Sheffield-based legal practice hlw is launching a series of initiatives aimed solely at new or fledgling businesses.

Sheffield’s first major 2010 office deal completes

January 2010 - Multidisciplinary consultancy Capita Symonds has taken 15,000sq ft over 2 floors on a 10 year lease at the flagship Velocity Village development in Sheffield. Both Capita Symonds and Velocity Developments represented themselves in the first major city centre deal of the year, with Sheffield-based hlw Commercial Lawyers acting as advisors to Velocity.

The updated hlw employment handbook provides a cost effective guide to dealing with the complex requirements of employment law and is backed with a dedicated telephone support line. The handbook is ideally suited to small and medium sized businesses who do not have in-house HR expertise. Each section of the handbook has been recently fully updated. In addition to make the handbook more "user friendly" we have also revised the formatting and layout.

Prospective tenants frequently ask why they should go to the trouble and expense of investigating their landlord's title to the property to be let. A recent case has graphically demonstrated the need to do so when the court decided that a 20 year lease was invalid because the landlord did not actually own the let premises.

The seller or landlord of nearly every building which is now offered for sale or to let is obliged to obtain an EPC for that building. However, not every seller/landlord is complying and therefore the Government is bringing in new regulations in 2010 which will place a legal obligation on any selling or letting agent to ensure that there is a valid EPC when the property is advertised. In addition the Government is encouraging "whistle blowing" on non compliant buildings through an anonymous e-mail reporting procedure.

The facts of a recent court case have graphically reinforced the law that intellectual property developed while employed belongs to the employer unless there is an agreement to the contrary.

Although a home owner had obtained planning permission for an extension to his property, the construction of the extension, and its existence once built, was capable of constituting an "annoyance" to neighbouring residents. As the residents had the benefit of a covenant on the title to their property that the homeowner should not do anything that may become a "nuisance or annoyance" to the other residents, they succeeded in having the work stopped.