MSB’s Social Housing Highlight – December 2023

TRAINING

We delivered 13 free online training sessions and were back-to-back with in person training events for clients and many others. Andy Moore also hosted an interactive group session at the CIH Conference with Midland Heart discussing the ASB Action Plan.

LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS

There have some big legislative developments in 2023, including the Renters Reform Bill and Social Housing (Regulation) Act 2023. We have made sure to help navigate social housing providers through these changes. Our December monthly webinar was a roundup of all the major housing updates in 2023.

ARTICLES

We have shared weekly articles and monthly newsletters, keeping you updated with changes in legislation, case law updates and top tips for dealing with housing law issues.

EXPANSION

Our Social Housing Compliance and Building Safety team have moved from Widnes to the Manchester office in Spinningfields! We are so excited to be branching our team across the offices. We welcomed a new solicitor, 5 paralegals and a legal assistant to our team and they have been amazing additions.

We welcomed back Tom Knox, an esteemed consultant solicitor, as a returning contributor to our MSB Social Housing & Regeneration legal team. In addition to reaping the benefits of Tom’s wider consultancy services, he will be actively involved in pushing forward MSB’s Governance and Regulation offering which we are extremely excited about.

CLIENTS

We have welcomed several new clients in 2023, working with even more registered providers of social housing, whilst also continuing to expand our Private Landlord work.

CHARITY

Always looking for ways to support the causes we care about; this year we raised money for the Anthony Walker Foundation in the Business Fives football tournament. We also took part in the dragon dancing at Chinese New Year and Alder Hey’s Dragon Boat race for their Surgical Neonatal Appeal. We hosted many bake sales to fundraise for charities such as Claire’s Hospice, Mandela 8. We took part in the NSPCC Childhood Day mile walk and raised for local charities such as Inner Guru and James’ Place for International Men’s Day. We look forward to continuing our commitment to the community next year.

CELEBRATIONS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

There have been multiple promotions in the team this year! Andrew Fairman was invited to be a Partner and Amy Tagoe was made Senior Associate. Julia Michalczyk qualified as a Solicitor and Aishath Ahmed and Jessica Masih were both successful in obtaining Training Contracts at MSB. A big well done to them all!

It has also been an award-winning year for MSB Social Housing! We won the Business Community Impact Award at the Community Impact Awards; the Outstanding Team Award for Dispute Resolution and Litigation at the Liverpool Law Society Legal Awards and Louise Murphy won the Inspirational Leader of the Year award at the Housing Heroes ‘Women in Housing’ Awards! Our team and many individuals were shortlisted and nominated for other awards, and we are so proud to have been part of these wonderful achievements.

We were recognised again in Legal 500 with some fantastic client reviews and listed in the Times Top Law Firms for 2024.

We celebrated many events in the firm through fundraising and lots of good food including International Women’s Day, Pride, Black History Month, South Asian Heritage Month, International Men’s Day, Diwali and Know Your Numbers Week.

EVENTS

We attended the CIH Conference and hosted our “Social Housing & Sangria” event at Evuna which had an amazing turnout. We also attended the LAG Housing Conference in London, as well as a number of law fairs across different schools and universities along with several pro-Manchester and pro-Liverpool events. MSB also sponsored the Women in Property North West Christmas event and hosted the Women in Social Housing Christmas Networking Events which was organised by Amy Tagoe. Both events were a great success!

What is in store for 2024?

We will be continuing to keep you updated with weekly articles on changes in legislation, case law updates and helpful tips, along with our free monthly webinars. If you would like to book your place, please contact dominiqueowens@msbsolicitors.co.uk.

As always, the team is also available for bespoke training, so please do get in touch if you would like to find out more.

Please note: Our offices will be closed from 5pm on 22^nd December 2023 until 9am on 2^nd January 2024. We will be available to deal with arrests during this time. Please use our out of hours contact number of 07516508387.

Thank you.