for an LL, it was recognised as a way to ensure long-term tenants (say 1/3 lower energy bills) - which works better as a tenant swap is the most expensive operation and good long-term tenants look after their houses.
You are assuming that renovations are all reflected in market price.
Saw this earlier and it’s staggering how the US has changed and how George W could seem like a titan of statesmanship, humanity and sense based on where we are now.
Perhaps nothing so became the man, as the manner in which he left office.
Both on personal level - he and his family invited the Obama family for a personal tour of the Whitehouse. Which started an enduring friendship between various generations of the Bushes and Obamas.
And on a professional level - various people from the Obama administration commented on the actual effort made by the outgoing admin to really hand over things in a good state and to transfer knowledge.
Spoke to a load of people in the movie biz at the Bruce Dickinson party last night. They’re all profoundly pessimistic about Hollywood, LA and the future. Almost nihilistic
Just going to leave PB with this before I go about my day:
Completely ignoring demographic changes which mean that there are far more people alive today in the family home they brought their kids up in, but sans kids. 🤦♂️
We need massively more houses than we've got.
Like us, who have no intention of leaving our family home of nearly 50 years until it is our time to meet our maker, or need dementia care which at 81 and 85 is thankfully not a problem for us
Indeed and there's nothing wrong with that, good luck to you, but not just your kids but likely your grandkids and before long potentially great grandkids need a home of their own too.
Whereas once you'd have had kids living with you.
This is why we have a huge housing shortage.
Our three children who are now 59, 54 and 51 all own their own homes with a mortgage and have done so for over 20 years
Precisely the point, over 20 years ago the housing market was much, much better than it is today and the demographics were different to today.
The issue isn't your kids, its what about your grandkids?
Presumably many of them will now be adults and should own their own homes too. Do they all? Its a massive failure that too many don't nationwide.
The eldest is 22 and presently living with her Mum
I agree it is a real problem for our grandchildren
This is the problem. A 22 year old should be able to afford their own home.
They should be able to do so from their own wages, without help from Mum and Dad, or grandparents, or an inheritance from the death of their parents which hopefully would be many decades away.
What you wish will happen won't buck the market, especially with two income couples also adding to house prices
If supply exceeds demand then prices come down.
Second incomes should be able to go on luxuries like holidays, not adding to house prices. If the supply of housing weren't artificially constrained, that'd be the case.
Well Labour is already increasing the number of new homes as are some Tory councils. That alone is not enough.
Immigration needs to be slashed too, hence Reform growing in the polls with a policy to do that and deport illegals. Banks should lend no more than four times salary. Divorce should be discouraged and earlier marriage encouraged as well to reduce the number of homes needed for single people and the unmarried
Divorce is not the major driver of smaller household sizes in the past couple of decades.
People living longer after their kids have moved out is.
I don't think we should be discouraging that either. We simply need to have enough houses, which we do not.
Slashing immigration might reduce the rate at which we need to build more houses, but we still need massively more houses even if we had zero migration just for the people already here, and the kids who are yet to move out.
OT. The gathering in Manchester mourning the killing of the two people last week was presided over by Sharren Haskel Israel's deputy Foreign Minister. Indeed Manchester City centre was full of Israeli flags. On that same day in Gaza Israel killed 53 people by bombing high rise blocks. That was the day Mahmood told people not to demonstrate against the genocide out of respect for the Jewish community. This was the interview carried out by Sky of one of the Board of Deputies explaining how Israel has nothing to do with them. Bizarre doesn't begin to explain it
I was discussing this with my wife over the weekend. I can understand why Mahmood said that the protests should be delayed. We have no desire for these conflicts to be played out in our streets. But if I was of Palestinian origin I would find this consternation about the death of 2 people, one shot dead by the police, in the context of an ongoing genocide morally outrageous and infuriating.
What's going on in Gaza has nothing to do with the British government.
Bloody hell. The only mention of the Conservative Party Conference on WATO is a retro review of William Hague's speech in 1978 and a subsequent interview he made with Gordon Clough.
He sounded a bit like Wilson. I know Rotherham and Huddersfield are a World apart, but the nasal twang is similar.
The French budget deficit in 2024 was €167bn, 5.8% of GDP, and they can't form a stable government. The British budget deficit was 4.8% of GDP in 2024.
One factor working in Reeves' favour is the mess in France.
I wish they wouldn't keep referring to Camilla as "Queen".
Yes, she legally is (now) but she's also really not.
I mean she is the wife of the King, so she is the Queen. Though I do think they should go with “Queen Camilla” rather than The Queen because it is still rather jarring.
The one that annoys me more are articles referring to The King as “King Charles III”. Again, strictly correct but how many other King Charles’s are there around at the moment?
They should've stuck with Queen Consort as they did in the first few months.
That lasted until the Coronation. Then it stopped. "Queen Consort" was an euphemism designed to get people across the hump of Diana's death and Charles's infidelity. And now it's unnecessary and misleading, it's been dropped.
OT. The gathering in Manchester mourning the killing of the two people last week was presided over by Sharren Haskel Israel's deputy Foreign Minister. Indeed Manchester City centre was full of Israeli flags. On that same day in Gaza Israel killed 53 people by bombing high rise blocks. That was the day Mahmood told people not to demonstrate against the genocide out of respect for the Jewish community. This was the interview carried out by Sky of one of the Board of Deputies explaining how Israel has nothing to do with them. Bizarre doesn't begin to explain it
I was discussing this with my wife over the weekend. I can understand why Mahmood said that the protests should be delayed. We have no desire for these conflicts to be played out in our streets. But if I was of Palestinian origin I would find this consternation about the death of 2 people, one shot dead by the police, in the context of an ongoing genocide morally outrageous and infuriating.
Indeed. I also think it muddies the (100% correct) argument that British jews should never be blamed for Israel's actions.
In English law a binding contract can be made at whatever point in transactions that both parties are willing to be bound by the contract. There is no magic involved. (Human nature says that both parties want the other one bound but not yourself. Gosh. That's not how it works.)
On the whole the changes needed are not systemic but procedural. It is routine for there to be late faffing, last minute crises, urgent last minute stuff about the practicalities of finance, solicitors and others not getting their act together in a timely and ordered manner. This is nothing to do with law, and all to do with pragmatic competence and timely action.
Actually this is a subject I know quite well, not least as I was involved in discussions with Yvette Cooper's department over HIPS and sadly she did not listen to industry advice and it's failure was no surprise
However, the government are correct on this, and the requirement for written pre contract declarations by a seller, plus a bona fide survey report, all presented in a legally binding sale pack is highly desirable and I would expect supported by the industry
Also reducing the time and modernising the conveyancing process is very desirable
Of course this will change the market fundamentally, finally abolishing 'caveat emptor' though of course it will be a problem for many home owners whose property has structural or location issues
As properties sell, and the faults are recified it will make future sales easier and of couse will save the buyer costs though if they are a seller as well they will face the upfront cost of the pre sale pack
I note they are looking at the Scottish system as well, and that is a far better way of selling than in England and Wales
I hope a pre sale legally binding contract pack becomes law, though I expect it will be a while away
I wouldn’t want to rely upon a report/survey undertaken by a dodgy surveyor in a sales pack. I would want to commission my own in addition.
The packs need to require an RICS member or similar and any other survey would be unnecessary
They would only unnecessary if there is a sufficient remedy for negligence.
How long will a seller have to wait for a RICS member to undertake such a report? How much would it cost?
