Monthly Archive for December, 2008

A warm welcome

By NL on 29/12/2008. 0 Comments

We’ve had an email from HHJ Madge, perhaps better known to housing lawyers as Nic Madge, co-editor with Jan Luba QC of LAG’s housing law updates and general all round doyen of the field.

I’m delighted to be told that Nic Madge has started his own site, which contains, amongst many other things, copies of the LAG housing updates for the last year (but not the current one, for obvious reasons), copies of many articles on the ECtHR and housing, and materials on possession claims prepared for the Judicial Studies Board. There is much else worth reading, some of which one will almost certainly not have seen before.

Given … Read the full post

Posted in Housing law - All and Various (non-housing). Tags: .

Man or boy?

By chief on 29/12/2008. 5 Comments

“That is the question, easy to ask but not so easy to answer” – as it takes the Court of Appeal 40 pages (right before Christmas, thank you very much, hence this rather late note) to answer that question in R (A) v LB Croydon; R (M) v LB Lambeth [2008] EWCA Civ 1445 I’d have to agree.

M and A arrived in the UK from Libya and Afghanistan respectively.  Both applied for aslyum – M to Lambeth and A to Croydon.  Both applicants said that they were under 18, but social workers decided that they were over 18.  The decision on age is an important one – if an individual … Read the full post

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

Have a good break

By NL on 23/12/2008. 0 Comments

Nearly Legal is on holiday for a bit. Don’t expect anything much before early January. Unless, of course, something comes up, or a whim takes one or more of us by force.

A well earned rest to all our readers, before a doubtless to be frenzied 2009.… Read the full post

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

Refusing Temporary Accommodation

By NL on 21/12/2008. 0 Comments

Once someone is in temporary accommodation, following an acceptance of the full housing duty to a homeless person by the local authority, what happens when that temporary accommodation becomes unreasonable for the household to continue to occupy, but alternative temporary accommodation is refused by the tenant?

Muse v London Borough of Brent [2008] EWCA Civ 1447 was an appeal arising from LB Brent’s decision to discharge duty under s.193 HA 1996 when Mrs Muse refused alternative accommodation offered when her current temporary accommodation (at Press House!) became overcrowded.

Mrs Muse was successful at s.204 appeal, arguing that s.193(5) did not apply. S.193(5) provides:

The local housing authority shall cease

… Read the full post

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

EU Workers and housing eligibility

By NL on 21/12/2008. 0 Comments

Barry v London Borough of Southwark [2008] EWCA Civ 1440 concerned an EEA national’s eligibility for social housing, via a Part VII application.

EEA ‘workers’ are eligible for housing assistance as they are not persons subject to immigration control for the purposes of s.185(1) Housing Act 1996 and Reg 6 of the Allocation of Housing and Homelessness (Eligibility) (England) Regulations. The definition of “worker” in reg 6(1) of the Immigration (European Economic Area) Regulations (“the EEA regulations”) applies.

Mr Barry contened that his case fell within reg 6(2)(b)(ii) of the EEA regulations:

(2) A person who is no longer working shall not cease to be treated as a worker for

… Read the full post

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

Expanding the Public Law defence, a bit

By NL on 21/12/2008. 4 Comments

What Doherty v Birmingham City Council (Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government intervening) [2008] UKHL 57 actually means for a public law defence to possession claims, particularly summary possession, was the subject of London Borough of Hillingdon v Collins & Another [2008] EWHC 3016 (Admin). This is what was to have been a CMC in the Administrative Court, but turned, by the nature of circumstances, into a consideration of the scope and boundaries of the post Doherty defence. As we’ve previously noted, the House of Lords in Doherty did little to actually make things clear, so Hillingdon v Collins is an important judgment.

The case involved … Read the full post

Posted in FLW case note, Housing law - All, Licences and occupiers and Possession. Tags: , , , , , , .

Discretionary Housing Payments

By J on 20/12/2008. 6 Comments

R (Gargett) v LB Lambeth [2008] EWCA Civ 1450; on appeal from [2008] EWHC 663 (Admin).

A Discretionary Housing Payment (DHP) is a discretionary payment made by a local housing authority to a person who is (a) in receipt of housing benefit or council tax benefit;  (b) considered by the authority to be in need of “further assistance” with “housing costs” and (c) who applies for a DHP.

There is a fixed limit which any local housing authority can spend on DHPs in any given year and that limit cannot be exceeded.  See s.69 Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000 and the Discretionary Financial Assistance Regulations 2001.… Read the full post

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