A few bits and pieces, none of which are worth their own post, including a couple of updates on old 'friends'. First, as you have probably noticed, the blog has had a redesign (yes, another one). There are a couple of reasons for this: partly for a more...
Bedroom tax and human rights FTT miscellany
No less than four FTT bedroom tax appeal decision have come my way lately. Three of them concern successful appeals on human rights Article 14 discrimination or Article 8 family life grounds. One is a clear room size decision with an interesting footnote on...
On the Naughty Step: Incredible Landlords and the buzzy DCLG
It is hard for a civil servant, with a predisposition to reticence, obfuscation and paper, to know what to do in an age where ‘amazeballs’ and ‘bedroom tax’ have entered the Oxford English Dictionary, and even the dictionary is only available online. How,...
Indecent homes and major works charges
The DCLG has released the "Social landlords reduction of service charges: mandatory and discretionary directions 2014", in force as of today, 12 August 2014. The upshot of the mandatory directions is that a social landlord which undertakes "repair,...
Reasons, reasons, reasons
This slipped under my radar, but thanks to @RichGreenhill on twitter for pointing to Section 7 of The Openness of Local Government Bodies Regulations 2014, in force as of 6 August 2014. Section 7 provides: 7. (1) The decision-making officer must produce a...
DHP not enough to remedy?
We've received an interesting First Tier Tribunal (so not binding) appeal decision from Wakefield, thanks to Kirklees Law Centre. A copy of the statement of reasons is here (not anonymised as the appellants consented to it being used largely unredacted). Mr...
Help me make it through the night
We have the first (to the best of my knowledge) Upper Tribunal decision on a bedroom tax appeal, and therefore one binding on First Tier Tribunals. While it is not on one of the large scale issues, such as room size, it is nonetheless potentially important...
Bedroom tax ‘lead case’ in Upper Tribunal?
Some bits on the bedroom tax and room size First, a new FTT decision from Rochdale (Reasons here ). A room of 64 square feet was too small for a lodger and had not been used as a bedroom since the appellant’s son moved out in 2010. The room was instead...
Extremely loud and incredibly close
This is about loud and disturbing noises. I was going to write up Coventry & Ors v Lawrence & Anor [2014] UKSC 13 when it came out in February, given that it made some significant changes to common law nuisance claims. But it was 249 paragraphs and...
More on post possession order disrepair counterclaims
This is an issue we’ve looked at before, bringing a disrepair counterclaim after a possession order has been made. Now the Birmingham County Court has dealt with the issue on an appeal from the decision of a District Judge. Midland Heart Ltd v Idawah...
The point of having policies….
A post on a County Court case, one well worth looking at for the application of public law principles, the Equality Act and reasonableness. I'm working from a note of judgment, so any quotes should be taken as being from a note, rather than a transcript....
Missing tenants and missing sentences: Council tax and periodic tenancies
Further to my post here on council tax liability for statutory periodic tenancies, I have heard about another Valuation Tribunal case, this time involving a contractual periodic tenancy, and also oddly involving this blog. The issue was council tax liability...