EPCs are a legal requirement and they are almost worthless.
The proposals are for a legally produced pre-sale pack and survey that may even include a valuation though I am not sure on that
I expect the packs to cost the seller £500-£1,000 but then that is much the cost the buyer pays today
The whole process is to make the home owner (or their solicitor) responsible for the information provided
So if I sell my house and the RICS surveyor is negligent I am responsible for compensating the buyer?
I think you would transfer the sellers report to the buyer at the point of the transaction so that the buyer has recourse to the RICS surveyor’s professional indemnity.
The issue is more with the scope of the survey requested. “Walk around the house” (home buyers survey) vs “do some real work” (structural survey).
Both are legitimate and have their purpose. But a home buyers survey is worth very little
OT. The gathering in Manchester mourning the killing of the two people last week was presided over by Sharren Haskel Israel's deputy Foreign Minister. Indeed Manchester City centre was full of Israeli flags. On that same day in Gaza Israel killed 53 people by bombing high rise blocks. That was the day Mahmood told people not to demonstrate against the genocide out of respect for the Jewish community. This was the interview carried out by Sky of one of the Board of Deputies explaining how Israel has nothing to do with them. Bizarre doesn't begin to explain it
I was discussing this with my wife over the weekend. I can understand why Mahmood said that the protests should be delayed. We have no desire for these conflicts to be played out in our streets. But if I was of Palestinian origin I would find this consternation about the death of 2 people, one shot dead by the police, in the context of an ongoing genocide morally outrageous and infuriating.
Indeed. I also think it muddies the (100% correct) argument that British jews should never be blamed for Israel's actions.
There’s a dilemma at the heart of the (understandable) separation of Israel from Jewishness in Britain, and that is that for pretty obvious reasons - of history, identity, family ties and more - many British Jews have a strong emotional connection to the country and its international standing. Similar to how British Sikhs have an interest and affinity for Punjab and its politics.
The missing piece is not so much the distinction between the nation and the ethnicity, as between the nation and its government. We could do with that being more clearly drawn both by Palestinian protesters and by regime spokespeople (for whom the conflation is convenient).
We manage this for, to give an example, Iranians - Shia Islam / Persian ethnicity, Iran as country, Iranian regime as something very different.
Bloody hell. The only mention of the Conservative Party Conference on WATO is a retro review of William Hague's speech in 1978 and a subsequent interview he made with Gordon Clough.
He sounded a bit like Wilson. I know Rotherham and Huddersfield are a World apart, but the nasal twang is similar.
The French budget deficit in 2024 was €167bn, 5.8% of GDP, and they can't form a stable government. The British budget deficit was 4.8% of GDP in 2024.
One factor working in Reeves' favour is the mess in France.
However, their total interest cost is lower because they are part of the Eurozone and benefit from its much lower rates.
OT. The gathering in Manchester mourning the killing of the two people last week was presided over by Sharren Haskel Israel's deputy Foreign Minister. Indeed Manchester City centre was full of Israeli flags. On that same day in Gaza Israel killed 53 people by bombing high rise blocks. That was the day Mahmood told people not to demonstrate against the genocide out of respect for the Jewish community. This was the interview carried out by Sky of one of the Board of Deputies explaining how Israel has nothing to do with them. Bizarre doesn't begin to explain it
I was discussing this with my wife over the weekend. I can understand why Mahmood said that the protests should be delayed. We have no desire for these conflicts to be played out in our streets. But if I was of Palestinian origin I would find this consternation about the death of 2 people, one shot dead by the police, in the context of an ongoing genocide morally outrageous and infuriating.
What's going on in Gaza has nothing to do with the British government.
I wish they wouldn't keep referring to Camilla as "Queen".
Yes, she legally is (now) but she's also really not.
I mean she is the wife of the King, so she is the Queen. Though I do think they should go with “Queen Camilla” rather than The Queen because it is still rather jarring.
The one that annoys me more are articles referring to The King as “King Charles III”. Again, strictly correct but how many other King Charles’s are there around at the moment?
They should've stuck with Queen Consort as they did in the first few months.
That lasted until the Coronation. Then it stopped. "Queen Consort" was an euphemism designed to get people across the hump of Diana's death and Charles's infidelity. And now it's unnecessary and misleading, it's been dropped.
#NotMyQueen
She's the wife of the guy on the coinage. Title comes with the job.
I've come up with a solution. When legal threat is used like this for stupid trivia, the following action will be taken
1) The officials involved will be arrested by armed police with maximum door smashing, tasering etc. 2) They will be charged with Misconduct in a Public Office. 3) Threatened that if they don't plead guilty then and there, that they will be remanded in custody with no bail, until trial.
If I have an area of expertise (which is highly doubtful) the EPA 1990, and subsequent amendments and allied regulation, would be it.
I don't have a clue what is going on here. I would associate fly-tipping with emptying out the contents of a Transit van onto the lay-by of a dual carriageway, and that comes under the charge of "illegally depositing controlled waste". I can't really see how this woman hasn't conformed to her Duty of Care under the EPA despite the argument proposed by Flintshire Council. I am considering municipal exemptions and householder exemptions for disposing of waste and I cannot see their point. Depositing the wrong waste stream into the wrong container would seem to me to be an operational occupational hazard best resolved by the waste collection organisation.
One wonders if someone collected the rubbish from the bin, was moving it on an open truck and the offending article was blown off onto the roadside?
If they had found ten black bin bags on the A55 with an envelope with her name in one of them I can see their point. Although normally any threat to prosecute the individual is used as a lever for the householder to dob-in the white van fly-tipper.
It sounds very odd to me, unless of course we are just getting convenient snippets of the story.
I suspect she thought she put it in the bin but missed and/or it blew out and was found in the road nearby
Even so, £75 for dropping an envelope seems disproportionate
Russia doesn’t just have a black-market petrol problem, it also has a counterfeit petrol problem - stuff that looks like petrol, maybe even smells a bit like petrol, but isn’t quite petrol.
Presumably it’s home-made by boiling other hydrocarbons, and no you definitely don’t want to put it in any car, except perhaps an old Lada with carburettors.
Ha
Bet Toluene/Benzene combinations are in fashion.
You can probably take a guess that it was something people did back in the ‘90s, and the same people doing it now - except that 2020s cars in Russia are very different from ‘90s cars in Russia!
Putting random fuel in most modern cars will likely screw the engine very quickly!
Benzene/Toluene mixes are very good at giving people cancer.
So good, in fact, that it used to be used to give cancer to lab rats, so it could be studied.
It’s also the reason why no-one makes 180 octane aviation gasoline anymore.
See also some poor bastards in the Italian Army who got sent to Yugoslavia in the 90s. They recalled getting ordered to clean the floor polish of a floor with an odd, sweet smelling liquid….
I worked as a Manager for Safety Kleen in the 1990s. It was very hands on and I would often go out into the warehouse in my suit and move drums around sans gloves to make the place compliant in relation to it's Environmental Permit. Before I went back to my office I would clean my hands in the recycled kerosene product, which after I left I found was, according to a sealed California litigation case on the Raphael Metzger website, full of benzine, toluene and PCBs. I also found banned Trichlorethylene aerosol brake cleaner brilliant for cleaning down my white boards.
I suspect I am on borrowed time.
Or bullet proof.
