Lecturing for CLT

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

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

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

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

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

The Landlord & Buy to Let Show and Awards

Note - the Landlord Law Blog has now moved to www.landlordlawblog.co.uk.

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I was at the Landlord & Buy to Let Show at the NEC Birmingham on Friday and Saturday. An enjoyable two days, although I had a bit of a journey to get there (4-5 hours cross country by train from Norwich).

I arrived at about 3.30pm, so was able to talk to a few people before doing my talk (Essential Legal Points for Landlords). So I chatted with the staff from Alan Boswell, Richard Bowser, editor of Property Investor News Magazine, and a young man from Legal4Landlords. I was delighted to learn that he and his colleagues regularly check up on the law with Landlord Law, but taken aback to learn that they are not members! Maybe I should make my free tips less informative! My talk went reasonably well, with some good questions afterwards.

After the talk I did a bit of a wander. It was particularly nice to meet up again with Tom Entwistle of the excellent LandlordZone website. We were both attending the Landlord & Buy to Let Awards dinner that night as we had both been Judges. Also at our table were Simon Gordon, Head of Communications of the National Landlords Association (NLA) and the glamorous Sussanne Chambers, director of the NLA. It was nice to have an opportunity to talk to them, and it was a good evening.

It was also interesting (having been involved in the Judging) to see who won. The awards were announced by Konnie Huq, a television presenter. I don’t watch a lot of TV so had not seen her show, however she was charming, gave a very nice speech, and did as good a job as one can of reading out all the information about the awards winners. At our table we thought it might have been nicer to have the winners go up and receive their awards personally after they had been announced, however that was not her fault. The winners got the chance of having a picture taken with her afterwards, which I suppose will be a longer lasting memory (and one which will no doubt go up on many of their websites).

Unfortunately I failed to make a note of the winners as they were announced (too busy chatting) but I will do a link to the winners list once it is available. (NB - a list of the winners has now been published via here.)

On Saturday my talk was at 11.00am (Dealing with Rent Arrears) which went off fairly well. One of those attending was Liz Mooney, landlord Support and Development Officer at Sandwell Forums, and it was very nice to talk to her afterwards. She edits the newsletter, ‘The Bugle’ - I have not read it properly yet, but flicking through I see that one of the articles is headed ‘Another Senior Moment’. Glad its not just me then.

So thank you to the organisers, and apologies to anyone I spoke to who I have not mentioned here. But feel free to add a comment and remind me! Or just give comments on your experience of the event generally. I would welcome your views. And for those who attended the talks - did it meet your needs, and are there any other talk topics you would like me to do in future?

The London Landlords' Show - comments

Well the London Landlords Show is now over for another year. Thank you to all who came along to my talks and clinics.

I would also like to apologise to any who came along on the Thursday thinking to see my Dealing with Rent Arrears talk, only to hear me do the Essential Legal Points one - I had no choice though as the organizers decided to change it. Two of you were able to talk to me afterwards in the clinic though, so hopefully that helped.

It was also nice to meet up with other property 'people' - Tom Entwistle of LandlordZone, Mark Garner of LettingZone and James Davis of Upad, to name just a few.

If you weren't able to get to the London Show, I am also going to be at the Birmingham show on 16 and 17 October.

The London Landlords' Show - 9/10 September at Olympia

Just a reminder to people that I will be speaking at the London Landlords' Show tomorrow and Thursday.

On Wednesday I will be talking on 'Essential Legal Points for Landlords' at 3.15 pm, and on 'Dealing with Rent Arrears' at 4.15 pm in the auditorium. I will also be doing a clinic between 2.00 and 3.00 pm.

On Thursday I will be talking on 'Essential Legal Points for Landlords' at 10.30am and doing a clinic between 12.00 and 1.00 pm.

Those who attend the talks will also be entitled to use a special online resource I have set up here. The enrolment key will be given out at the talks.

Essential Legal Points for Landlords talk at the Landlord&Buy-to-Let Show

It was very nice to see people at the Landlord&Buy-to-Let Show on Friday. Thank you to everyone who attended, it was great to see so many of you there, and I am sorry some of you had to stand. I am also sorry that the noise of the conference was a bit intrusive - I hope you all managed to hear me.

I have now sent off to everyone who asked, a pdf of my powerpoint and added those who asked to go on my newsletter (note if you forgot to ask you can do this here). There were inevitably a few where I could not read the handwriting and there were bouncebacks, so if you did not receive your copy please do email and I will send it out (and to anyone else who wants it).