Paris Smith sponsor another successful SPA annual conference
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Paris Smith sponsor another successful SPA annual conference
A big thank you to all who joined our Property Litigation and Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency teams at the annual CPD event on 5 April at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton. We were delighted to once again sponsor this event. With all tickets sold out the event raised £1398.06 towards the SPA’s charity for the year, the Society of St James.
Paul Rathbone from Radius Consulting started the event talking us through s.18 valuations and how these can benefit both landlords and tenants when negotiating dilapidations at the end of a lease term. His case studies were very impressive and certainly a great example of how Paul has been able to significantly increase/reduce dilaps claims over the years. I am sure we will all be taking a look at his app “dilapps” that is due to be launched soon.
Mike Pavitt, Head of Corporate Restructuring and Insolvency at Paris Smith and R3 Southern Chair followed with a talk on Company Voluntary Arrangements joined by Andrew Watling, Insolvency Practitioner from Quantuma. The duo talked us through the benefits of entering into a CVA and how it is not all doom and gloom for landlords if they are asked to reduce their rents “temporarily”. With so many popular high street names such as House of Fraser and Homebase entering in to CVAs and many other retailers such as the Arcadia group looking to follow, they provided a useful insight into how CVAs operate and the role of insolvency practitioners.
Welcoming everyone back after the coffee break, Fiona Gray Project Director of Buckland Developments gave us a quick non-stop tour of the innovative beast of a project that is this garden village near Fareham. One can barely grasp the logistics involved over many years in order to get such a development off the ground and with works now about to start what a time to hear from Fiona about not only on what is to come but also what challenges they have faced particularly with planning to keep this project moving forward. We certainly cannot wait to see how the development progresses over the next 10 years.
Going out with a bang, the final speakers were Field Court Chambers putting on a mock tribunal trial of an adverse possession case. Max Thorowgood, Barrister and sitting Judge at the First Tier Tribunal presided over this light-hearted hearing where, after asking the audience for their opinion, he passed judgment in the Applicants’ favour granting them the right to possess the land that was within the neighbour’s title plan. A big thank you goes to Emma Cory-Wright and Alex Cooper from Paris Smith for being the witnesses and Joshua Swirsky and Alexander Campbell the experienced advocates from Field Court who cross examined.