Monthly Archive for August, 2010

The CLP challenge considered.

By NL on 26/08/2010. 10 Comments

[Edit 27/08/10 An early version of this post said that the JR had been given permission. This was wrong. The hearing was actually adjourned to 8 September without permission having formally been given. Apologies for my error. I've edited the post to correct this.]

[Edit 2. I have been contacted by CLP to ask me to say that CLP will not be commenting while the case is ongoing, as it would not be proper for them to do so. They also ask that people do not contact CLP directly about the case in the meantime.]

So, what actually happened in the hearing of Community Legal Partnership’s application for judicial review? … Read the full post

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

“Irrational” Welfare tender newsflash

By NL on 26/08/2010. 1 Comment

Hot on the heels of the last post comes this news of a Judicial Review permission hearing on an application by friends of the blog, Community Law Partnership, against the LSC.

Choice quotes from Collins J

“I am bound to say this is a dreadful decision and on the face of it the approach [taken by the LSC] is totally irrational”

“How can it be rational to penalise a firm that takes fewer cases to the upper tribunal, when any decent firm will do its best to make sure it doesn’t have to appeal?”

“Those tendering are entitled to take the view that access to justice criteria will be taken … Read the full post

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

Of contracts, shifting goalposts and lawfulness

By NL on 25/08/2010. 8 Comments

[Edit 01/09/2010. There has been a further change to the FAQ discussed in this post. See the new post here]

Bear with me. This is going to be a bumpy ride.

The LSC’s terms of tender for civil contracts stated

Paragraph 15.11: “For a tender to be complete, the Applicant Organisation must, prior to the deadline, submit a tender consisting of (1) a response to the PQQ and (2) a response to an ITT (including the Mandatory Form).”
Paragraph 15.13: “The Applicant Organisation must not amend or alter any document comprising part of the tender after the deadline”
Paragraph 15.37: “The Applicant Organisation agrees to keep any tender valid … Read the full post

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

On the Naughty Step – drop the dead donkey redux

By NL on 19/08/2010. 84 Comments

There is very hot competition among the cast of this sorry episode for being placed on the step. This is also a story which has already been commented on by Tessa Shepperson of Landlord Law, who indeed played a small – and entirely virtuous – part. But Tessa is basically a nice, fair-minded person, and for that reason, her posts are entirely free of bile. I, on the other hand, am not necessarily nice, and rarely lacking in bile to spare.

For a taster of what is to come, here is the first foray of Suzy Butler into the media – the local paper. Note the ‘squatter’ motif, although … Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, Housing law - All, Possession and Various (non-housing). Tags: .

Hospital or prison – your choice

By NL on 18/08/2010. 1 Comment

Boatwright v Boatwright [2010] EWCA Civ 877

Let us not get excited, this is a nothing of a case, but in these dog days of summer, where substantive case law is hard to come by, we have to take what we can get.

The Court of Appeal were confronted by a frankly bewildering application for permission by Mr Boatwright, who was facing an order committing him. This followed an application to enforce a penal notice on an order that he give vacant possession of the property he occupied to his ex-partner, Ms Boatwright (they were not married).

The history went something like this – although this was not the version … Read the full post

Posted in FLW case note, Housing law - All and Possession.

Please do not adjust your set

By NL on 18/08/2010. 0 Comments

Some behind the scenes updates – which had to be done – mean that the blog is going to look not entirely like its usual self for a few days (fonts and font size, some layout etc.), till I can get to grips with some coding oddities. Probably this weekend. I just thought you ought to know, because it is nothing to do with your browser or anything at your end.

I may take the opportunity to give it a bit of a face lift, if I get time. Was there anything about the old design that particularly annoyed people?… Read the full post

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

An ugly metaphor

By NL on 16/08/2010. 17 Comments

Strata TowerThis is the Strata Tower, less than proud winner of Building Design’s 2010 Carbuncle Cup, awarded to the ugliest new building in the country for its ‘odour of boy musk’, ‘grim stridency’ and for auditioning for a ‘James Bond title sequence in the Elephant and Castle’. (I must note that the nomination was from the Georgian Group, who surely had a hard time focussing their bile on only one contemporary building without pilasters, so congratulations to them for picking a contemporary building that for once actually is ugly.)

The Strata is a thoroughly unavoidable part of my working day and, as a flagship development for the ‘regeneration’ of the … Read the full post

Posted in Housing law - All, Leasehold and shared ownership and Various (non-housing). Tags: , .
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