Right to Rent and Brexit
Brexit and immigration are significant with the UK’s departure from the EU. Free movement between the UK and the European Union came to an end on 31 December 2020.
From 1 January 2021, the UK implemented a points-based immigration system that treats EU and non-EU citizens equally, prioritising individuals’ skills and talent over where a person comes from.
This means from 1 January 2021, if someone intent on travelling to the and who does not live in the UK or has rights under the Withdrawal Agreement, as an EU, EEA or swiss citizen, they will need to meet specific requirements in order to study or work in the UK.
Relevant checks, including UK criminality checks will have to be undertaken. A person can continue to visit the UK for up to 6 months without applying for a visa and may participate in a wide range of activities, including tourism, visiting family and friends, short term study and business-related activities, such as events and conferences.
How important is Your Brand and Goodwill?
“Imitation is the best form of flattery” or so they say. When setting up a business or even if the business is established, it’s easy to get excited about a new idea or something innovative, so much so that there is a temptation to share it with the world before the idea is launched.
Remember those school days when copying someone’s work was frowned upon? Or lifting text word for word at University was an act that could end a student’s career? Plagiarism, copying ideas, using similar branding colours or logos, taking advantage of a director’s goodwill and stealing a database of clients or even copying and pasting text from a competitor’s website, happens every day in business but they are all unethical ways of trying to get ahead!
So how important is your Brand and Goodwill to your business? The reply should be “Extremely”
So how do you protect your Brand and Goodwill?
Lets start with the Goodwill element, the client loyalty you have built up over years. You can’t force the customer to stay loyal, yet they do for many reasons- exceptional customer service, quality of the product, price, dedicated staff - all this and more adds value to your business and allows you to build up a valuable clientele. But how do you protect your database? We recently published an article by Mint Insurance which focuses on Cyber Security. What does this have to do with your database? Your data has value and therefore for a member of staff hoping to leave and set up in competition, it’s useful to know how that data is protected, who has access to it and if it’s being “downloaded”. The details of landlords are precious to any agent, so think carefully about passwords protocols and security. Check your employment contracts in relation to data protection and theft of the database. Employers place restrictions on their employees for a reason.
Prepare for Spring 2021
Our free Webinar on 3rd February 2021 will focus on some key changes for Letting Agents and Landlords, as well as some updates in relation to electrical safety, CMP and EPCs.
Register online at - guildofletting.com
Professional Risk Associated with Property Professionals
Mint Insurance Brokers Ltd operate in the London and Lloyd’s market specialising in servicing the insurance needs of property professionals. The following paper provides an insight to the professional risks associated with UK property professionals and how the current UK professional indemnity insurance (PI) market is responding.
The last few years have seen some of the most challenging trading conditions for UK property professionals. With continued uncertainty and turbulent times ahead, we discuss the ever-evolving risks faced by property professionals and how to best anticipate and mitigate risk going forward.
INCREASED CLAIMS FREQUENCY
We know from previous experience that during an economic downturn claims frequency increases. With the introduction of new legislation and looming regulation of property agents (RoPA) the consumer will enjoy added protection and therefore more rights to pursue property professionals.
Charlie Bending, partner at DAC Beachcroft LLP, who specialises in defending claims against property professionals and their insurers acknowledged saying that, “In addition to lender claims against valuers, particularly by short term lenders, we do anticipate claims by aggrieved landlords against property managers increasing over the next 6-24 months; these are likely to flow from rental default caused by anything from a failure by the property manager to take steps on behalf of the landlord to address maintenance issues to (more likely) tenants being unable to pay rent / refusing to pay rent due to their adverse financial situation.
Having protection from eviction (residential) or protection from forfeiture (business) due to the Coronavirus Act 2020 will only increase landlords’ losses, potentially leading to claims that the property manager failed to vet tenants appropriately. Once the protection ends, property managers will also need to have the capacity to act swiftly in order to kick-start the process; taking care to adhere to time limits and prescribed steps to avoid making a potential bad situation worse.”