I was told (at an oil company) that you could see the pattern of those who worked on ultra-high-octane aviation fuel during the war, in the pension fund. Apparently there was a big dip in people needing a pension from certain refineries. Enough that they went "stop that shit". In the 1950s.
The context was that, every now and again, someone in the old warbird thing would ask for a batch to be made. And the Refinery guys would always say, hell no.
I wish they wouldn't keep referring to Camilla as "Queen".
Yes, she legally is (now) but she's also really not.
I mean she is the wife of the King, so she is the Queen. Though I do think they should go with “Queen Camilla” rather than The Queen because it is still rather jarring.
The one that annoys me more are articles referring to The King as “King Charles III”. Again, strictly correct but how many other King Charles’s are there around at the moment?
They should've stuck with Queen Consort as they did in the first few months.
That lasted until the Coronation. Then it stopped. "Queen Consort" was an euphemism designed to get people across the hump of Diana's death and Charles's infidelity. And now it's unnecessary and misleading, it's been dropped.
#NotMyQueen
She's the wife of the guy on the coinage. Title comes with the job.
We need to take back control from our unelected rulers.
OT. The gathering in Manchester mourning the killing of the two people last week was presided over by Sharren Haskel Israel's deputy Foreign Minister. Indeed Manchester City centre was full of Israeli flags. On that same day in Gaza Israel killed 53 people by bombing high rise blocks. That was the day Mahmood told people not to demonstrate against the genocide out of respect for the Jewish community. This was the interview carried out by Sky of one of the Board of Deputies explaining how Israel has nothing to do with them. Bizarre doesn't begin to explain it
I was discussing this with my wife over the weekend. I can understand why Mahmood said that the protests should be delayed. We have no desire for these conflicts to be played out in our streets. But if I was of Palestinian origin I would find this consternation about the death of 2 people, one shot dead by the police, in the context of an ongoing genocide morally outrageous and infuriating.
What's going on in Gaza has nothing to do with the British government.
Do you not think that permitting arms to be sold to Israel makes us in some way tangentially involved? (Genuine, not loaded, question)
I've come up with a solution. When legal threat is used like this for stupid trivia, the following action will be taken
1) The officials involved will be arrested by armed police with maximum door smashing, tasering etc. 2) They will be charged with Misconduct in a Public Office. 3) Threatened that if they don't plead guilty then and there, that they will be remanded in custody with no bail, until trial.
If I have an area of expertise (which is highly doubtful) the EPA 1990, and subsequent amendments and allied regulation, would be it.
I don't have a clue what is going on here. I would associate fly-tipping with emptying out the contents of a Transit van onto the lay-by of a dual carriageway, and that comes under the charge of "illegally depositing controlled waste". I can't really see how this woman hasn't conformed to her Duty of Care under the EPA despite the argument proposed by Flintshire Council. I am considering municipal exemptions and householder exemptions for disposing of waste and I cannot see their point. Depositing the wrong waste stream into the wrong container would seem to me to be an operational occupational hazard best resolved by the waste collection organisation.
One wonders if someone collected the rubbish from the bin, was moving it on an open truck and the offending article was blown off onto the roadside?
If they had found ten black bin bags on the A55 with an envelope with her name in one of them I can see their point. Although normally any threat to prosecute the individual is used as a lever for the householder to dob-in the white van fly-tipper.
It sounds very odd to me, unless of course we are just getting convenient snippets of the story.
I suspect she thought she put it in the bin but missed and/or it blew out and was found in the road nearby
Even so, £75 for dropping an envelope seems disproportionate
I think that it is Misconduct In A Public Office to use police resources for this. It damages the reputation of the system to do such things.
Spoke to a load of people in the movie biz at the Bruce Dickinson party last night. They’re all profoundly pessimistic about Hollywood, LA and the future. Almost nihilistic
If they keep shovelling indifferent fan fiction of existing intellectual properties at the public.... well, people with indifferent fan fiction scripts will soon be able to make their own films. For several hundred million less, per.
At the Tory gawp show, not even their remaining members could be bothered to listen to Mel Stride's "plans" for the economy
Were it not for the prospect of their being replaced by something worse, this would have been a lifetime’s dream come true. I spent a lifetime campaigning against, and beating, Tories, and it was always the case that our country deserved something better, not worse.
I am imagining a genie saying something like, "So your first wish was to destroy the Republican party, and your second wish was to destroy the Conservative party - are you sure you want to use your third wish?"
Saw this earlier and it’s staggering how the US has changed and how George W could seem like a titan of statesmanship, humanity and sense based on where we are now.
Perhaps nothing so became the man, as the manner in which he left office.
Both on personal level - he and his family invited the Obama family for a personal tour of the Whitehouse. Which started an enduring friendship between various generations of the Bushes and Obamas.
And on a professional level - various people from the Obama administration commented on the actual effort made by the outgoing admin to really hand over things in a good state and to transfer knowledge.
Plus his excellent observation that you can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones you want.
Red card for Mel Stride in the morning media round he kept saying these cuts will pay down the debt. Absolute BS given currently borrowing £150bn a year. Reduce the deficit perhaps.
I had forgotten he was Shadow Chancellor until yesterday when sadly someone reminded me.
He is good as a minister for the Today programme as he does know his brief and answers well, calmly and politely which should be encouraged.
I think Kemi really needs to find a way to get much more exposure as she is a bit drowned out by Farage and the Labour dramas. It doesn’t really matter if she is a bit rusty or clunky now because the more exposure she gets the better she will get and I think more people will see her as a goo alternative to Farage or Starmer/Burnham/Lenin.
I bow to your knowledge of Today, as I've not listened to it for some time, but Stride has been pretty dreadful every time I've seen him interviewed. Obsessed with defending the Sunk Government (I think you'll find the electorate told you what they thought of that Mel), publicly criticised Kemi, and refused to call for Reeves' resignation - not itself a crime, but in doing so he came over as a Labour Minister out to defend Reeves on the broadcast round.
I agree on Kemi, but I think after a slow start she's doing all the media she can. Jenrick (or his team) is better than Kemi at social media stunts is all. It's the rest of her shadow cabinet she should be worried about.
Red card for Mel Stride in the morning media round he kept saying these cuts will pay down the debt. Absolute BS given currently borrowing £150bn a year. Reduce the deficit perhaps.
I had forgotten he was Shadow Chancellor until yesterday when sadly someone reminded me.
He is good as a minister for the Today programme as he does know his brief and answers well, calmly and politely which should be encouraged.
I think Kemi really needs to find a way to get much more exposure as she is a bit drowned out by Farage and the Labour dramas. It doesn’t really matter if she is a bit rusty or clunky now because the more exposure she gets the better she will get and I think more people will see her as a goo alternative to Farage or Starmer/Burnham/Lenin.
I bow to your knowledge of Today, as I've not listened to it for some time, but Stride has been pretty dreadful every time I've seen him interviewed. Obsessed with defending the Sunk Government (I think you'll find the electorate told you what they thought of that Mel), publicly criticised Kemi, and refused to call for Reeves' resignation - not itself a crime, but in doing so he came over as a Labour Minister out to defend Reeves on the broadcast round.
I agree on Kemi, but I think after a slow start she's doing all the media she can. Jenrick (or his team) is better than Kemi at social media stunts is all. It's the rest of her shadow cabinet she should be worried about.
Russia doesn’t just have a black-market petrol problem, it also has a counterfeit petrol problem - stuff that looks like petrol, maybe even smells a bit like petrol, but isn’t quite petrol.
