I've posted before about the vexed issue of s.81, Housing Act 1996 and default judgments (see here for the most recent county court case; note also the comments to that post which explain that Woodfall has changed its mind). Well, we now have...
All the blog posts, most recent first
I don’t want to go to… Lambeth
Can a refuge be a 'residence of own choice' for the purposes of Local Authority decisions about local connection in homeless applications? This is a rare Court of Appeal decision on the issue. In addition, can a Reg 8(2) 'minded to' letter...
Outsourcing marketing. How to look ridiculous.
To return to a theme discussed here, 'guest post' search engine optimisation is, at best, a dubious, not to say scummy, way to go about things. I get 4 or 5 'guest post' proposals a day, but today brought a classic of the genre....
Who’d be a judge?
I've just been reading Ahmed and others v Mahmood and others [2013] EWHC 3176 (QB) (Lawtel only I think) and I'm totally confused. If anyone who was in the case can help, I'd be very grateful. The defendants lived in a property owned by the...
Accept no substitutes
P v Ealing Borough Council (2013) CA Civ Div 05/11/2013 [Not on Bailii yet. Note on Lawtel] This was Ealing's appeal from a s.204 appeal brought by Ms P. At the s.204 appeal, the Circuit Judge had varied Ealing's review decision that Ms P was...
Of Superglue and Residence
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...
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This is a brief note on a recent High Court appeal dealing with the issue of costs on withdrawn s.204 appeals (Unichi v LB Southwark 16/10/13-from a Lawtel summary, not on Bailii).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...