Monthly Archive for June, 2007

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And they didn't leave a tip

By NL on 17/06/2007. 2 Comments

Who would have thought that restaurant reviews would turn out to be the vanguard of defamation law?

Recent results from the High Court in Belfast and the High Court of New South Wales in Oz suggest a disturbing trend.

In February, in Belfast, a jury found that a review of ‘Goodfellas Pizzeria’ that pointed out that the meat in a dish of squid was “a grey translucent colour”, the pate without flavour and the meal as a whole “very disappointing”, was defamatory, in the face of the defence of fair comment and justification. It appears that the finding of defamation covered opinion as well as factual statements. The pizzeria was … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

Waxed Moustaches

By NL on 13/06/2007. 0 Comments

I caught someone from the National Citizens Advice Bureau on BBC Breakfast this morning, commenting on a CAB report on the large number of people in private rented properties in bad condition who are promptly evicted if they complain or do anything about the disrepair.

Anecdotally, I’d certainly support this. We do hear from quite a few private tenants who have received notice or possession orders after raising repairs, or getting an inspection by the local authority environmental health. Often these people have been living in deadful conditions with only silence or worse from the landlord.

As the CAB spokeswoman pointed out, there is little or nothing to stop this … Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, Disrepair, Housing law - All and Possession. Tags: , , , , , .

Housing Duty – stating the obvious

By NL on 12/06/2007. 0 Comments

For once, Birmingham was on the winning side of an entirely predictable Court of Appeal judgment on homelessness law. Omar -v- Birmingham City Council 2007. (7 June 2007. Times Report. Not yet freely available elsewhere)

Birmingham had discharged duty to the appellant after he refused an offer of permanent accommodation, which was found to be suitable on review. Omar appealed on the basis that the offer letter had stated that it was ‘a final offer’ and that this did not comply with the requirements of s.193(7) Housing Act 1996, which states

(7) The local housing authority shall also cease to be subject to the duty under this section if

… Read the full post

Posted in FLW case note, Homeless and Housing law - All. Tags: , , .

England expects..?

By NL on 10/06/2007. 0 Comments

A while ago, I put myself down to write one of the weekly Blawg Reviews, as did Corporate Blawg. I thought no more about it.

The Blawg Review is largely US based, that being where there are most Law blogs. What hadn’t occurred to me was that between us, Corporate and I had effectively kidnapped the Fourth of July. I’m on 2 July, Corporate is on 9 July.

Now the Blawg Review editor has noticed that Brits will be doing the hosting over the Independence Day period and, invoking Paul Revere, has thrown down the gauntlet, adding:

And we’re sure there are even more barristers and solicitors

… Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: .

Trouble with tenses

By NL on 06/06/2007. 0 Comments

I’m drafting an application and order for the variation of a suspended possession order and revival of secure tenancy under s.85 Housing Act. If the application is successful, the resulting order will immediately cease to have effect because someone else entirely will have been the tenant for the last couple of years.

My head hurts.… Read the full post

Posted in Housing law - All, Possession, secure-tenancy and Tolerated trespasser. Tags: , .

Spleen 2

By NL on 04/06/2007. 0 Comments

Commenting about anonymity on another blog a few days ago, I realised I hadn’t posted anything meriting a digital balaclava for ages.

Time to put that right, because I have more spleen to throw at the LSC than ought to be anatomically possible. Not for its policy, although not lacking in reason for that, but for its utter inability to actually manage to perform its day to day operational activities, to wit: issuing and amending funding certificates.

First, a brief moment of reasonableness. I’m sure that the frontline is understaffed and under-trained and that it really isn’t their fault.

Now that is out of the way… How dare this bloody … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

Now we are One.

By NL on 03/06/2007. 0 Comments

Looking back in the archive for an old post, I realise to my astonishment that this blog is one year old. Granted, the years do whip past more rapidly as there are fewer of them left, but blimey, where did that one go?

One answer to where that one went is 165 posts. That’s more than one every three days, not including holidays. I begin to see what Charon QC meant when he described Nearly Legal as ‘a prolific blogger’. I really must get out more.

But it has been quite a year, both personally and for UK legal blogs.

The events of Nearly Legal’s year are all there in … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: .
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