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
Archive for the 'Assured Shorthold tenancy' Category
Page 3 of 17
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
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
Grand v Gill [2011] EWCA Civ 554
At the risk of being mocked, or shunned, I must confess myself to be throughly excited. A Court of Appeal disrepair case! And on one of the great unknowns of disrepair liability to boot! Obviously, my wedding day 8 years ago counts as being more exciting, but that excepted… This is rarer than hen’s teeth, rarer even than a meaningful engagement with a consultation by the ConDems, so even if you don’t do disrepair cases, enjoy the scarcity value.
This was an appeal by the Claimant, the tenant Ms Grand, against the trial judgment awarding her £5,600 general damages for disrepair and breach … Read the full post
Gladehurst Properties Ltd v Hashemi [2011] EWCA Civ 604 (Not on BAILII at time of writing)
UPDATE: Transcript now available on BAILII
In Tiensia LJ Sedley said that the decision of the majority ‘eviscerated’ the tenancy deposit protection legislation. The Court of Appeal has now returned to complete the job with a hanging by the neck until almost dead followed by a quartering with the body parts to be distributed throughout the kingdom.
The facts were relatively simple. Mr Hashemi was a tenant, along with a Mr Johnson, of Gladehurst Properties. The tenancy deposit of some £6,240 was never protected by G. Much of that deposit (less a deduction of … Read the full post
Potts v Densley & Anor [2011] EWHC 1144 (QB)
Another case on tenancy deposit protection has hit the High Court, with a rather strange outcome.
P was the tenant of D and another party. The deposit was not protected during the tenancy. This was raised by P towards the end of the tenancy and D apparently offered to return the money to her. She declined and insisted it was protected. The tenancy was then ended by notice from P and she vacated the property. The deposit money was then placed with the DPS but the prescribed information was never served on P. In fact, it seems that DPS had not … Read the full post
Bristol City Council v Aldfrod Two LLP [2011] UKUT 130 (LC)
The Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) has recently ruled on the proper use of improvement notices under the HHSRS. When I say recent I should actually say a little while ago. You can blame the recent spate of good weather and a short spell of leave for the slightly reduced speed of posting on this.
Anyway, dragging my gaze back from sunny blue skies to the hard grey world of statistics, the situation concerns the use and scoring of the excess cold hazard. In this case Bristol CC had inspected a property which was heated entirely by convector heaters. Most … Read the full post
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