To kick off the festive season we are running a twitter competition giving our followers the chance to win 1 adult and 1 child ticket for the Everton v Stoke game at Goodison Park this Sunday 4th December, KO 3pm.

To be in with a chance of winning you need to follow us @Morecrofts and retweet our competition tweet to your followers.  The deadline for entries is 12 noon on Thursday 1st December so get following and retweeting!

The winner will be selected at random and will be contacted via twitter before 5pm on Thursday 1st December to arrange delivery of the tickets.

Since 1925 the Land Registry has been trying to register all land in England and Wales. To do this they created compulsory registration areas at various times. This meant that if you bought a property within one of these areas and the title to the property was not registered you had to apply for the title to be registered. On completion of the purchase of the property the  conveyancer would send of the bundle of title deeds to the Land Registry who, if they found the title was satisfactory, would issue a certificate containing details of the property, any rights which the property had the benefit of, the names and addresses of the owners, details of any restrictive covenants (conditions) which affect the property, whether the property was subject to a mortgage secured against it and a copy of the ordnance survey map which showed the extent of the land which had been registered.

If you already owned the property you could apply for the title deeds to the property to be registered voluntarily.

The information regarding the property was bound up in an official certificate called a Land Certificate which would be sent to the owner of the property if there was no mortgage on it. If there was a mortgage the Charge Certificate would be held by the lender until the mortgage was paid off. The Certificate was as important as the bundle of deeds it had replaced. If the certificate was lost or destroyed to replace it was costly.

The Land Registry hoped that this would result in all land and property in England and Wales being completed by the 1950s but this proved far from being the case.

Part of the problem was that some properties stayed within the same family for many years and a transfer of the ownership of property where an owner had died or it was being gifted to another person was not considered to be a purchase and therefore did not trigger compulsory registration.

This continued and over the years the Land Registry increased the number of transactions which triggered compulsory registration until in October 2003 under the Land Registration Act 2002 any transaction in land triggered compulsory registration.

This Act also caused a total reversal in relation to the importance of the Land or Charge Certificates.  On and after the 13^th October 2003 original certificates were no longer issued by the Land Registry and the registers of land and properties were stored electronically only. Evidence of a title is now issued by means of a copy of the electronic register which can be obtained by anyone on application to the Land Registry either by post or online. The land register is a public register and therefore open for inspection by anyone.

You may be concerned that because of this it could lead to fraud enabling a person not being the owner of the property to pretend to be the owner to sell or take a loan on the property. You can protect yourself by asking your conveyancer to register a restriction on the property register under which a qualified conveyancer would be required to provide a certificate that he or she is satisfied the person who signed the document submitted for registration as the seller or transferor is the same person as the owner shown on the register.  This means that the conveyancer giving the certificate would require the seller to provide adequate ID before he or she signed it.

Land or Charge certificates which were issued in the past are obsolete and if you are paying to have the certificates stored you are wasting your money.

The deeds and documents for properties which are still unregistered are as important as ever. The loss or destruction of these deeds and documents will incur problems and high cost in making application to the Land Registry for the title to be registered and there is no guarantee that the Land Registry will grant an absolute or good leasehold title which would be required to be able to sell the property. In most cases where original deeds and documents have been lost the Land Registry grants only possessory title and further expense would be incurred in paying for an indemnity policy.

If you have a bundle of title deeds and you would like them to be registered at the Land Registry or you would like a restriction place on your property register to reduce fraud or if you have any other queries regarding this article please contact one of our property experts.

For the last eighteen months first time buyers have been able to purchase properties of up to £250,000 without paying stamp duty land tax at 1% of the purchase price.

In the Autumn Budget review the government has indicated the stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers “has been ineffective in increasing the number of first time buyers entering the market”. Therefore this measure will end, as planned, on 24 March 2012.

This means that if you are a first time buyer, should you complete the purchase of a property after the 24th March 2012 and the purchase price is more than £125,000 (or £150,000 in areas designated as disadvantaged), even though you exchanged contracts prior to that date, you will have to pay stamp duty land tax based on 1% of the purchase price.

This also applies to new properties in the course of construction where you may already have paid a reservation fee and/or a deposit where the property is not scheduled for legal completion until after the 24th March 2012. If this applies to you try to persuade the developer to complete before the existing relief reverts back to normal.

Should you have any queries please contact our property experts.

When you buy a property with one or more other people you have to make a decision on how you will own the property. It will be either as joint tenants or tenants in common.

Ignore the reference to tenants. It bears no relation to the term tenants who rent a property.

