Monthly Archive for December, 2011

Policy, possession and proportionality

By NL on 31/12/2011. 4 Comments

Denry Okpor v London Borough of Lewisham, Bromley County Court 25 October 2011 [Transcript not publicly available]

This was a rolled up permission to appeal and appeal hearing (on which more later) for appeal to a Circuit Judge from a possession order made by a District Judge at Bromley. At issue was whether the District Judge was wrong to reject a) a proportionality defence and b) a gateway B public law defence arising from Lewisham’s failure to follow its own policy. It is interesting as an example of proportionality/gateway B defences in action in the County Court, but also somewhat frustrating, for reasons which will become clear.

Mr Okpor … Read the full post

Posted in FLW case note, Housing law - All, Possession and secure-tenancy. Tags: , , .

When everyone agrees

By S on 31/12/2011. 0 Comments

Southwark LBC v Leaseholders of the London Borough of Southwark [2011] UKUT 438 (LC) [not yet on bailii] was an appeal brought by Southwark against the decision of the LVT (our report here) not to grant them dispensation from complying with the requirements of paragraphs 4 and of Schedule 2 to the Service Charges (Consultation Requirements) (England) Regulations 2003 (“the Regulations”) in respect of five major works agreements which the authority had entered into to repair and renew their housing stock.

In case you had forgotten, an agreement between a landlord and a contractor for works to be carried out over a period of 12 months or more … Read the full post

Posted in FLW case note, Housing law - All and Leasehold and shared ownership. Tags: , .

You better watch out, You better not cry

By NL on 30/12/2011. 2 Comments

Just when I thought we weren’t going to have a seasonal story this year. Westminster Council have ridden to the rescue.

A new proposal, announced by the eminently sane and reasonable Councillor Phillipa Roe, is that from April 2013, Westminster are to maintain a naughty and nice list and to use it for awarding or withholding Council Tax Benefit.

we believe that potentially linking council tax benefit to certain levels of behaviour is a sensible and fair way forward that rewards those that play an active part in their community whilst cracking down on those that misbehave or break the law

Yes, they’ll know if you’ve been bad or … Read the full post

Posted in Benefits, FLW article and Housing law - All.

When Age is Not Just a Number Part II

By SJM on 25/12/2011. 0 Comments

Hot on the heels of the KN v Barnet report is the Court of Appeal judgement in R (CJ) v Cardiff CC [2011] EWCA Civ 1590 (judgement handed down on 20/12/2011). The High Court proceedings were reported here.

The important aspect of this appeal is the way the Court deals with the difficult issue of burden of proof. The approach approved at first instance and in KN was that the burden fell on the Claimant to prove his age, if the Court was unable to make an assessment. The Court of Appeal has now established that there is no burden and it reached this conclusion (para 23):

“In the … Read the full post

Posted in Community care.

When Age is Not Just a Number

By SJM on 24/12/2011. 0 Comments

Regular readers may have noted that these pages have been quiet on the subject of age assessments and the entitlement to services under the Children Act 1989. The fact-finding hearing in The Queen (KN) v LB Barnet [2011] EWHC 2019 (Admin) was heard as long ago as July 2011 but it is worth underlining here as an example of the way the Administrative Court deals with age assessments in the light of the guidance given by the Supreme Court in A v Croydon.

KN was the victim of sexual abuse in her home country, the Democratic Republic of Congo and she was later smuggled to the UK, where the abuse … Read the full post

Posted in Community care and Uncategorized.

Estoppel and s.2 – will we find out?

By Francis Davey on 23/12/2011. 0 Comments

In the Summer Dave and David Smith posted about the case of Kinnear v Whittaker in the High Court. Bean J allowed an appeal against the summary disposal of a possession claim where the defendant had raised proprietary estoppel as a defence. This interesting and important question about the interaction between estoppel and s.2 of the Law of Property (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1989 was therefore put off until trial.

The claimants appear to have been too excited to wait until then (or, more likely, but less poetically, they wanted to avoid the expense of a trial) and so appealed to the Court of Appeal. On Wednesday Stanley Burnton LJ refused … Read the full post

Posted in FLW case note, Mortgage possession, Possession, Trusts and Estoppel and Uncategorized. Tags: , , , , , .

Laying the foundations (2): RTB

By Dave on 22/12/2011. 2 Comments

Push the bad news out just before Christmas seems to be a pretty good rule of thumb.  Our previous post on the housing strategy, Laying the Foundations, led to a number of comments about the right to buy proposals in that document, which were all pretty vague.  Today, DCLG has published Reinvigorating the Right to Buy and One for One Replacement, which provides some further flesh on the bones, although they are no further forward in working out how best to distribute the funds which are assumed to increase.  They are assumed to increase because the government intends to increase the cap on the discount to £50,000.  The … Read the full post

Posted in FLW article, Housing law - All and right-to-buy.
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