Tag Archive for 'whatever'

Just passing

Published
by
NL
on 08/07/2008
in Leasehold and shared ownership and Various (non-housing)
. 6 Comments

I have been and remain extremely busy, but thankfully there has been nothing of significance to post about. I’m toying with a summary of the fascinating and now very, very lengthy comment thread on the Malcolm post, but that too will have to wait.

While I am here, may I just say that probably the last place I anticipated jaw-dropping procedural topsy-turvydom in a hearing was the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal. A long story that I can’t actually tell here, but damn, that was like Alice in tribunal-land. Or I am being naive?

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Falling property and other news

Published
by
NL
on 20/04/2008
in Various (non-housing)
. 0 Comments

Labyrinth and MinotaurThis week’s award for literalism goes to William Lyttle. Mr Lyttle, apparently not realising that ‘fall’ and ‘collapse’ are usually metaphors when applied to property, spent 40 years excavating a labyrinth of tunnels under his Hackney property. Mr Lyttle, the Daedalus of east London, was this week ordered to pay Hackney Council £300,000 for the cost of making the property safe, after they evicted him in 2006. Mr Lyttle’s excavations had previously caused a 15 foot abyss to appear in the pavement outside the house. Mr Lyttle remains subject to an injunction to keep him from his subterranean labours.

The Shelter strike is back on, sadly. Shelter staff are due to strike on Thursday 24 April and Friday 25 April. Details here (hat-tip to Housed for the link). A Shelter staffer has left a comment on this blog about developments.

In linked news, concerning as it does LSC funding for not-for-profits, the Mary Ward pro-bono unit is facing closure. The pro-bono unit was supported by the main LSC-funded law centre, but the effect of the fixed fee scheme has been to slash the funding of the Law Centre, so there is no spare cash. Tellingly,

the director told volunteers that because the legal aid caseworkers are working with reduced funds, the centre is having to prioritise simple, short matters and turn away people with complex legal problems.

This is exactly what everyone warned would happen with the funding changes. Sadly, this won’t be the last story of this kind.

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How not to pick a fight

Published
by
NL
on 19/04/2008
in Various (non-housing)
. 0 Comments

Let us say you were a large US company, looking to throw around your intellectual property muscle for a quick buck by putting a licensing squeeze on small companies. If so, it is probably best not to pick on a small tech company headed by an ex-litigator [link is lengthy but funny].

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Libel, fraud and child trafficking

Published
by
NL
on 14/04/2008
in Various (non-housing)
. 0 Comments

Or ‘On the Naughty Step…’

Thanks to Mark P for the idea, I bring you news of scandal and criminality from the world of housing, albeit with only the most tangential relationship to housing law.

Gentoo, a Sunderland based RSL and its CEO, Peter Walls, won a £100,000 libel judgment against a website called Dads Place and specifically John Finn, the owner of rival housing firm Pallion and a former local council candidate. The anonymous website had been posting “seriously defamatory allegations ranging from corruption to nepotism and the promotion of female employees in return for sexual favours” said Gentoo’s Counsel. Pallion owned numerous properties in areas earmarked for demolition and renewal by Gentoo. The allegations had led to a Housing Corporation investigation of Gentoo. Worth noting this as another example of a determinedly anonymous website failing to be protection against defamation claims, although it took quite some effort to pierce the veil.

Collapsed and bust RSL Ujima, formerly the largest BME housing association and now part of London & Quadrant, is not going quietly. Three former employees have been arrested for money laundering and conspiracy to defraud, amidst allegations that the Housing Corporation acted late and had plenty of warnings of problems.

Then there is this extraordinary story. A London-based housing officer has been convicted of illegally bringing a child, a baby, into the country, apparently to preserve her priority need status on a homeless application after her children went to live with her ex-husband. The day that she returned from Nigeria with the baby, for which £150-£200 was apparently paid, Peace Sandberg presented as homeless at Ealing Council’s HPU to make a fresh application. The child’s original family is not known. I may be being naive but I can’t believe that this is all there is to the story.

News permitting, this may become an irregular feature – On the Naughty Step may return.

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Butterfingers

Published
by
NL
on 08/04/2008
in Various (non-housing)
. 0 Comments

In what must be probably the worst experience a paralegal could ever have, Penny Wadsworth has inadvertently caused the collapse of a 5 defendant, £100,000 drugs trial [Guardian Report]. The ‘Kennington Rastafarian Temple’ trial had been running for 4 weeks when a police officer recognised Wadsworth, a paralegal on the defence team. The officer recognised Wadsworth from earlier enquiries and recalled that she had made a telephone complaint about drug dealing at the Temple, prior to the raid and arrests.

Wadsworth had failed to disclose her complaint or its content to her firm, or the defence counsel. When defence counsel was informed, and told the client, unsurprisingly the client ‘felt he could no longer have complete confidence in the neutrality of his firm of solicitors’, as the judge put it.

The judge called Wadsworth to appear before the Court, but decided that, although the result of her non-disclosure was ‘catastrophic’ for the trial, no action would be taken against her. After the prosecution decided not to offer any evidence or to seek a retrial, the defendants were acquitted.

