A rather odd case dealing with competing charges on a right to buy property turned up at the High Court. Brighton & Hove City Council v Audus [2009] EWHC 340 (Ch) was an attempt by Brighton to challenge the validity of a second charge on the property held by...
Your name's not down, you're not getting in
R (Ariemuguvbe) v LB Islington (2009) QBD (Admin) 24/02/09 [just on Lawtel, not on Bailii yet - what's up with Bailii?] concerned the meaning of 'household' for the purposes of Part VI Housing Act 1996. A. had applied to Islington as homeless and Islington...
Just a quickie
The Court of Appeal are in the middle of hearing the appeal in R(Weaver) v L&Q - yesterday and today, (Housing Associations as public bodies for JR/HRA purposes). As ever, news on the judgment will be posted as soon as we have it.
It's not a deposit, honest
With thanks to Christopher Stockdale at John Barkers of Grimsby, we have had news of another Shorthold Assured Tenancy deposit case, Piggott v Slaven, Great Grimsby County Court 23 February 2009. This one is of particular interest as the issue at stake was...
Possessions up, down and about the same
The quarterly statistics for quarter 4 2008 on possession claims and orders are out [pdf]. Unsurprisingly, it is the mortgage repossession figures from the CML that got the headlines, being up significantly on 2007 - albeit by less than initially forecast by...
Dead and gone
The mopping up of the tail end of tolerated trespasser cases continues. Barry Austin v LB Southwark [2008] EWCA Civ 66 was the Court of Appeal hearing of the appeal from the High Court hearing we noted earlier. The issue at stake was whether Mr Austin would...
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear
We all knew that Lambeth Housing was in a bit of a self imposed mess, and this is an outline of what it amounts to. I'm not going to add much in the way of comment, but anyone who acts on occasion for Lambeth tenants or leaseholders or homeless applicants...
Bankruptcy and disrepair
In the end, I couldn't resist writing this one up from the report in January 09's LAG updates. It is a very late report and only a County Court decision, but is a) just too topical for these insolvent times and b) vaguely technically interesting. Lambeth LBC...
Councils bribing tenants shock!
In apparent confirmation both that the Times is now a tabloid newspaper and that today was a quiet news day, this was the lead story in Saturday's Times. I'll just quote the opening sentence: Council tenants are being offered £30,000 bribes or cottages by...
We're not in Sparta any more.
The House of Lords Opinions in Holmes-Moorhouse v LB Richmond upon Thames [2009] UKHL 7 were handed down today. This concerned whether a shared residence order under s.8 Children Act 1989 meant that a child was 'reasonably expected' to be resident with both...
Applying under Part VII via Part VI
This is another decision of the Welsh Ombudsman, again concerning Conwy Council. Case 200702044 - Conwy County Borough Council. I don't propose to go into detail on the specifics of this matter - which principally concerned delay and muddle in dealing with...
'We rule the estate'
A local authority's failure to effectively implement the range of sanctions for Anti Social Behaviour is the subject of a report by the Public Service Ombudsman of Wales, Case 200702044 - Conwy County Borough Council. The whole report (there is a link on...