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28 May 2020 / Veronica Cowan
Issue: 7888 / Categories: Opinion , Profession , Property , Conveyancing
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The home front

21526
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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NEWS
The government will aim to pass legislation banning leasehold for new flats and capping ground rent, introducing non-compulsory digital ID and creating a ‘duty of candour’ for public servants (also known as the Hillsborough law) in the next Parliament

An Italian financier has lost his bid to block his Australian wife from filing divorce papers in England on the basis it was no longer her domicile of choice

Reforms to the disclosure regime in the business and property courts have not achieved their objectives, lawyers have warned
The Law Society has urged ministers to hold a public consultation on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the justice system as a whole
Ministers have proposed bringing inquest work under a single fee scheme for legal help and advocacy legal aid work
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