Archive for the 'Succession' Category

The tenant is dead, long live the tenant

By Francis Davey on 11/05/2012. 23 Comments

Our attention was drawn to a decision in the Medway County Court, presumably because it considered a proportionality defence. I’m not sure there’s much to see there — one of the team said that he was not “remotely excited about it”.

But it caught my eye. To be fair, one cannot always tell from a short judgment of this kind exactly what happened, but it gives the impression that landlord and tenant law was, at best, misunderstood. So it seemed like a golden opportunity to set the record straight.

The defendant’s father and mother had lived in the property under an assured tenancy. Sadly, the father died. The mother succeeded … Read the full post

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

The assignment that wasn’t.

By NL on 25/09/2011. 3 Comments

Haringey LBC v Theobald. Clerkenwell and Shoreditch County Court 7 April 2011

Hat tip to September’s Legal Action ‘Recent Developments in Housing Law’ for this County Court case, and Daniel Fitzpatrick at Hodge Jones & Allen. Not a very significant case but a good illustration of the unintended consequences of the ad hoc arrangements sometimes made by Local Authority housing offices.

Mr Theobald’s father was given a tenancy of a 4 bedroom property by Haringey in 1962. In 1993, the father, suffering from dementia, moved permanently into a care home. Mr T and his brother applied to succeed to what was now a secure tenancy.

Haringey purported to transfer … Read the full post

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

Localism Part Deux

By J on 18/01/2011. 0 Comments

The Localism Bill had a second reading in the Commons yesterday. One amendment (Labour) was tabled and defeated. Looks like the significant amendments will be made in Committee. Not – I must say – the best quality debate ever as it appears to have been mostly about scoring party political points than debating the issues involved. For those who are interested, the Hansard report is available here.… Read the full post

Posted in Allocation, ASB, FLW article, Homeless, Possession, secure-tenancy and Succession. Tags: .

Social housing reform “consultation”

By Dave on 22/11/2010. 23 Comments

The heavily trailed (eg here and here), “cataclysmic” consultation paper on social housing reforms has been published by CLG today.  There is much to digest and much will be left to individual PRPs and local authorities to work out.  The “consultation” is limited either to specific groups or to more specific issues without challenging the underlying rationales.  The Localism Bill, shortly to be introduced will carry the main proposed changes.   It also seems like there will be considerable residuary powers retained centrally and locally.  The executive summary of the paper (at pp 9-11) pretty much does the job if that’s all you read, but there are subtler effects and … Read the full post

Posted in Allocation, Assured Shorthold tenancy, assured-tenancy, FLW article, Homeless, Introductory and Demoted tenancies, Possession and Succession.

Con-Dem housing reform plans

By Dave on 04/08/2010. 5 Comments

Cameron and Shapps have trailed a consultation paper to be published as early as tomorrow with a “plan to end lifetime council tenancies” (Inside Housing and The Guardian) and a “home swap scheme to help tenants move” (Today Programme and Inside Housing) (hat-tip to Katie Brown (HLPA junior group), J, and Francis Davey – e-mail’s been buzzing this morning – as well as he who cannot be named who tipped me off about this announcement a week or so ago).  The idea behind both schemes is to facilitate labour mobility, which rather goes to the “end of housing policy” debate that did the rounds at the … Read the full post

Posted in Allocation, assured-tenancy, FLW article, Possession, right-to-buy, secure-tenancy and Succession.

Just another brick in the (Sheffield CC v) Wall

By J on 03/08/2010. 0 Comments

Sheffield CC v Wall (by her personal representatives), Wall, Ingham, Butler [2010] EWCA Civ 922, is, on any view, an unusual case. The Court of Appeal didn’t, however, help matters.

Imagine, if you will, that, in 1967, Mr Steven Wall was placed with Mrs June Wall, who acted as his foster parent, by Sheffield CC. Whilst Steven was never adopted, he was clearly treated as the son of Mrs Wall and there was no-one else that could be said to have fulfilled that role.

In October 1986, Sheffield CC granted Mrs Wall a secure tenancy of a two-bed house, to be occupied by her and her “son”, Steven. He duly … Read the full post

Posted in FLW case note, Housing law - All, Possession, secure-tenancy, Succession, Uncategorized and Unlawful eviction and harassment. Tags: , .

Succeeding to a joint tenancy

By NL on 27/07/2010. 3 Comments

Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council v Hickin [2010] EWCA Civ 868

Where there are two joint tenants of a secure tenancy, of whom one has left and no longer occupies the property, and the remaining tenant in occupation dies, can that tenant’s adult child succeed to the tenancy? Or does the tenancy become vested solely in the remaining, absent, tenant by way of survivorship in the form of a bare contractual tenancy?

In this Court of Appeal case, an ingenious argument was raised to suggest that the child could succeed, because the provisions of the Housing Act 1985 overrode the common law rule of survivorship. Ingenious, but unsuccessful.

Ms Hickin was … Read the full post

Posted in FLW case note, Housing law - All, secure-tenancy and Succession.
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