Should you decide to hold the property as joint tenants this means that the ultimate survivor of the owners will become the sole owner of the whole of the property even though one or more of the owners indicates otherwise in a will. Wishes in the will relating to the property will be overridden by a joint tenancy.

Holding the property as tenants in common means that you and the other owners will own the property in either equal or unequal shares. Each of the owners’ shares in the property will upon their individual deaths go to whoever is entitled to that person’s estate under their will or the rules of intestacy where they do not make a will.

Most people in their first marriage or civil partnership who have contributed equally to the purchase price of a property choose joint tenants and if either of them die the survivor will become the sole owner without any document having to be drawn up but you do not have to be married or a civil partner to own a property jointly with someone else. However, should the relationship break down any one of the owners can give a legal notice to the other to sever the joint tenancy. If this is done, unless there is any compelling evidence to the contrary, it will be difficult to argue that the owners hold the equity in the property in anything other than equal shares.

No one likes to start off in a relationship thinking the worse but you have to be realistic. You may be buying a property and living with someone else for the first time. Living together as partners is totally different than being away together for two weeks in the sun.

Living away from your parents for the first time may mean you are having to pay mortgage, council tax, water rates, gas, electric and other utility bills as well as feeding yourself.  These all mount up and you may not have the same amount of money to spend on going out enjoying yourself. This can cause friction between partners and if the partnership then deteriorates each of the partners may blame each other for any subsequent breakup.

Should the problems with the relationship not be resolved one of the parties may want to realise their interest in the property. This can only be resolved by one of the parties paying the other for their interest in the property or if this is not possible because neither party can afford to do so or able to pay the mortgage alone, the only solution may be for the property to be sold and after the repayment of the mortgage and the costs involved in the sale the balance will then be divided equally between the owners or if the property is in negative equity contribute to the balance to fully pay off the mortgage.

It is at this point should there be equity in the property that one of the parties may claim they should be entitled to more of the proceeds of sale than the other as they may argue they have paid more towards the purchase of the property or the mortgage or the outgoings. This is not usually an argument that in itself will justify one partner being entitled to receive more than the other. The circumstances as a whole will be taken into account and the reason the property was purchased jointly. If any one of the joint owners refuses to agree to a transfer of the property or to sell the property any of the others owners can apply for a court order to determine the share each person is entitled to and if necessary make an order for the property to be sold. However, this may not be possible if there are children of the relationship living at the property. Try to avoid court proceedings at all cost.

Is there a solution? Yes. When the property is being purchased ask your conveyancer to draw up a separate document to identify if one of you is making more of a contribution than the other towards the deposit or mortgage payments and what will happen should the relationship break down. This may initially cost you about £150-£200 plus VAT but this would be a cheap price to pay as the cost of arguing backwards and forwards when there may be bitterness between the joint owners and you may be emotionally vulnerable and distressed can run into several hundreds of pounds and even more if any court proceedings are instigated.

This is not meant to be doom and gloom on relationships but please think carefully what can happen in the long term and decide on your agreement whilst you are still friends.

Another matter you need to consider when owing a property jointly as tenants in common is making a will by which you can indicate who you wish to receive your share of the property when you die and should your circumstances change it is far easier to change a will than become involved in a protracted argument

Take time to decide which the best option for you is. Here at Morecrofts our experienced property and private client teams will be happy to provide you with any information you need to help you reach a decision.

The good news is that the title is going to retain its online presence so we’ll still be able to get our daily fix of Merseyside news and sport by logging on to the website. The weekly publication is currently being designed under the working title, “The Liverpool Post” although nothing has been confirmed yet but Trinity Mirror have said that they will continue to produce the Liverpool Echo on a daily basis which is good news for those who like to get ink on their fingers!

Personally, I tend to read my news online on the way to work so it’s not going to have a massive impact on me, but my computer illiterate dad (who can’t even text) is going to be gutted and I imagine many others will be too. Thanks for the stories Liverpool Daily Post and commiserations to those who have been made redundant.

Laura McDonald

Commercial leases are in the main governed by the provisions of Part II of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1954 as amended over the years.

Commercial leases can be written or verbal although we strongly advise to have the lease in writing to save arguments at a later date as to the respective responsibilities of the landlord and the tenant. The cost of arguing at a later date when the relationship between a landlord and tenant has turned sour is substantially more than the cost of having a solicitor act for you as landlord or tenant when the lease is entered into.

The lease can be for a shop, office or industrial unit. Provided the property is used or is to be used for commercial purpose including a trade, business or profession, this act will apply to the lease.

