Keep your eyes out for Khela (by his LPA receiver) v Dainter, Birmingham County Court, 29.2.12, which HHJ McKenna has just transfered into the Court of Appeal.
It’s an appeal against a s.21 possession order made under the accelerated procedure in which Ms Dainter argues that she should have been allowed to raise an art.8 defence. The DJ held that there was no need to consider personal circumstances / proportionality but granted permission to appeal. HHJ McKenna, noting that the interaction between art.8 and the private sector had been left open in Pinnock, has sent the case to the CA for them to have a go with.
More details as and when we get them.
Art.6?
Ooh go on, just for the look on a lettings agents face when I get up on my hind legs in defence of some poor sod who’s only crime was to ask the landlord to fix the leak under the sink! Fear not gentle landlord I’m certain that the nice Mr. Pickles will come to your rescue after all how dare the Judiciary say that you can’t have your property back to suit your own whimsy.
Does anyone know who the solicitors and the barrister are?
You have mail
Am I right that this case has now settled? The CA case tracker seems to say so.
cheers
Yes – settled.
Sorry – I am one of those supposedly whimsical and evil landlords that have nothing better or more productive to do than terrorise ‘innocent’ tenants! ~Can I ask, when oh when, will any common sense prevail in the emotive issues of Landlord/Tenant law. I consider myself a good landlord – abide by the letter and spirit of the law, carry out repairs, protect the deposit etc; have been a Social Security tenant myself in the past so have experienced the ineptitude of local government departments at first hand from both sides of the fence; believe in fairness and ‘Rights’ (as long as they are equal rights). What happens when the tenant lies, fails to pay rent, neither tenant nor local council inform me that HB/LHA has been claimed and paid but not passed on, local council insists on tenant having legal right to occupy post Sec21(1)(b) notice upheld by undefended Possession Order; already 7 months rent arrears and another 3 months to enforce by eviction? When will landlords see mandatory compensation for their rights infringed? Or additiional mandatory commission payments where they provide accomodation for local councils under Housing Act 1996 / Homelessness Act 2002 and so acting as cash cows and unpaid council officers. And I do all this for the privilege of expensive houses, cars and holidays, right? Wrong! I seek to provide my own pension in old age (forget retirement – what’s that?) and the probability that at the end of it all I will have to give up everything I have worked for so I can be bundled into some godforsaken care home in the ‘private sector’ at extortionate and ‘unproportional’ expense!
What I need is a champion for landlord rights and common sense! Perhaps I will become one myself, for oppressed landlords everywhere!
kb, I am at a bit of a loss.
Legally, the tenancy doesn’t end until eviction, so it sounds like the Council were right in what they told you. You could, I presume, have brought section 8 and ground 8 possession proceedings on the arrears, but didn’t. 3 months is a long time for a warrant date, even in the busiest courts! I’d be surprised if it took that long without something having gone wrong somewhere.
You have entered landlording as a business, it seems, but unlike most business (except multinational banks…) you want compensation from the taxpayer when a foreseeable business risk goes wrong, or at least I presume the taxpayer, as it was open to you to claim for arrears from the tenant, but you didn’t.
Quite how taking on a tenant who has made a homeless application to the local authority is the landlord acting as a ‘cash cow’ for the authority is beyond me.
There are many good and responsible private sector landlords, you won’t find any of us arguing otherwise here. But I’m not entirely sure why landlords are a special case, who should be treated differently to and better than anyone else in business.