2008
What can you do to prepare for the recession? Can you protect your assets and your business? Will you be able to sell your property? Come to an informal seminar and learn more. You always have a choice - make sure you make the right one!

Tenancy
New rules for landlords and tenants regarding deposits details

Anti Money Laundering Regulation
New and more stringent rules to combat money laundering came into force on 15 December 2007. As a result professional advisers must ask more questions and in some cases require more information and documentation from clients before they can accept instructions to act or advise. We will need to ask for more information in connection with acting for companies, partnerships, trusts, other bodies of people (such as clubs) and anyone who is acting as agent for another person. We may also need to go through the identification and verification procedures for shareholders, directors, managers, partners, trustees, beneficiaries, club members, anyone acting under a power of attorney, a receiver, administrator or insolvency practitioner or anyone appointed as an agent or broker of any kind. In addition, the exemption under the old rules for existing clients from the procedures for identification and verification has been removed. As a matter of policy we operate the new rules in relation to all clients and all matters. All we ask is that you attend at our offices with •your passport or picture driving licence •an original council tax, gas or electricity bill addressed to you and dated within the last three months For Data Protection Act purposes, we must also advise you that we are required to retain this information for at least five years.

HIPs April 2009
The HIP Amendment Regulations (No 3) Regulations 2008 came into effect on 6 April. This brings to an end the first day marketing concession, which means the HIP must exist and be available for buyers at the first point of marketing rather than being commissioned or ‘on order’. Search reports from local authorities must be complete. The use of insurance to support incomplete search reports came to an end on the same date. This causes personal search providers some difficulty where local authorities refuse allow access to certain registers and information. The major new reform was the introduction of the Property Information Questionnaire. It is in two parts – Part 1 for completion for all properties and Part 2 with additional questions for the leaseholder seller to complete. The form is designed by government with fixed text for the seller to complete, without any professional help. This is reinforced by the warning to estate agents that the Property Misdescriptions Act will apply if the form is completed by an agent. The government has published the questionnaire that can be downloaded but there is no restriction on producing other formats provided that the PIQ contains the information set out in the schedules (11 and 12) imported into the HIP 2007 No 2 regulations. These are thee principal regulations as now amended by the 2008 No 3 amendment regulations. It is a requirement that the PIQ must be completed in contrast to the abandoned the ‘Home Use Form’ unveiled in 2006 which could be placed in the HIP, in blank. Whether the PIQ will have any real value remains to be seen. As well as setting out the questions the form also gives guidance to the seller with the pre-printed answers of ‘yes’ ‘no’ and ‘don’t know’. On 6 April DCLG also published Guidance to Trading Standards Officers on HIPs. This can be downloaded from the department website at http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/housing/hipenforcementguide The publication suggests that TSO’s might now take a more robust view on enforcement. It might therefore be timely to remind those involves in the sale of residential properties of the 'Cancellation of Contracts Made in a Consumer's Home or Place of Work etc Regulations 2008'. Failure to give the notice of the right to cancel can result in prosecution and a criminal conviction. Although there have been some news items reporting increases in mortgage offers and market activity these are from such a low base that the ‘green shoots’ of recovery still seem to be germinating some way below the surface.