On Monday 10th October 2016, the Association of Leasehold Enfranchisement Practitioners (ALEP) was proud to host its 19th conference at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), Portland Place, London.
With a delegate list of the leasehold enfranchisement sector’s top players, the conference attracted a host of ALEP members including barristers, managing agents, project managers, solicitors and valuers.
The conference – officially ALEP’s most successful to date – gave some of the sector’s leading practitioners a platform from which to deliver high quality and informative presentations to an audience of more than 300 professionals.
There were many highlights of the conference including Knight Frank’s Tom Bill delivering an enlightening and engaging presentation on the residential outlook for Prime Central London. Here, Tom examined the effects Brexit may have on the market and the impact politics has on prime London property.
Other standout moments from the conference included the breakout sessions, particularly Gary Murphy of Allsop and Mark Chick of Bishop & Sewell, who delivered an insight into how to value a Section 5 Notice. As a result of the outcome and debate sparked from this presentation, a sector working group is set to be formed to discuss the topic further.
Sebastian Verity and James Culley – both from Knight Frank – rounded off the presentations with their take on statistically assessing relativity, hedonic regression and relativity curves. This session was well received by delegates and, in fact, sparked the most post-conference debate.
Interactive voting was reintroduced at this conference, and proved very popular with delegates as it allowed them to get involved and share their opinions on questions posed by presenters.
When asked how the Brexit vote has affected delegates’ business, 23% stated negatively and 51% stated it was too early to tell.
Another statistic from the interactive voting highlighted 66% of the audience said there is a need for a statistical method of assessing relativity.
Indeed, 65% of delegates said ‘less clarity’ when asked if the Upper Tribunal’s Mundy decision provided more clarity on relativity, or made it harder to advise clients.
Furthermore, 81% of delegates agreed that relativity should vary according to location, e.g. a property in the North West of England should conform to a different ‘relativity curve’ than a property in Belgravia.
Alex Greenslade, ALEP’s Honorary Secretary, said: “We are delighted with the feedback delegates have provided us on the variety and content of this, our best-selling conference to date. Each breakout session was well attended and it was great to see lively debates sparking up between practitioners and their peers – which continued well into the evening. We’re looking forward to 2017 and our 20th conference and gala dinner to celebrate ALEP’s decade at the forefront of enfranchisement!”
The 20th conference and celebratory gala dinner will be held on 23rd March 2017 at RIBA. For more information please click here.