Oddly enough, Wadsworth had apparently worked for a city firm for 20 years before turning to a criminal firm. A rough introduction and I suspect she may now be an ex-paralegal. Although considering that she did achieve her client’s acquittal, maybe not.

One must have sympathy. It might not have been the birghtest course of (non)action she took, but we do all make errors of judgement at some point. The idea that such an error would result in a dressing down in open court and the collapse of a high profile trial is the stuff of sweat-soaked-blanket nightmares.

On the other hand, the irony content of the eventual effect of her complaint about drug dealing at the Temple is so overwrought as to be a ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ plot (a reference that few born after say 1975 will get. Strewth, I’m old.)

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No more than expected

Published
by
NL
on 17/03/2008
in Various (non-housing)
. 0 Comments

LSC introduces new IT system to file matter start funding claims. System promptly doesn’t work. Three months later, system still doesn’t work. Any idea when it will work? Errrr no. So we send in Excel forms instead.

LSC says “It’s not working as well as it could but it’s not meltdown or anything. We are now in the process of a recovery strategy”.

My giggles are not enough to stop me being pedantic. Can one actually be ‘in the process of a strategy’? Does this mean ‘in the process of coming up with a strategy’? Or  ‘in the process of implementing a strategy’? Or, more likely both at once, in the sense of ‘making it up as we go along’?

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The hopeful LiP

Published
by
NL
on 29/02/2008
in Various (non-housing)
. 0 Comments

Although the energy to do proper case comments has deserted me until tomorrow, I couldn’t resist this exchange, which is just about all that is reported of Bedi, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Hounslow [2007] EWHC 3311 (Admin)

  1. MR JUSTICE COLLINS: Now, Mr Bedi, as we have discussed, and for the reasons I have indicated, I am afraid I am going to have to refuse permission. As I say, you at least have the advantage that it has not cost you anything, at least not cost you anything so far as court fees and other side’s fees are concerned, and leave it to you to decide whether you wish to pursue it any further. But you can indicate, if there is any problem raised at any lower court, if you do decide to pursue any claim — and I am not saying that you have a good claim; I have not gone into that — that I have indicated that in my view quite clearly this is a matter that is not a public law claim and which should be pursued, if it is to be pursued, as an ordinary civil claim.
  2. THE CLAIMANT: Thank you, my Lord.
  3. MR JUSTICE COLLINS: All right?
  4. THE CLAIMANT: My Lord, you have mentioned I have not lost anything. I would ask your Lordship to grant me to this cost because I’m litigant in person and I believe I’m entitled to it.
  5. MR JUSTICE COLLINS: No, you are not entitled to any costs. You have not succeeded.
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The route to Justice

Published
by
NL
on 18/02/2008
in Various (non-housing)
. 0 Comments

Funny old day… (click for big pictures).

La Porte d’Enfer
In the sun, it is like a Le Corbusier dream
Outside the RCJ. Big issue seller and McCartney hunters
Evictions weren’t going to make the news
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Obvious filler 6

Published
by
NL
on 15/02/2008
in Various (non-housing)
. 0 Comments

My occasional attempts to get cheap laughs at the expense of passing bewildered internet searchers are getting more difficult. Virtually all of the search terms that have brought people here recently are legally related and most even make sense. I hate it when the lazy blogger’s fall back turns into hard work. So, if you detect any sense of strain in this, should the frantic feet of the serene swan become apparent, be gentle, because I’m doing it for you.

Fortunately, the odder or more hopeless of the searchers come in thematic waves

1. The fixated

shiny shorts

Yes, but only through sitting down a lot. My G.A.Y. days are over.

father

No. Not unless I have a horrible dark secret.

spanking part 1

Part 1? I mean spanking is all well and good between consenting adults, but with an interval? Do you have a g&t and discuss the performance so far? Or just sit in awkward silence pretending to read the programme. ‘Oh I see that that the table tennis bat plays a much larger part in act 2′?

irish hobby horse

I don’t think that this is to do with Tristram Shandy, because next question is…

irish dominatrixes

It’s the red hair and freckles that they dream of in the gimp mask.

dominatrixes of the world

Tired of freckles, he now wants them bestriding the continents, with their PVC leggings chafing the equator.

I’m all for human variety, but sometimes I wish it didn’t end up at this blog. I only get confused.

2. Trouble with the law

legal revenge on neighbours

Again! Let it be or it will surely end up in the Magistrates Court.

justice for litigants in person

Topical but may be related to the next question…

claim struck out can i start again

Nope. What the hell do you think the law is actually for, really? At least have the decency to bring a doomed and hopeless appeal.

pipex notice of copyright infringement rush hour 3

Or the definition of pathos. Of all the films to be done for downloading…

joint tenant court case death divorce

I’m just hoping this isn’t an either/or question.

