Archive for the 'Assured Shorthold tenancy' Category

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Back in the consulting room

By J on 12/07/2011. 0 Comments

R (Peat and others) v Hyndburn DC [2011] EWHC 1739 (Admin) is the first successful challenge to a selective licensing scheme. We’ve previously covered the permission hearings (here and here). It’s quite a fun judgment to read, if only for the absolute kicking that the authority get over their consultation exercise.

Selective licensing is, in short, a mechanism whereby authorities can require landlords to obtain licenses before being allowed to let property. Before making a designation, the authority must take reasonable steps to consult persons likely to be affected (s.80(9), Housing Act 2004) and (as the law stood at the relevant time), obtain the consent of the Secretary … Read the full post

Posted in ASB, Assured Shorthold tenancy, FLW case note and Housing law - All. Tags: .

Standards in private renting: A bit of a mess?

By Dave on 08/07/2011. 0 Comments

My good friend, Alex of Alex’s Archives, has sent me a link to a discussion in the GLA corridors of power on standards in the private rented sector.  I haven’t finished listening to the GLA debate, but, as Alex said in his email, it does expose some “shaky understandings” of the law.  Alex has written at some length about regulation of private renting, most recently about rogue landlords, and there has been the Shapps announcement in Harrogate that standards would be imposed on private rented properties for homeless households (cf his press notice last year that there would be no more red tape for private landlords; and his … Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, assured-tenancy, Disrepair, FLW article, Homeless and Housing law - All.

A Not So Unlawful Eviction

By David Smith on 04/07/2011. 4 Comments

R v Q [2011] EWCA Crim 1584. On Lawtel but not on BAILII

This is an appeal concerning s1(3A), Protection From Eviction Act 1977. This subsection was inserted by the Housing Act 1988 and was intended to fix a problem with s1(3). S1(3A) reads:

Subject to subsection (3B) below, the landlord of a residential occupier or an agent of the landlord shall be guilty of an offence if—
(a)he does acts likely to interfere with the peace or comfort of the residential occupier or members of his household, or
(b)he persistently withdraws or withholds services reasonably required for the occupation of the premises in question as a residence,
and (in

… Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, FLW case note, Housing law - All and Unlawful eviction and harassment. Tags: .

Tenancy Deposits Back in the Localism Bill

By David Smith on 21/06/2011. 0 Comments

We have previously posted on amendments to the Localism Bill tabled in Commons committee which would have had the effect of rewriting the tenancy deposit protection provisions in the Housing Act 2004.

The changes were designed to reset the position back to that which was set out by the government when it originally put the provisions forward and before the legislation was undermined by a number of Court of Appeal decisions.

The amendments were not supported by the Government in Commons committee and were withdrawn on the basis that an alternative would be put in place. However, there has been no alternative forthcoming thus far and time is getting short.… Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, Deposits, FLW article and Housing law - All. Tags: , .

“Bright lines” and housing benefit

By Dave on 11/06/2011. 0 Comments

The re-design of the administration of housing benefit has sought to address the scheme’s complexity in recent years – the local housing allowance is a particular example of this re-design, with the shift to flat rate payments according to household size.  Complexity has been constructed as bad for claimants, who are (or were) unaware of their maximum entitlement, and bad for the administration, which needs to be made more efficient.  All of this re-design can be subsumed within the rubric of “from discretion to rules” – discretion now being a “bad”, rules being a “good”, a remarkable turnaround from the position in the 1970s but there we go.  Rules create … Read the full post

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

Safe European Home*

By NL on 07/06/2011. 6 Comments

We noted J. L. v the United Kingdom here. Now there are two further English possession cases at the ‘questions to the parties’ stage of the European Court of Human Rights.

Birch and Others v UK Application no. 26393/10

Birch arises out of possession proceedings brought by Bedfordshire DC on a property which had been leased, short term, to a housing association which had, in turn licences a co-op group to grant assured shorthold tenancies to occupiers on its behalf. The lease had been granted in 1993 and expired in 1996. It was not renewed but negotiations went on and the co-op continued to grant ASTs to occupiers. In 2006, … Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, FLW case note, Housing law - All, Introductory and Demoted tenancies and Possession. Tags: , , .

Assuredly not an AST

By David Smith on 20/05/2011. 0 Comments

Jasbir Kaur Kahlon v Andrew Isherwood [2011] EWCA Civ 602 (on Lawtel but not on BAILII yet)
UPDATE: Transcript now available on BAILII

Schedule 2A of the Housing Act 1988 was inserted by the Housing Act 1996 and supports s19A which was inserted by the same Act. S19A basically acts to make the AST the default tenancy under the Act while Schedule 2A lists a series of exceptions to the default position. Most crucially, for this case is the exception in paragraph 7 which states that a tenancy which was previously an Assured tenancy cannot be regranted as an AST unless a notice in a prescribed form had been served.… Read the full post

Posted in Assured Shorthold tenancy, assured-tenancy, FLW case note and Housing law - All. Tags: , , .
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