This is a fascinating judicial review case. While the specific facts might only apply to a very few people, there is an interesting principle in it which may have wider application. R (OAO Yekini) v LB Southwark [2014] EWHC 2096 (Admin) [Not on...
All the blog posts, most recent first
Bad reviews and a future of bunk beds
Temur v London Borough of Hackney [2014] EWCA Civ 877 This second appeal to the Court of Appeal from a s.204 Housing Act 1996 appeal raises three important questions. Unfortunately, the answers to them are rather brief and rather negative. The...
Privacy, lifts and bedrooms
An interesting First Tier Tribunal decision from Sunderland (Statement of Reasons). The claimants/appellants were joint tenants of what had been a three bedroom property. One of the joint tenants suffers from severe and degenerating muscular...
In the garden of Eden
Lawtel had an interesting note on a permission to appeal case earlier this week - Mount Eden Land Ltd v Bolsover Investments Ltd (Ch.D, 20.6.14). Mount Eden Land Ltd (also known as the Langham Estate) had the freehold of an office block. Bolsover...
Domestic violence and the bedroom tax
A judicial review of the bedroom tax has been given permission, where the claimant is a victim of domestic violence who has received support to remain in her home through a 'sanctuary scheme'. The woman, a victim of rape, assault, harassment and...
Make do and mend: Undoing Superstrike on deposits
The Govt has published the text of the Government amendment to the Deregulation Bill that is proposed to deal with tenancy deposits and specifically the Superstrike position of a new tenancy (and requirement to re-protect the deposit and re-serve...
They think it’s all over….
We covered the case of Beech v Birmingham CC in the High Court here. The appeal to the Court of Appeal was heard on 11/6/2014 and judgement was given on 17/6/2014. I will not repeat the facts here except to say that the appeal was narrowed down to...
Condensation damp and saturated plaster
Just a quick note on a County Court disrepair trial with an interesting finding on damp plaster DR v Southwark LBC, Lambeth County Court 11 June 2014 DR had brought a claim for disrepair including for damp, saturated plaster to the external wall in...
The oxygen of publicity: Paratus and Moore Blatch LLP
Not strictly speaking a housing case, though it is a mortgage repossession matter. But when a High Court Judge orders that a 'clear and repeated contempt of court should attract proper sanction in the form of publicity', who are we to refuse to...
Bedrooms: Living, moving and relaxing
A couple of new bedroom tax FTT decisions (also on the FTT decisions page) The first, from Liverpool [reasons here], is a fairly standard room size decision on a room measuring 44 square feet. However the room had a bunk bed in it, used by the...
Pregnancy and Worker Status
Saint Prix v SSWP Case C-507/12 must be one of the more obvious decisions of the CJEU in the sense that the outcome should have been apparent (although the rationale less so), but no less important because of that. The question on reference from...
What’s the Din?*
In Haile v Waltham Forest LBC [2014] EWCA Civ 792, the question for the Court of Appeal was the relevant date for determining whether an applicant is intentionally homeless. On the facts, this was a significant question: Ms Haile had left her room...