From 1 October the following changes take effect:-

• Agency Workers Regulations

Temporary workers employed through an agency will have the same rights to pay and conditions as permanent staff after 12 weeks.

• Retirement Age

The mandatory retirement age of 65 is abolished and employers will not be able to dismiss staff on the ground of age alone.

• Minimum Wage

This rises for staff aged 21 or over to £6.08 per hour;  for 18 to 20 year olds it is up to £4.98 and for 16 to 17 year olds £3.68

Please contact Francis Whitehead if you want any further information or have any queries

I am delighted to inform you that Hopley Pierce & Bird, building on its already enviable reputation in the conveyancing marketplace, has secured membership of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme (CQS) – the mark of excellence for the home buying process.  I believe that Hopley Pierce & Bird is currently the only firm in Wrexham to have attained CQS status.

CQS status was awarded following rigorous assessment by the Law Society and by a commitment from Hopley Pierce & Bird to on-going training, random audits and annual reviews.  It is a recognition of the high standards that Hopley Pierce & Bird provide to our residential property clients, and a signal to future home buyers of the excellent service level we provide at what is often a stressful time.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders, the Building Societies’ Association, the Land Registry and the Legal Ombudsman all support the scheme.

Clients of Hopley Pierce & Bird will be confident in the knowledge that they will receive the best available, reliable and efficient service as recognised by the CQS standard.

If you are buying or selling and require any further information please do not hesitate to contact us.

New Regulations, which are to be brought into force on 1^st October 2001, are changing the way in which temporary or agency staff are to be treated in the work place. It has long been the norm to employ agency workers, being cheaper, than permanent staff. Agency staff  will, from the implementation of the Regulations, be  treated as if recruited directly by the employer, subject to completing a  qualifying period of 12 weeks. They will have to be given the same basic working conditions as permanent staff, ie  pay, holidays etc. After the qualifying period  they should be treated no less favourably than permanent employees…..but when it comes to enforcing these new rights, will they be less well protected. If you think that you may be affected by the changes, please contact us for advice.

We are pleased to confirm that Kate Jones from this office completed the Ladies Midnight Walk on Saturday 25th June 2011 raising money for Nightingale House Hospice.  Well done Kate!

You may have recently read a short article in the Wrexham Leader that dementia cases in North East Wales are set to increase by 35 per cent in the next ten years.  The Alzheimer’s Society is urging people to arrange a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) to enable someone to act on their behalf in financial affairs.

The reason for this is that it can be put in place now while there is the necessary mental capacity to complete the LPA.  Then there is the re-assurance that should dementia strike the LPA can be used so that decisions can be made for people who cannot make them for themselves.

As the article states if the LPA is not in place when a person loses capacity then there are much more serious implications.   We are experienced in dealing with clients and families requiring LPAs so if you are considering one or wish to discuss one for a member of your family please telephone Peter Ridgway in confidence on 01978-315100 and he will be pleased to advise you.

Employers are gearing up for the phasing out of the default retirement age…letters are being sent to employees who are at or over the age of 65, but you can request not to be retired. To find out more, please contact Francis Whitehead on 01978 315100

Squatters’ rights….and the Land Registration Act 2002…….is your land safe?

A person who occupies land belonging to someone else without permission is a trespasser. However, a trespasser can become the lawful owner of land - he is often said to have acquired ‘squatter’s rights’.

If a trespasser has ‘physical possession’ of land and, at the same time, demonstrates that he ‘intends to possess’ the land to the exclusion of everyone else, even the true owner, he will be in ‘adverse possession’.

If a trespasser has adverse possession of unregistered land and the owner fails to take eviction proceedings before the end of, normally, 12 years (there are exceptions) from the time when the trespasser first occupied it, the true owner will lose his land and the trespasser could apply for registration of it.

A trespasser who can show a period of 12 years’ adverse possession of registered land which ended before 13^th October 2003 but after the land was registered is entitled to be substituted for the registered owner. It doesn’t matter that the land has not been registered land for the whole 12 year period. So, if for example, a trespasser occupied unregistered land on the 8^th January 1990, which the owner registered on 10^th October 2001, the trespasser may claim entitlement to the registered land on 8^th January 2002. However, the Land Registration Act 2002 made significant changes to adverse possession of registered land. Unless a squatter’s rights over registered land have fully accrued before 13^th October 2003, they do not continue to accrue, and the trespasser must look to the Act for help.

Under the Act, what amounts to ‘adverse possession’ still applies; one still has to show ‘factual possession’ and an ‘intention to possess’ the land. But it is only a successful application under the Act which gives title to registered land. An application can be made where a person in adverse possession relies on 10 years’ adverse possession ending on or after 13^th October 2003. So, if a person started occupying registered land, say, on 20 January 1999, he could today only make an application under the Act.

Upon receipt of an application under the Act, Land Registry sends a notice to the existing registered owner and any mortgage lender, if there is one. If no counter-notice is sent by the owner or lender, the applicant will become the registered owner, free of any existing mortgage.

A counter-notice, however, can require the applicant to satisfy any one of three conditions before he is entitled to become the new owner. He can succeed if he can demonstrate that the owner of the land, in some way, allowed him to believe mistakenly the land was his, and as a consequence of that belief, he spent money building on it, or altering it in some way. If it is not too unjust to the owner, the applicant will be registered; otherwise, an alternative remedy would have to be given.

