News In Focus
27 August 2010
Lawyers can help economic growth, says property chief
Lawyers have a part to play in boosting the economic growth necessary to bring the country out of recession, according to the CEO of the British Property Federation (BPF).
Chief executive officer Liz Peace CBE was addressing the inaugural event of CRELA, a newly formed real estate forum for lawyers involved in non-contentious commercial real estate. The London event was attended by approximately 130 real estate lawyers from across the UK.
Ms Peace said that key to the short and long term progress of investment and recovery were a whole raft of different regeneration initiatives and schemes for novel financing, such as tax increment finance. As the individuals tasked with providing technical and drafting expertise for such initiatives, the legal profession as a whole needed to play its part by showing what it could do to assist the growth needed.
To that end Ms Peace called on lawyers "to simplify leases and speed up and modernise procedures wherever possible, even if that in itself ultimately changes the nature of their roles".
She also focused on recent “green” legislation such as the drive for zero carbon homes and the “continual fixation with Energy Performance Certificates”. The BPF hopes that the initiative for carbon reduction will drive landlords and tenants to work together to build more harmonious “green” buildings or, as Ms Peace put it, “live with it and love it”. In her mind however the jury was still out on how this was likely to be delivered under the coalition Government.
Chairman of CRELA Robert Highmore commented: “I am delighted that the evening was such a successful event, which was no doubt due to Liz’s excellent speech which clearly went down well and is representative of the high level of speakers and content which members of CRELA will enjoy.”