Presumably it’s home-made by boiling other hydrocarbons, and no you definitely don’t want to put it in any car, except perhaps an old Lada with carburettors.
Ha
Bet Toluene/Benzene combinations are in fashion.
You can probably take a guess that it was something people did back in the ‘90s, and the same people doing it now - except that 2020s cars in Russia are very different from ‘90s cars in Russia!
Putting random fuel in most modern cars will likely screw the engine very quickly!
Benzene/Toluene mixes are very good at giving people cancer.
So good, in fact, that it used to be used to give cancer to lab rats, so it could be studied.
It’s also the reason why no-one makes 180 octane aviation gasoline anymore.
See also some poor bastards in the Italian Army who got sent to Yugoslavia in the 90s. They recalled getting ordered to clean the floor polish of a floor with an odd, sweet smelling liquid….
I worked as a Manager for Safety Kleen in the 1990s. It was very hands on and I would often go out into the warehouse in my suit and move drums around sans gloves to make the place compliant in relation to it's Environmental Permit. Before I went back to my office I would clean my hands in the recycled kerosene product, which after I left I found was, according to a sealed California litigation case on the Raphael Metzger website, full of benzine, toluene and PCBs. I also found banned Trichlorethylene aerosol brake cleaner brilliant for cleaning down my white boards.
I suspect I am on borrowed time.
Or bullet proof.
I was told (at an oil company) that you could see the pattern of those who worked on ultra-high-octane aviation fuel during the war, in the pension fund. Apparently there was a big dip in people needing a pension from certain refineries. Enough that they went "stop that shit". In the 1950s.
The context was that, every now and again, someone in the old warbird thing would ask for a batch to be made. And the Refinery guys would always say, hell no.
I was doing work as a consultant for Western Power ( now National Grid) about ten years ago, and a number of people over the years had transferred in from the CEGB. One guy on a course I was running introduced himself from Burry Port, the former home of Carmarthen Bay Power Station. "Aah, Burry Port, I only go there for funerals" said another. My now late uncle had worked there in the 1960s and I asked what they meant. He said in the power plant there was plenty of fibrous asbestos which was used as insulation. He said the stuff was all over the floors like snow and everyone walked through it like they were walking through snow. Some of the apprentices would even have snowball fights.
However frustrating we find "Elf and Safety" we have come along way since before the Health and Safety etc At Work Act of 1974.
I've come up with a solution. When legal threat is used like this for stupid trivia, the following action will be taken
1) The officials involved will be arrested by armed police with maximum door smashing, tasering etc. 2) They will be charged with Misconduct in a Public Office. 3) Threatened that if they don't plead guilty then and there, that they will be remanded in custody with no bail, until trial.
If I have an area of expertise (which is highly doubtful) the EPA 1990, and subsequent amendments and allied regulation, would be it.
I don't have a clue what is going on here. I would associate fly-tipping with emptying out the contents of a Transit van onto the lay-by of a dual carriageway, and that comes under the charge of "illegally depositing controlled waste". I can't really see how this woman hasn't conformed to her Duty of Care under the EPA despite the argument proposed by Flintshire Council. I am considering municipal exemptions and householder exemptions for disposing of waste and I cannot see their point. Depositing the wrong waste stream into the wrong container would seem to me to be an operational occupational hazard best resolved by the waste collection organisation.
One wonders if someone collected the rubbish from the bin, was moving it on an open truck and the offending article was blown off onto the roadside?
If they had found ten black bin bags on the A55 with an envelope with her name in one of them I can see their point. Although normally any threat to prosecute the individual is used as a lever for the householder to dob-in the white van fly-tipper.
It sounds very odd to me, unless of course we are just getting convenient snippets of the story.
I suspect she thought she put it in the bin but missed and/or it blew out and was found in the road nearby
Even so, £75 for dropping an envelope seems disproportionate
I think that it is Misconduct In A Public Office to use police resources for this. It damages the reputation of the system to do such things.
I'd just, obviously not the poor lady facing the fine, shoot anyone involved in this whole sorry affair. They will be first against the wall.
The French budget deficit in 2024 was €167bn, 5.8% of GDP, and they can't form a stable government. The British budget deficit was 4.8% of GDP in 2024.
One factor working in Reeves' favour is the mess in France.
However, their total interest cost is lower because they are part of the Eurozone and benefit from its much lower rates.
Not quite. They benefit from the lower interest rates in the EZ because the ECB has much more credibility as a guardian against inflation than the Monetary Policy Committee of the BoE. That is a consequence of some very incompetent decisions in recent times, not least of which was the latest interest rate cut, but it doesn't have to be that way.
Russia doesn’t just have a black-market petrol problem, it also has a counterfeit petrol problem - stuff that looks like petrol, maybe even smells a bit like petrol, but isn’t quite petrol.
Presumably it’s home-made by boiling other hydrocarbons, and no you definitely don’t want to put it in any car, except perhaps an old Lada with carburettors.
Ha
Bet Toluene/Benzene combinations are in fashion.
You can probably take a guess that it was something people did back in the ‘90s, and the same people doing it now - except that 2020s cars in Russia are very different from ‘90s cars in Russia!
Putting random fuel in most modern cars will likely screw the engine very quickly!
Benzene/Toluene mixes are very good at giving people cancer.
So good, in fact, that it used to be used to give cancer to lab rats, so it could be studied.
It’s also the reason why no-one makes 180 octane aviation gasoline anymore.
See also some poor bastards in the Italian Army who got sent to Yugoslavia in the 90s. They recalled getting ordered to clean the floor polish of a floor with an odd, sweet smelling liquid….
Old printers used to wash ink off their hands with benzene.
Spoke to a load of people in the movie biz at the Bruce Dickinson party last night. They’re all profoundly pessimistic about Hollywood, LA and the future. Almost nihilistic
Damn near impossible these days to get funding for independent movies. Studio movies are largely very tired franchises, monstrously expensive to make. Or else product that appears to have to include everyone and offend no-one - for which they get trashed as being "woke" and not what people want to see. The post-Covid cinema has a few must-see blockbusters - but otherwise, no reason to leave the comfort of your home streaming service.
The independent movie disaster situation is largely down to sales agents, who only want to see a handful of stars who they consider box office -and a reluctance to put money behind anything else, no matter how good the script is or the rest of the cast are. The sales estimates they give ensure that money is exceedingly tight on the production. It is quite common now for those who actually drive the movie forward - producers, directors, writers - to have to defer the great bulk of their fees. Unless you get a surprise hit, you won't ever getto see those deferred fees. The stress of making movies is masive, the rewards often distinctly meagre.
"Pixellated like a Japanese beaver." "That thermal power plant is looking very thermal indeed. The Russians will be needing their thermals this winter." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldBHvrtXGeE
I've come up with a solution. When legal threat is used like this for stupid trivia, the following action will be taken
1) The officials involved will be arrested by armed police with maximum door smashing, tasering etc. 2) They will be charged with Misconduct in a Public Office. 3) Threatened that if they don't plead guilty then and there, that they will be remanded in custody with no bail, until trial.
If I have an area of expertise (which is highly doubtful) the EPA 1990, and subsequent amendments and allied regulation, would be it.