Secondly, an applicant can succeed if he can show ‘some other reason why he should be registered as owner’. For example, the applicant may have purchased the land from his neighbour without completing the legal documents, which only comes to light several years later.

Finally, if an applicant can show that there has been a ‘reasonable mistake as to the boundary’, he can succeed on this ground. The applicant has to show that the land he is claiming is adjacent to land he already owns and which for the last 10 years he (or any predecessors to him) reasonably believed belonged to him. The land being claimed must also have been registered for more than one year before the application.

The owner may simply object to the application, without requiring the applicant to satisfy one of the conditions. It might be disputed, for example, that the trespasser has been in adverse possession. If an objection is received, the objection will have to be disposed of if it is not groundless by agreement between the parties, or the adjudicator to HM Land Registry.

If an application is rejected by Land Registry because, for instance, the applicant does not satisfy one of the conditions, the applicant has a right to make another application after two years if he has not been evicted and he is still occupying the land, subject to some exceptions. Upon a new application, he will be registered as the new owner.

If an applicant is successful under the Act, he takes the land free of any mortgage affecting the land unless the application succeeded as a result of satisfying one of the three conditions. In these circumstances, the applicant is subject to any mortgage affecting the land, but he now has the right to have the mortgage apportioned between the land he has acquired and the remainder, if there is any, based on their respective values.

What about a purchaser? Is a purchaser affected by a squatter’s rights…?

A person buying unregistered land should check it for any obvious signs of a squatter. From 13 October 2006, a purchaser will only take the land subject to a squatter’s rights if the squatter is in actual occupation of the land or, if the squatter is not in occupation, the purchaser knows about the squatter, i.e., he has been told about the squatter, or would have known about the squatter if appropriate enquiries had been made or an inspection of the land conducted.

A trespasser entitled to registered land, say, since 10 December 1999, could apply to Land Registry for it to be registered in his name. If he has not done this, a purchaser acquiring the land before 13 October 2006 will take it subject to the squatter’s rights. However, a purchaser acquiring the land after 12 October 2006 will take the land subject to the squatter’s rights only if the trespasser is in actual occupation of the land except where the purchaser does not actually know about the trespasser’s rights and occupation of the land by the trespasser would not have been obvious on a reasonably careful inspection of the land at the time of the purchase. Furthermore, a purchaser will not be bound by the rights of a squatter if, upon enquiry, the squatter failed to reveal them to the purchaser.

Under the Act a trespasser (not being a trespasser with already accrued rights before 13 October 2003) does not acquire an entitlement to be registered as the new owner. A trespasser can only be registered as the owner because either no objection has been lodged or an objection has been disposed of in the applicant’s favour; or one (or more) of the three conditions has been satisfied.

It is now more difficult to become the owner of registered land by adverse possession after 2003. For this reason, anyone owning unregistered land should voluntarily register it now, to stop a trespasser from continuing to accrue rights. For instance, if a trespasser has occupied unregistered land, say, for 5 years before it is first registered on 2^nd February 2011, he will need to bring himself within the provisions of the Act if he is going to succeed in becoming the registered owner.

It is also crucial that the address for the registered owner on the register is kept up to date, so that if a notice of an application by a trespasser is sent by Land Registry, it will reach the owner. If an owner does not object to an application or serve a counter-notice within 65 business days, the trespasser will be registered as the new owner.

Written by:  Francis Whitehead, B.A. (Hons), Dip. LRQ, Solicitor, Consultant

Hopley Pierce & Bird Solicitors

5 King Street

Wrexham

LL11 1HF

Copyright. All rights reserved. No responsibility for any loss brought about by reason of a person acting or not acting on the material in this article is accepted by the writer. Any views or opinions are not expressed to be the views or opinions of Land Registry or Hopley Pierce & Bird and it is the writer’s own interpretation of the law.

We are delighted to announce that on 30^th September 2010 the firm of Whitehead Woodward & Co was incorporated into Hopley Pierce & Bird.  In addition, Francis Whitehead, the firm’s principal, joined us as a full time Consultant.   Francis will continue to act for all his existing clients.

Francis strengthens the firm’s expertise in all property matters; domestic, commercial, freehold and leasehold.  Francis trained as a solicitor in Manchester, qualified in 1993, and is the only solicitor in

to have gained the prestigious Diploma in Land Registry Law & Practice.

Francis will also bring to the firm his knowledge and experience in Employment Law which will benefit both employer and employee clients represented by Hopley Pierce & Bird.

Arrival of Francis Whitehead

The new coalition government of Lib Dems and Conservatives are expected to include in the awaited Emergency Budget confirmation that the stamp duty land tax holiday in respect of properties up to £250,000.00 granted  to first time buyers by the Labour administration until the 25^th March 2012 is to be extended indefinitely.

Also in accordance with their manifestos it is expected that HIPs will be abolished but Energy Performance Certificates (EPCS) retained.

We will have to wait and see.

Hopley Pierce & Bird attended the second Home Buyer’s Fair held at Glyndwr University.  The fair is designed to bring together all the expertise required by a potential buyer in one place then they can obtain useful information about the process.  The Partners and Staff were on hand to offer advice and assistance to people about the legal process involved in buying a house.  It appeared that many people don’t know where to start and we were able to point them in the right direction.  Hopley Pierce & Bird do offer a free half hour and if you wish to discuss a potential purchase please telephone our reception to book an appointment.