If the lease has not been made in writing, after a year in occupation the lease will become protected by the act. This means that should the landlord wish to terminate the tenancy he will have to serve the tenant with a notice under section 25 of the Act. The notice has to give a termination date of at least six months and indicate whether the landlord will agree to grant the tenant a new lease on similar terms and the notice should suggest the term of the new lease and the proposed rent. Should the landlord and tenant not be able to reach agreement on the terms of the new lease the tenant can make an application to the court for the court to decide the terms that will apply.

If the landlord does not wish to renew the lease he must give one or more of the seven grounds specified in the act. The grounds are (a) the tenant has not complied with repairing obligations (b) the tenant has persistently been late in paying the rent due under the lease (c) there have been other substantial breaches of the tenant’s covenant (d) the landlord is able to provided or procure for the tenant suitable alternative business accommodation (e) if the lease granted is a sub-tenancy of part of a building and the landlord would be able to obtain a substantially higher rent for the property as a whole (f) if the landlord wishes to demolish or redevelop the property and it would not be possible without obtaining possession of the leased premises and (g) the landlord wishes to occupy the premises for his own business or as his own residence. Rules apply for each of the grounds depending on the particular circumstances.

Exactly the same rules apply when a written lease comes to the end of its term. The default position is that a written commercial lease will not automatically end on the date specified in the lease. A written notice has to be given by the landlord to the tenant as indicated above or the tenant can give three months written notice to the landlord to bring the lease to an end.

Should the landlord not wish the lease to have the protection of the Landlord & Tenant Act he, prior to the lease being completed, must serve a legal notice on the tenant stating that sections 24 to 28 of the Act will not apply and the tenant must sign a declaration to the effect that he has received and understood the notice. The lease must also specify that the statutory notice has been served on the tenant. If either of these has not been done there will be an argument whether the lease is protected or not.

As you can see from the above, the law and procedures in relation to commercial leases and tenancies can be complicated. If you would like more information then please give me a call on 0800 949 9123 or email me here.

Our staff and partners have all paid to dress down and we have also held a raffle to raise money for Children In Need. So far we’ve managed to raise £207.70 with more still to come from our branch offices !

Thank you to everyone who contributedÂ

 The Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Barts NHS Turst v Verma determines the correct approach to be taken in relation to protected pay for part-time NHS practitioners moving into a temporary full-time position.

The Claimant was a doctor who specialised in oral and maxillo-facial surgery. She had a sessional post working two sessions (7 hours) a week. The Claimant then took a full-time House Officer position, as approved training, in order to qualify for an appointment as a consultant in her field of expertise. The full-time position was for 40 hours per week.

The NHS Terms and Conditions of Service provide for pay protection in these circumstances. Where a practitioner takes an appointment in a lower grade, which is recognised as being for the purpose of obtaining approved training, the practitioner shall, while in the lower grade, continue to be paid on the incremental point the practitioner had reached in their previous appointment. The terms and conditions do not, however, differentiate between full-time and part-time workers.

Whilst in her new position the Respondent Trust limited the protected pay for the Claimant’s sessional position at five sessions (17.5hours) a week, which was the maximum that the terms and conditions would allow. The Claimant brought a claim for unlawful deduction of wages, seeking protected pay at the notional full-time rate for her previous role, which would be 40 hours a week. The Employment Tribunal awarded the Claimant pay protection for five sessions (17.5 hours) a week. The Claimant appealed against this decision and the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) awarded her pay protection for the 40 hours she had sought. The EAT made this decision on the basis that when a part-time practitioner moves to a full-time training post in a lower grade, they are entitled to protected pay at the full-time equivalent of their previous pay.

On the Respondent Trust’s Appeal, the Court of Appeal accepted that the NHS’s Terms and Conditions were difficult to interpret. However, the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Elias dissenting, restored the judgment of the Employment Tribunal. Lord Justice Rix held that the ‘natural, rational and purposive interpretation’ of the provisions relating to protected pay, protect ‘the practitioner in a previous role which he or she earned at the rate to which he or she was entitled to…and [does] not [extend] their pay to a figure possibly far in excess of any figure previously earned. It is simple counter-intuitive to suppose that the less a part-time practitioner worked in a previous post, the more he or she is “protected” in a training post.’

It is interesting to note that the Court of appeal felt that the payment protection only actually extended in this instance to the two sessions for which the Claimant was contracted. However, the Respondent Trust had already conceded that she was entitled to the equivalent of five sessions. If you find yourself in a similar postition then please email me here or call me on 0800 949 9123.