Hugh is an associate solicitor in the Commercial Property Team.
Hugh works closely with clients on issues including commercial leases, lease renewals, rent reviews and commercial and housing development sales and is often involved in complicated conditional contract and overage negotiations.
Hugh qualified as a solicitor in 1981 and joined Machins in 1999. He has a significant and loyal client base acting for clients on a wide range of commercial property issues regionally and nationally with particular expertise in farm and agricultural land.
It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Robert Bedford, a former partner of Machins Solicitors LLP, who passed away on Saturday, 15th February. Robert joined Machins in 1993 from Penman Johnson, a firm based in Watford. During his time with us, he specialised in employment and personal injury law, working on
A pub owner has won an appeal against planning permission for a large development that would almost entirely block out light from her premises. The court heard that developers had been granted permission to demolish a single storey building and replace it with a three storey block comprising of commercial premises on the first two
The government is introducing new measures to allow more offices and other commercial buildings to be converted into homes. Temporary permitted development rights were introduced in 2013. They made it possible to convert offices into homes without having to apply for planning permission. It led to 4,000 conversions being given the go-ahead between April 2014
The government wants to speed up the planning system and make it easier for developers to build more houses. The proposals centre on ‘section 106’ agreements, which oblige developers to meet certain conditions before planning permission is granted. These conditions often involve issues such as building new roads for improved access and providing an affordable
The government is urging private companies to follow the example of the public sector and start providing employees with loans to cover deposits on rented accommodation. It’s part of a push to provide a bigger and better private rented sector. In February, all government departments agreed to offer deposit loans to staff wanting to take
Buy to let investors could save a total of £50m a year because of the stamp duty reforms, if property purchases continue at the current level. The reforms, announced by Chancellor George Osborne in the Autumn Statement, swept away the much criticised ‘slab tax’ approach to stamp duty and replaced it with a more progressive
The tenant had a 25-year lease and wanted to activate the break clause. The clause stated that any notice exercising the right to break “must be expressed” as being given under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 s.24(2). The tenant complied with all aspects of the clause including serving notice within the appropriate time period