3. Access to the law

can my mother get legal aid

Maybe, but motherhood per se is not a qualifying state. I’m assuming google doesn’t actually know your mother’s income, but hey, these days…

The next two questions are a sample of five incoming variations on a theme…

what type of help at court can i expect from community legal service funding regarding a housing injunction

what type of legal help can i expect from community legal service funding regarding a housing injunction

Sadly for this determined seeker, I think the answer is ‘depends’. Are you on the receiving end, or seeking to bring a personal injunction? Are there any related criminal proceedings or ASBOs? In any case, you’ll need to find a legal aid solicitor to actually apply for public funding. There are still a few of us.

how do you actually claim legal aid

Leave it to the solicitor, really. Frankly, it is a painful process and you won’t get it without a solicitor anyway. Consider it one of the many ways in which we try to make your life easier.

chambers barristers one stop shop

Now there is an idea. A Myspace of Counsel, perhaps, or an Amazon of the Bar, with customer reviews. “I was disappointed that barrister X had both a chin and a trace of a northern accent. Frankly this was not what the brochure had led me to expect. I eagerly awaited being patronised, and finding my concerns sensibly addressed was, I felt, poor service. And their coffee was weak. Two stars”

4. Becoming a lawyer, or not

does finishing lpc make one a lawyer

Dream on. It’s not like those poncy ‘non-practising’/couldn’t get pupillage barristers you know.

what happens after the lpc

Depends. Hopefully, at some  point, a traineeship. Otherwise, have you considered media sales?

i need an lpc licence but can t pass the test for counseling can you help

Eh? and no. And whatever this is, should you have the licence without the counselling test? It sounds, you know, quite important.

4. Life as a lawyer

what is anor in legal terms

A short legal career.

if a slicitor has been lied to by his client can he drop him

Did they lie about paying the bill?

housing law made easy

I do my best, I really do, but it isn’t. Sorry.

5. History

when was lambeth settled

It never has been and still isn’t.

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Green Ink and old Olivettis

Published
by
NL
on 11/02/2008
in Various (non-housing)
. 0 Comments

With my usual and frankly uncanny ability to be a couple of days ahead of the zeitgeist, I posted on litigants-in-person a few days ago, only to see the Guardian do a feature piece on LiPs today. Granted they put a little more effort into it, and actually interviewed people and things like that, but we say pretty much the same things.

In addition, my post is much, much shorter, and so, brevity being not only a virtue but a mark of elegance, I can only pity the poor Guardian having to play catch up by substituting a modicum of effort and research for pith.

The Guardian article is actually quite an interesting piece. It cites a 2005 survey that found many that LiPs considered that:

lawyers were not necessary or not best placed to advance their interests. They saw themselves as more factually expert in their dispute and more able to manage their case than a lawyer – or they just wanted to “have their say”. Less constrained by legal notions of relevance, they could advance arguments or raise issues that a lawyer would not.

But of course, they can’t, because that is not how the Courts work. The result is, as the survey showed, that:

those who handle their own litigation make more mistakes than lawyers do – and more serious mistakes – and that the outcomes of their cases are generally worse than for those who are legally represented.

Nonetheless, their numbers are on the increase, driven by income limits on legal aid. Apparently Family matters have the largest proportion, which should come as no surprise.

There is one quote, from an Appeal Court Judge, that eloquently sums up the view of the LiP at appellate level. Forgive me quoting at length:

There is no sight more depressing than that of a litigant in person, borne down by frustration, anger and plastic bags filled with unsorted paper, staring up at the judge in the expectation of some quietus. What he wants, no court can give: some public acknowledgement and satisfaction for a deeply felt grievance, some release from the anger and misery induced by a resentment growing ever stronger as the years have passed. If only someone had listened and appreciated the hurt early on.

But by the time the litigant in person gets to court it is all too late. The time for listening has passed. The court, often faced with vituperation expressed in green ink or inadequate spacing between the lines typed on an old Olivetti, cannot hear what may have been a genuine cause for complaint because the complaint is lost in the sound and fury, and the litigant won’t listen because no one has been prepared to listen to him in the years gone by.

What is needed is not only understanding but therapy. The courts grapple with the former, but they inevitably fail to provide the latter.

This is unfair to many LiPs, who are doing it because they have to. However, the desperate and hopeless appeal, made in the conviction of the utter rightness of the cause, is the mark of the archetypal LiP, and, going by my visits to the Admin Court office or the Court of Appeal office, there are no shortage of those at present. The real question is why are they always in front of me in the queue?

The CAB at the RCJ is also mentioned in the piece. Given the number of what might be euphemistically described as ‘interesting’ calls we get from people who say that this CAB has ‘referred’ them to us, their daily work must be extraordinary.

Later on, I ended up browsing the list of vexatious litigants at the HMCS site. Now there is a documentary waiting to happen. How about:

ARNOLD, Dorothy Mignon (aka Gracie) who became a vexatious litigant on 17 December 1956

or BEBBINGTON, Ann Marjorie (aka EASTON, Ann Cholmondeley) – 31 January 1969

or O’NEILL, Thomas (aka Lord Charles Leslie Falconer of Thoronton) – 9 June 1998

The idea is going cheap…

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