I don't have a clue what is going on here. I would associate fly-tipping with emptying out the contents of a Transit van onto the lay-by of a dual carriageway, and that comes under the charge of "illegally depositing controlled waste". I can't really see how this woman hasn't conformed to her Duty of Care under the EPA despite the argument proposed by Flintshire Council. I am considering municipal exemptions and householder exemptions for disposing of waste and I cannot see their point. Depositing the wrong waste stream into the wrong container would seem to me to be an operational occupational hazard best resolved by the waste collection organisation.
One wonders if someone collected the rubbish from the bin, was moving it on an open truck and the offending article was blown off onto the roadside?
If they had found ten black bin bags on the A55 with an envelope with her name in one of them I can see their point. Although normally any threat to prosecute the individual is used as a lever for the householder to dob-in the white van fly-tipper.
It sounds very odd to me, unless of course we are just getting convenient snippets of the story.
I suspect she thought she put it in the bin but missed and/or it blew out and was found in the road nearby
Even so, £75 for dropping an envelope seems disproportionate
I thought the issue was that it is domestic waste (because it was an addressed envelope) placed in a public bin.
Spoke to a load of people in the movie biz at the Bruce Dickinson party last night. They’re all profoundly pessimistic about Hollywood, LA and the future. Almost nihilistic
As in the thing you are not allowed to talk about?
Spoke to a load of people in the movie biz at the Bruce Dickinson party last night. They’re all profoundly pessimistic about Hollywood, LA and the future. Almost nihilistic
As I keep telling my mate in the movie industry, Hollywood has spent the last half decade giving audiences precise what they don't want, being worried about the consequences of that now seems a bit silly. The situation may not be recoverable as young men and women who don't like the content made for the "modern audience" are just wholesale opting out and moving to other forms of media like gaming and streaming.
Interesting experience so far at the Tory conference.
It may of course be the events I’m involved in, but there’s a strange sense of unreality: the shadow ministers are talking very much as if still in government, or at most in opposition but preparing for imminent power.
By which I mean balanced discussions, a distinctly cautious lack of radicalism on fiscal policy, and a degree of nuance. All this belies the culture warrior headlines. Quite odd. Reassuring to some here; probably deeply frustrating to some others.
Conference fringes are always a bit like that but this is very notable.
I've come up with a solution. When legal threat is used like this for stupid trivia, the following action will be taken
1) The officials involved will be arrested by armed police with maximum door smashing, tasering etc. 2) They will be charged with Misconduct in a Public Office. 3) Threatened that if they don't plead guilty then and there, that they will be remanded in custody with no bail, until trial.
If I have an area of expertise (which is highly doubtful) the EPA 1990, and subsequent amendments and allied regulation, would be it.
I don't have a clue what is going on here. I would associate fly-tipping with emptying out the contents of a Transit van onto the lay-by of a dual carriageway, and that comes under the charge of "illegally depositing controlled waste". I can't really see how this woman hasn't conformed to her Duty of Care under the EPA despite the argument proposed by Flintshire Council. I am considering municipal exemptions and householder exemptions for disposing of waste and I cannot see their point. Depositing the wrong waste stream into the wrong container would seem to me to be an operational occupational hazard best resolved by the waste collection organisation.
One wonders if someone collected the rubbish from the bin, was moving it on an open truck and the offending article was blown off onto the roadside?
If they had found ten black bin bags on the A55 with an envelope with her name in one of them I can see their point. Although normally any threat to prosecute the individual is used as a lever for the householder to dob-in the white van fly-tipper.
It sounds very odd to me, unless of course we are just getting convenient snippets of the story.
I suspect she thought she put it in the bin but missed and/or it blew out and was found in the road nearby
Even so, £75 for dropping an envelope seems disproportionate
I thought the issue was that it is domestic waste (because it was an addressed envelope) placed in a public bin.
That and they then said that everything else in the bin was her domestic waste too.
"Pixellated like a Japanese beaver." "That thermal power plant is looking very thermal indeed. The Russians will be needing their thermals this winter." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldBHvrtXGeE
The French budget deficit in 2024 was €167bn, 5.8% of GDP, and they can't form a stable government. The British budget deficit was 4.8% of GDP in 2024.
One factor working in Reeves' favour is the mess in France.
However, their total interest cost is lower because they are part of the Eurozone and benefit from its much lower rates.
Not quite. They benefit from the lower interest rates in the EZ because the ECB has much more credibility as a guardian against inflation than the Monetary Policy Committee of the BoE. That is a consequence of some very incompetent decisions in recent times, not least of which was the latest interest rate cut, but it doesn't have to be that way.
In other words their interest cost is lower because they are part of the Eurozone and benefit from its much lower rates. Why that might be so is a different question.
Russia doesn’t just have a black-market petrol problem, it also has a counterfeit petrol problem - stuff that looks like petrol, maybe even smells a bit like petrol, but isn’t quite petrol.
Presumably it’s home-made by boiling other hydrocarbons, and no you definitely don’t want to put it in any car, except perhaps an old Lada with carburettors.
Ha
Bet Toluene/Benzene combinations are in fashion.
You can probably take a guess that it was something people did back in the ‘90s, and the same people doing it now - except that 2020s cars in Russia are very different from ‘90s cars in Russia!
Putting random fuel in most modern cars will likely screw the engine very quickly!
Benzene/Toluene mixes are very good at giving people cancer.
So good, in fact, that it used to be used to give cancer to lab rats, so it could be studied.
It’s also the reason why no-one makes 180 octane aviation gasoline anymore.
See also some poor bastards in the Italian Army who got sent to Yugoslavia in the 90s. They recalled getting ordered to clean the floor polish of a floor with an odd, sweet smelling liquid….
Old printers used to wash ink off their hands with benzene.
Curiously, Benzene on its own is bad but not apocalyptic. Same for Toluene. Together...
When my wife was expecting our first, 36 years ago now, the confinement was quite protracted, taking about 40 hours. In the middle of this I wandered up to the foyer in the hospital and bought a book by Jilly Cooper to keep me awake. This has been raised quite a few times over the last 36 years. Given today's sad news I am expecting to be reminded again when I get home.
The French budget deficit in 2024 was €167bn, 5.8% of GDP, and they can't form a stable government. The British budget deficit was 4.8% of GDP in 2024.
One factor working in Reeves' favour is the mess in France.
However, their total interest cost is lower because they are part of the Eurozone and benefit from its much lower rates.
Not quite. They benefit from the lower interest rates in the EZ because the ECB has much more credibility as a guardian against inflation than the Monetary Policy Committee of the BoE. That is a consequence of some very incompetent decisions in recent times, not least of which was the latest interest rate cut, but it doesn't have to be that way.
In other words their interest cost is lower because they are part of the Eurozone and benefit from its much lower rates. Why that might be so is a different question.
The market prices in an implicit guarantee that German and Dutch taxpayers will be on the hook for French debt. There really isn't anything more too it.
Russia doesn’t just have a black-market petrol problem, it also has a counterfeit petrol problem - stuff that looks like petrol, maybe even smells a bit like petrol, but isn’t quite petrol.
Presumably it’s home-made by boiling other hydrocarbons, and no you definitely don’t want to put it in any car, except perhaps an old Lada with carburettors.
Ha
Bet Toluene/Benzene combinations are in fashion.
You can probably take a guess that it was something people did back in the ‘90s, and the same people doing it now - except that 2020s cars in Russia are very different from ‘90s cars in Russia!
Putting random fuel in most modern cars will likely screw the engine very quickly!
Benzene/Toluene mixes are very good at giving people cancer.
