A prosecution under s.144 LASPO that came unstuck* R v D Duputell 31 October 2013 Hove Trial Centre [Newspaper report] This was the retrial of Mr Duputell after his earlier trial on charges of breach of s.144 LASPO together with two other...
All the blog posts, most recent first
Homelessness Appeals and Costs
This is a brief note on a recent High Court appeal dealing with the issue of costs on withdrawn s.204 appeals (Unichi v LB Southwark 16/10/13-from a Lawtel summary, not on Bailii). The Local Authority discharged its duty towards Ms U under...
Demanding Money with Menaces
We all know that the bedroom tax has created huge problems for both tenants, desperately trying and often failing to find the additional 14% or 25% of rent, and for social landlords, watching arrears spiral rapidly upwards. But I don't think there...
Trust No-one
The DWP issued a bedroom tax related circular on 30 October 2013. HB U7/2013. The full text is below. Removal of the spare room subsidy – First tier Tribunal decisions Background 1. Generally local authorities (LAs) initiate appeals to the Upper...
Don’t ignore the Court of Appeal
Or, 'It wasn't me, it was the bailiff'. Choudhury v Garcia [2013] EWHC 3283 (QB) (June 2013) [Not on Bailii. We have transcript] A rather unusual unlawful eviction case, this, involving as it does breaches of Court of Appeal stays of warrant, and...
Partial Regulation Partially Begins
We have previously commented (fairly negatively!) on the plans to introduce compulsory membership of redress schemes for lettings and property management agency work which appeared at the last minute in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act...
Half a Storey is no Storey at All*
News has reached us from RH Environmental of a case in Bristol Magistrates on HMO licensing and the counting of storeys. Unfortunately it is not binding but it is nonetheless interesting. The case involves the licensing status of a two storey...
Licenced to ill(founded)
Readers might be interested to know that the ECHR has held that the complaint by Mr Pinnock (of Manchester CC v Pinnock fame) is inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded under art.35 (see here). You'll recall that the Supreme Court decided the issue...
Allocations Code: Draft Amendments
Although there appears to be a ministerial vacancy for housing policy (https://www.gov.uk/government/ministers/minister-of-state--11 h/t to Martin Partington and Jules Birch), quite a lot is happening. There are some interesting goings on about the...
A rose by any other name…
The First Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) is a grand title but suffers the fatal flaw of lacking a suitable three letter abbreviation (recursively, a TLA). Unlike LVT, there is no easy way to refer to the new Chamber, at least not without gabbling...
Mr Pickles’ brighter future for hardworking tenants
I didn't comment here on Eric Pickles announcement of a 'Tenants Charter' at the Tory conference because, on inspection of the DCLG press release, it looked like a burp of a soundbite, with absolutely no significant likely effect. I contented...
POSHFA!
The Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act comes into force tomorrow (Tuesday 15 October 2013) in England only. The text of the Act is here. A key point is the introduction of 'Unlawful Profit Orders', which get around the decision of the Court of...