Several interesting questions were raised in relation to the Good Harvest case (Good Harvest Partnership LLP v Centaur Services Ltd [2010] EWHC 330 (Ch)) at this lunchtime’s Property PSL online seminar – “The 1995 Act – a Practical Insight”:

1. In the light of Good Harvest, could a tenant, instead of assigning, underlet the property, with its guarantor guaranteeing the under-lease? Subsequently, the landlord accepts a surrender of the head-lease from the tenant, thereby releasing the tenant.

The Mortgage Repossessions (Protection of Tenants etc) Act 2010 received Royal Assent on 8 April 2010. The Act will commence upon a date to be determined by order made by the Secretary of State. The Act is aimed at protecting residential tenants of repossessed properties where the landlord had let the property to the tenant without having obtained the lender’s consent to the letting. In such circumstances, the tenant is vulnerable to immediate eviction. This Act allows the district judge to delay repossession of the property for up to two months, to give the tenant time to relocate.

The April 2010 edition of the Commercial Property Information Update is published today on this website.

CIL commences on April 6. Accordingly, The Community Infrastructure Levy Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/948) have now been published.

CRC commences on April 1. Accordingly, The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme Order 2010 (SI 2010/768) has now been published.

The Budget 2010 included two announcements relating to SDLT rates – one an immediate change, and one for the future.

The one for the future is the announced new 5% charge to SDLT on residential property purchases where the consideration exceeds £1m. This applies where the effective date of the transaction is on or after 6 April 2011. Attempts to structure property ownership before then in manner that will avoid SDLT will have to take account of the new DOTAS regulations extending the Tax Avoidance Disclosure Regime to require the disclosure of certain Stamp Duty Land Tax schemes relating to residential property with a value of at least £1 million.

The immediate SDLT rate change applies for purchases of residential property for a consideration of up to £250,000. Relief for “first time buyers” is available where the effective date of the transaction is on or after 25 March 2010. The relief runs for two years. Today’s completions can therefore benefit from this relief – enter relief code 28 into box 9 of the SDLT return.

There are, of course, conditions to be satisfied. To claim relief, the taxpayer must be a person who intends to occupy the property as his or her main residence. This therefore excludes purchases by corporate bodies, partnerships or trustees. The purchaser must not, either alone or with others, have previously acquired a major interest in land which includes residential property anywhere in the world. If there are joint buyers, all of the buyers must qualify as first time buyers. The wording of these conditions appears not to include acquisitions by lenders (i.e. corporate bodies) in cases of Islamic finance. However, the HMRC Revenue notes state that Alternative Finance Relief is able to be claimed alongside the new first time buyer's relief, the result of which should be that SDLT payable on a transaction involving alternative finance will be in line with that which would be payable if a property was purchased using a conventional mortgage product.

The decision in North Eastern Properties Ltd v Coleman & Anor [2010] EWCA Civ 277 displays a fascinating bending of contractual terms by the Court of Appeal to get around the unfortunate rigidity of section 2 Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 and to prevent a contract from being rendered void.

Last week saw another victory for local residents against developers in the Battle of the Village Greens. In R (on the application of Lewis) v Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council [2010] UKSC 11, the Supreme Court unanimously held that alleged "deference" by dog-walking, bird-watching local residents to the playing of golf on disputed land, had not prevented the residents' use of the disputed land from amounting to an “as of right” use. Lord Walker said: “It is not as if the residents took to their heels and vacated the land whenever they saw a golfer. They simply acted … with courtesy and common sense. But courteous and sensible though they were (with occasional exceptions) the fact remains that they were regularly, in large numbers, crossing the fairways as well as walking on the rough... A reasonably alert owner of the land could not have failed to recognise that this user was the assertion of a right and would mature into an established right unless the owner took action to stop it.” Hence, the land was registrable as a village green.

Lord Walker referred to the “village green industry”. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is aware of the use of village green applications. At the end of last year, Defra provided details of a final report on research conducted into the registration of new town or village greens. The research, which was conducted by the Countryside and Community Research Institute, found that nearly half of applications for registrations of greens were linked to prospective development. As a result of this research, Defra states that it proposes consulting in the Spring of 2010 on whether there is a need for reform of the registration system, and the options for reform that exist. We might therefore anticipate changes to the law in the near future.

New model forms of shared ownership leases have been published on the website of the Homes and Communities Agency. From April 6, 2010, all shared ownership leases used for homes funded by the HCA have to conform with the revised form. See - Model leases for housing association use from April 2010.

In a consultation paper entitled Making better use of Energy Performance Certificates and data the Department for Communities and Local Government is proposing making a much wider use of the rules relating to Energy Performance Certificates and Display Energy Certificates, including requiring EPCs for houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) when rooms in the buildings are rented out, requiring EPCs for short-term holiday lets, requiring property adverts to show EPC ratings, extending the use of DECs to commercial buildings and in general, making better use of the energy performance data contained in the EPC. The consultation runs until 25 May 2010.