So good, in fact, that it used to be used to give cancer to lab rats, so it could be studied.
It’s also the reason why no-one makes 180 octane aviation gasoline anymore.
See also some poor bastards in the Italian Army who got sent to Yugoslavia in the 90s. They recalled getting ordered to clean the floor polish of a floor with an odd, sweet smelling liquid….
Old printers used to wash ink off their hands with benzene.
Curiously, Benzene on its own is bad but not apocalyptic. Same for Toluene. Together...
Not sure how/why.
One of them acts as a facilitator for the other to get through the skin?
In English law a binding contract can be made at whatever point in transactions that both parties are willing to be bound by the contract. There is no magic involved. (Human nature says that both parties want the other one bound but not yourself. Gosh. That's not how it works.)
On the whole the changes needed are not systemic but procedural. It is routine for there to be late faffing, last minute crises, urgent last minute stuff about the practicalities of finance, solicitors and others not getting their act together in a timely and ordered manner. This is nothing to do with law, and all to do with pragmatic competence and timely action.
Actually this is a subject I know quite well, not least as I was involved in discussions with Yvette Cooper's department over HIPS and sadly she did not listen to industry advice and it's failure was no surprise
However, the government are correct on this, and the requirement for written pre contract declarations by a seller, plus a bona fide survey report, all presented in a legally binding sale pack is highly desirable and I would expect supported by the industry
Also reducing the time and modernising the conveyancing process is very desirable
Of course this will change the market fundamentally, finally abolishing 'caveat emptor' though of course it will be a problem for many home owners whose property has structural or location issues
As properties sell, and the faults are recified it will make future sales easier and of couse will save the buyer costs though if they are a seller as well they will face the upfront cost of the pre sale pack
I note they are looking at the Scottish system as well, and that is a far better way of selling than in England and Wales
I hope a pre sale legally binding contract pack becomes law, though I expect it will be a while away
I wouldn’t want to rely upon a report/survey undertaken by a dodgy surveyor in a sales pack. I would want to commission my own in addition.
The packs need to require an RICS member or similar and any other survey would be unnecessary
They would only unnecessary if there is a sufficient remedy for negligence.
How long will a seller have to wait for a RICS member to undertake such a report? How much would it cost?
EPCs are a legal requirement and they are almost worthless.
The proposals are for a legally produced pre-sale pack and survey that may even include a valuation though I am not sure on that
I expect the packs to cost the seller £500-£1,000 but then that is much the cost the buyer pays today
The whole process is to make the home owner (or their solicitor) responsible for the information provided
So if I sell my house and the RICS surveyor is negligent I am responsible for compensating the buyer?
The surveyor will be legally responsible as he already is anyway
To whom? The buyer would have no contractual link to them and as a seller I am expected to take litigation risk, i.e to pay the buyer money I don’t have and try to recover it from the surveyor?
Surveyors already put so many exclusions in their T&Cs that they are almost worthless.
The only winner here is insurers as everyone will need to insure themselves to the hilt and in any event I doubt these surveys will cost as little as £1,000. The RICS surveyors will have a monopoly.
Anything is better than now and
My daughters survey cost £520 for a £300,000 home
Yeah and I bet she had almost no recourse against the surveyor due to exclusions for pretty much everything that wasn’t immediately obvious to the surveyor in an hour.
It was an RICS report and extensive but then if you cannot depend on an RICS report then what is the point
As so often one looks spouth across the border and thinks WTF? given that this happens already in Scotland - RICS survey, comments on work possibly needed, EPC, formal valuation. Further survey work for the buyer permissible by mutual agreement.
When selling my dad's house, I found the pack wqas sufficient to attract several offers above asking price (whjich was slightly below valuation) - the winner did ask for a further check of the roof but that was OK with us and didn't cause any issues.
England and Wales should have adopted the Scottish system decades ago
A further point. The standardised repoirt also includes a thorough questionnaire for the seller on such things as known asbestos, flood risks, remaining valid guarantees for appliuances or work on the house, any neighbour disputes or outstanding planning applications in area, whether light bulbs and curtains and garden plants included, etc. etc. Very useful in zipping through things with the solicitor/conveyancer/estate agent (all one thing in Scotland usually).
Obvs some I didn't know or couldn't tell so just said 'not known to me either way'.
These are all in place in England, but usually in my experience happen after offer but before Exchange of Contracts.
The are called the PIF iirc (Property Information Form).
It would be a simple reform to mandate that those be done before the property is advertised, but the shysters of the Estate Agent industry would try and get around it just as they do for the Mandatory EPC - "EPC Expected Soon". Solicitors are more prone to follow their regulations than Estate Agents *.
And if their balls don't get cut off the first time, it becomes the custom.
* Fuck, did I just say something good about a lawyer?
Here, the estate agents *are* the solicitors ... ort perhaps that is better put the other way round.
Those things are, at least in basics, in the report in Scotland and pretty much all happen as part of primary marketing, though I think the buyer sol does a planning etc search anyway (I certainly wouldn't know for sure what applications had been cc'd to my father in the last few years, for one thing).
Russia doesn’t just have a black-market petrol problem, it also has a counterfeit petrol problem - stuff that looks like petrol, maybe even smells a bit like petrol, but isn’t quite petrol.
Presumably it’s home-made by boiling other hydrocarbons, and no you definitely don’t want to put it in any car, except perhaps an old Lada with carburettors.
Ha
Bet Toluene/Benzene combinations are in fashion.
You can probably take a guess that it was something people did back in the ‘90s, and the same people doing it now - except that 2020s cars in Russia are very different from ‘90s cars in Russia!
Putting random fuel in most modern cars will likely screw the engine very quickly!
Benzene/Toluene mixes are very good at giving people cancer.
So good, in fact, that it used to be used to give cancer to lab rats, so it could be studied.
It’s also the reason why no-one makes 180 octane aviation gasoline anymore.
See also some poor bastards in the Italian Army who got sent to Yugoslavia in the 90s. They recalled getting ordered to clean the floor polish of a floor with an odd, sweet smelling liquid….
Old printers used to wash ink off their hands with benzene.
Curiously, Benzene on its own is bad but not apocalyptic. Same for Toluene. Together...
Not sure how/why.
If my distant memory serves me, one gets a warm tingling sensation as unleaded petrol (Benzene) and toluene thinner flashes off the skin. What isn't turned to vapour absorbs through the skin. We sold toluene in cellulose thinner and Xylene in panel wipe. That would also flash off the skin very quickly.
Material Safety Data Sheets? Life's too short! It is if one doesn't read them.
In English law a binding contract can be made at whatever point in transactions that both parties are willing to be bound by the contract. There is no magic involved. (Human nature says that both parties want the other one bound but not yourself. Gosh. That's not how it works.)
On the whole the changes needed are not systemic but procedural. It is routine for there to be late faffing, last minute crises, urgent last minute stuff about the practicalities of finance, solicitors and others not getting their act together in a timely and ordered manner. This is nothing to do with law, and all to do with pragmatic competence and timely action.
