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The home front

28 May 2020 / Veronica Cowan
Issue: 7888 / Categories: Opinion , Profession , Property , Conveyancing
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COVID-19: Lockdown liberty? Veronica Cowan reports
  • Steering stimulus: confidence boosting measures.
  • Release reaction: agents taken by surprise.
  • Vagaries of video viewings: not quite lift-off.
  • Urban sprawl versus coast and country.

Estate agents, conveyancers and surveyors won’t be breaking open the champagne just yet. Despite the government’s loosening of restrictions on home sales, things could change if it became necessary to re-impose a pause on house moves. There is also concern that the appetite, or financial ability, for moving might have been diminished, along with reports of some buyers reducing offers agreed before the shutdown.

Steering stimulus

Against this background, the government will face renewed pressure to cut stamp duty to stimulate the property market and Hew Edgar, head of UK government relations at the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors reports that, following its call on the government to explore confidence-boosting measures for the residential market as it reopens, its member survey data suggested its proposal for a stamp duty holiday would boost transactional activity, helping people move home.

Meanwhile,

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

CBI South-East Council—Mike Wilson

Blake Morgan managing partner appointed chair of CBI South-East Council

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Birketts—Phillippa O’Neill

Commercial dispute resolution team welcomes partner in Cambridge

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Charles Russell Speechlys—Matthew Griffin

Firm strengthens international funds capability with senior hire

NEWS
The proposed £11bn redress scheme following the Supreme Court’s motor finance rulings is analysed in this week’s NLJ by Fred Philpott of Gough Square Chambers
In this week's issue, Stephen Gold, NLJ columnist and former district judge, surveys another eclectic fortnight in procedure. With humour and humanity, he reminds readers that beneath the procedural dust, the law still changes lives
Generative AI isn’t the villain of the courtroom—it’s the misunderstanding of it that’s dangerous, argues Dr Alan Ma of Birmingham City University and the Birmingham Law Society in this week's NLJ
James Naylor of Naylor Solicitors dissects the government’s plan to outlaw upward-only rent review (UORR) clauses in new commercial leases under Schedule 31 of the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill, in this week's NLJ. The reform, he explains, marks a seismic shift in landlord-tenant power dynamics: rents will no longer rise inexorably, and tenants gain statutory caps and procedural rights
Writing in NLJ this week, James Harrison and Jenna Coad of Penningtons Manches Cooper chart the Privy Council’s demolition of the long-standing ‘shareholder rule’ in Jardine Strategic v Oasis Investments
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