Actually this is a subject I know quite well, not least as I was involved in discussions with Yvette Cooper's department over HIPS and sadly she did not listen to industry advice and it's failure was no surprise
However, the government are correct on this, and the requirement for written pre contract declarations by a seller, plus a bona fide survey report, all presented in a legally binding sale pack is highly desirable and I would expect supported by the industry
Also reducing the time and modernising the conveyancing process is very desirable
Of course this will change the market fundamentally, finally abolishing 'caveat emptor' though of course it will be a problem for many home owners whose property has structural or location issues
As properties sell, and the faults are recified it will make future sales easier and of couse will save the buyer costs though if they are a seller as well they will face the upfront cost of the pre sale pack
I note they are looking at the Scottish system as well, and that is a far better way of selling than in England and Wales
I hope a pre sale legally binding contract pack becomes law, though I expect it will be a while away
I wouldn’t want to rely upon a report/survey undertaken by a dodgy surveyor in a sales pack. I would want to commission my own in addition.
The packs need to require an RICS member or similar and any other survey would be unnecessary
They would only unnecessary if there is a sufficient remedy for negligence.
How long will a seller have to wait for a RICS member to undertake such a report? How much would it cost?
EPCs are a legal requirement and they are almost worthless.
The proposals are for a legally produced pre-sale pack and survey that may even include a valuation though I am not sure on that
I expect the packs to cost the seller £500-£1,000 but then that is much the cost the buyer pays today
The whole process is to make the home owner (or their solicitor) responsible for the information provided
So if I sell my house and the RICS surveyor is negligent I am responsible for compensating the buyer?
The surveyor will be legally responsible as he already is anyway
To whom? The buyer would have no contractual link to them and as a seller I am expected to take litigation risk, i.e to pay the buyer money I don’t have and try to recover it from the surveyor?
Surveyors already put so many exclusions in their T&Cs that they are almost worthless.
The only winner here is insurers as everyone will need to insure themselves to the hilt and in any event I doubt these surveys will cost as little as £1,000. The RICS surveyors will have a monopoly.
Anything is better than now and
My daughters survey cost £520 for a £300,000 home
Yeah and I bet she had almost no recourse against the surveyor due to exclusions for pretty much everything that wasn’t immediately obvious to the surveyor in an hour.
It was an RICS report and extensive but then if you cannot depend on an RICS report then what is the point
As so often one looks spouth across the border and thinks WTF? given that this happens already in Scotland - RICS survey, comments on work possibly needed, EPC, formal valuation. Further survey work for the buyer permissible by mutual agreement.
When selling my dad's house, I found the pack wqas sufficient to attract several offers above asking price (whjich was slightly below valuation) - the winner did ask for a further check of the roof but that was OK with us and didn't cause any issues.
England and Wales should have adopted the Scottish system decades ago
A further point. The standardised repoirt also includes a thorough questionnaire for the seller on such things as known asbestos, flood risks, remaining valid guarantees for appliuances or work on the house, any neighbour disputes or outstanding planning applications in area, whether light bulbs and curtains and garden plants included, etc. etc. Very useful in zipping through things with the solicitor/conveyancer/estate agent (all one thing in Scotland usually).
Obvs some I didn't know or couldn't tell so just said 'not known to me either way'.
These are all in place in England, but usually in my experience happen after offer but before Exchange of Contracts.
The are called the PIF iirc (Property Information Form).
It would be a simple reform to mandate that those be done before the property is advertised, but the shysters of the Estate Agent industry would try and get around it just as they do for the Mandatory EPC - "EPC Expected Soon". Solicitors are more prone to follow their regulations than Estate Agents *.
And if their balls don't get cut off the first time, it becomes the custom.
* Fuck, did I just say something good about a lawyer?
Saying that they’re better than estate agents, is damning with faint praise.
In my part of the world, estate agents have to be licenced and registered. It’s not exactly a difficult process, but there’s an exam on real estate law and it’s amazing how many fail it!
The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from the Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend, brushing aside her argument that she should have been shielded from prosecution under a plea agreement that Epstein struck with federal authorities
The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from the Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend, brushing aside her argument that she should have been shielded from prosecution under a plea agreement that Epstein struck with federal authorities
Men jailed for violence outside Essex asylum hotel ... Williams was jailed for two years and four months, Peagram for two years and two months and Smith for one year and 10 months. Each defendant admitted violent disorder. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgq456gey9o
Twice as long as the chap they were protesting against.
A man whose crimes led to protests outside a hotel in Essex has been jailed for a year for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman.
Hadush Kebatu was found guilty of touching and trying to kiss the schoolgirl in Epping on 7 and 8 July.
The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from the Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend, brushing aside her argument that she should have been shielded from prosecution under a plea agreement that Epstein struck with federal authorities
I've come up with a solution. When legal threat is used like this for stupid trivia, the following action will be taken
1) The officials involved will be arrested by armed police with maximum door smashing, tasering etc. 2) They will be charged with Misconduct in a Public Office. 3) Threatened that if they don't plead guilty then and there, that they will be remanded in custody with no bail, until trial.
Anti-jobsworthship is probably one of the main things driving support for the populist right, so this story is great news for them.
The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from the Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend, brushing aside her argument that she should have been shielded from prosecution under a plea agreement that Epstein struck with federal authorities
It makes you long for the days when pb dismissed HIPs as the work of the devil rather than spend all day debating I can't believe it's not HIPs instead of searching the day's header for subtle film references.
Men jailed for violence outside Essex asylum hotel ... Williams was jailed for two years and four months, Peagram for two years and two months and Smith for one year and 10 months. Each defendant admitted violent disorder. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgq456gey9o
Twice as long as the chap they were protesting against.
A man whose crimes led to protests outside a hotel in Essex has been jailed for a year for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman.
Hadush Kebatu was found guilty of touching and trying to kiss the schoolgirl in Epping on 7 and 8 July.
Without going the full Leon, you have to wonder what more the judiciary could do to elect a Reform government.
They go in line with the sentencing guidelines. Kebatu was jailed for one instance of a sexual touching, the three men were jailed for kicking and punching
Men jailed for violence outside Essex asylum hotel ... Williams was jailed for two years and four months, Peagram for two years and two months and Smith for one year and 10 months. Each defendant admitted violent disorder. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgq456gey9o
Twice as long as the chap they were protesting against.
A man whose crimes led to protests outside a hotel in Essex has been jailed for a year for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman.
Hadush Kebatu was found guilty of touching and trying to kiss the schoolgirl in Epping on 7 and 8 July.
Saw this earlier and it’s staggering how the US has changed and how George W could seem like a titan of statesmanship, humanity and sense based on where we are now.
Perhaps nothing so became the man, as the manner in which he left office.
Both on personal level - he and his family invited the Obama family for a personal tour of the Whitehouse. Which started an enduring friendship between various generations of the Bushes and Obamas.
And on a professional level - various people from the Obama administration commented on the actual effort made by the outgoing admin to really hand over things in a good state and to transfer knowledge.
The background was that he was treated like dirt by the Clinton team on his way in, and vowed on his first day to uphold the honour of the office he held on the way out.
Comments
The are called the PIF iirc (Property Information Form).
It would be a simple reform to mandate that those be done before the property is advertised, but the shysters of the Estate Agent industry would try and get around it just as they do for the Mandatory EPC - "EPC Expected Soon". Solicitors are more prone to follow their regulations than Estate Agents *.
And if their balls don't get cut off the first time, it becomes the custom.
* Fuck, did I just say something good about a lawyer?
I don't really understand what is going on here.
So good, in fact, that it used to be used to give cancer to lab rats, so it could be studied.
It’s also the reason why no-one makes 180 octane aviation gasoline anymore.
See also some poor bastards in the Italian Army who got sent to Yugoslavia in the 90s. They recalled getting ordered to clean the floor polish of a floor with an odd, sweet smelling liquid….
It's Sarah and I normally accuse Sarah of being a Tory shill. Hell is freezing over
She's actually quite good fun though.
If you could get to a situation where when a chain is complete everyone is more or less ready to go to exchange in a fortnight or so (even if completion takes place a few more weeks hence) it would significantly reduce the problems.
The waiting game is the culprit for most of the issues. It gives more time for an issue to arise, someone to get cold feet, someone find an alternative property etc.
I also think that any party that withdraws before the sale contract should be required to pay for the other parties costs. That would wipe out at least half of the problems overnight, IMHO.
And even if some pledges might, a scarcely plausible tax cut promised and not delivered several times before probably wouldn't be it.
PIF and local search do arrive in the present process but often weeks after the sale has been agreed subject to contact
For the new system to work it needs to mandate all that and a survey before a house is permitted to be marketed
https://youtu.be/RecECbxebPI?si=4Ne7R9KjYdnJjbnL
Personally I would have been impressed if Charles had told the Archbishop of Cantebury that
1) he (AofC) was going to do wedding
2) do it with a big smile
3) otherwise, the CoE would get reformed when he (Chas) got to be king.
I suspect I am on borrowed time.
A contrast, then, with a moral gargoyle like Prince Andrew
You are assuming that the market values houses according to whether they are good houses, and also that a good rental house has the same qualities as a good house for sale.
But people do not buy a house depending on whether it is a good long term house. They buy it based on whether it has a shiny bathroom and kitchen, or whatever is in fashion, not whether it is a quality house.
Ask an estate agent what sells houses - it is not that it has eg "high quality double glazing that will last 30 years", it is "double glazing" as a tick box. It is not "drains that have a one way valve involved so they won't back flood with shit when there is a rainstorm" and so on.
Or watch out for what developers choose NOT to spend money on. They won't spend money on things that add long-term value, to the house or to the community. They sell it and walk away.
A good example is EPC numbers. We knew from 2013 that EPC C-Grades were coming in as a requirement in 10-15 years for rentals, so anyone who renovated a house without appropriate measures in the interim was silly (and un-Green); it would require kitchens and interiors to be ripped out again to put it in later.
But EPCs did not get any market recognition for almost a decade (especially in the war bounce in energy prices). In contrast for an LL, it was recognised as a way to ensure long-term tenants (say 1/3 lower energy bills) - which works better as a tenant swap is the most expensive operation and good long-term tenants look after their houses.
You are assuming that renovations are all reflected in market price.
They are not.
Both on personal level - he and his family invited the Obama family for a personal tour of the Whitehouse. Which started an enduring friendship between various generations of the Bushes and Obamas.
And on a professional level - various people from the Obama administration commented on the actual effort made by the outgoing admin to really hand over things in a good state and to transfer knowledge.
Spoke to a load of people in the movie biz at the Bruce Dickinson party last night. They’re all profoundly pessimistic about Hollywood, LA and the future. Almost nihilistic
For us oldsters with minds heading up Trump Creek, the Queen is that nice old lady with the corgis.
People living longer after their kids have moved out is.
I don't think we should be discouraging that either. We simply need to have enough houses, which we do not.
Slashing immigration might reduce the rate at which we need to build more houses, but we still need massively more houses even if we had zero migration just for the people already here, and the kids who are yet to move out.
He sounded a bit like Wilson. I know Rotherham and Huddersfield are a World apart, but the nasal twang is similar.
One factor working in Reeves' favour is the mess in France.
The issue is more with the scope of the survey requested. “Walk around the house” (home buyers survey) vs “do some real work” (structural survey).
Both are legitimate and have their purpose. But a home buyers survey is worth very little
The missing piece is not so much the distinction between the nation and the ethnicity, as between the nation and its government. We could do with that being more clearly drawn both by Palestinian protesters and by regime spokespeople (for whom the conflation is convenient).
We manage this for, to give an example, Iranians - Shia Islam / Persian ethnicity, Iran as country, Iranian regime as something very different.
Tory members poll exclusively from YouGov
What do they think of Kemi? What do they think of pacts?
Hear it in person with me and @annemcelvoy in the Politico Pub in the Conservative exhibition hall alongside polling genius, YouGov’s @PME_Politics
https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1975171407437803959
Even so, £75 for dropping an envelope seems disproportionate
I was told (at an oil company) that you could see the pattern of those who worked on ultra-high-octane aviation fuel during the war, in the pension fund. Apparently there was a big dip in people needing a pension from certain refineries. Enough that they went "stop that shit". In the 1950s.
The context was that, every now and again, someone in the old warbird thing would ask for a batch to be made. And the Refinery guys would always say, hell no.
I agree on Kemi, but I think after a slow start she's doing all the media she can. Jenrick (or his team) is better than Kemi at social media stunts is all. It's the rest of her shadow cabinet she should be worried about.
However frustrating we find "Elf and Safety" we have come along way since before the Health and Safety etc At Work Act of 1974.
The independent movie disaster situation is largely down to sales agents, who only want to see a handful of stars who they consider box office -and a reluctance to put money behind anything else, no matter how good the script is or the rest of the cast are. The sales estimates they give ensure that money is exceedingly tight on the production. It is quite common now for those who actually drive the movie forward - producers, directors, writers - to have to defer the great bulk of their fees. Unless you get a surprise hit, you won't ever getto see those deferred fees. The stress of making movies is masive, the rewards often distinctly meagre.
"Pixellated like a Japanese beaver."
"That thermal power plant is looking very thermal indeed. The Russians will be needing their thermals this winter."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldBHvrtXGeE
Her drift from environmentalist to leftist agitator mirrors what is happening with the Green Party of England & Wales.
It may of course be the events I’m involved in, but there’s a strange sense of unreality: the shadow ministers are talking very much as if still in government, or at most in opposition but preparing for imminent power.
By which I mean balanced discussions, a distinctly cautious lack of radicalism on fiscal policy, and a degree of nuance. All this belies the culture warrior headlines. Quite odd. Reassuring to some here; probably deeply frustrating to some others.
Conference fringes are always a bit like that but this is very notable.
Not sure how/why.
Not that I want to experiment.
Those things are, at least in basics, in the report in Scotland and pretty much all happen as part of primary marketing, though I think the buyer sol does a planning etc search anyway (I certainly wouldn't know for sure what applications had been cc'd to my father in the last few years, for one thing).
Material Safety Data Sheets? Life's too short! It is if one doesn't read them.
In my part of the world, estate agents have to be licenced and registered. It’s not exactly a difficult process, but there’s an exam on real estate law and it’s amazing how many fail it!
The Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from the Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's former girlfriend, brushing aside her argument that she should have been shielded from prosecution under a plea agreement that Epstein struck with federal authorities
https://x.com/alaynatreene/status/1975193334441447495
...
Williams was jailed for two years and four months, Peagram for two years and two months and Smith for one year and 10 months. Each defendant admitted violent disorder.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgq456gey9o
Twice as long as the chap they were protesting against.
A man whose crimes led to protests outside a hotel in Essex has been jailed for a year for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a woman.
Hadush Kebatu was found guilty of touching and trying to kiss the schoolgirl in Epping on 7 and 8 July.
His arrest led to a wave of demonstrations outside The Bell Hotel, where he was staying as an asylum seeker from Ethiopia.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8j5vp7413o
Without going the full Leon, you have to wonder what more the judiciary could do to elect a Reform government.