A four party judicial review of the Benefit Cap - now under pilot in 4 boroughs and to be rolled out in October - was issued today (Wednesday 22 May). Details are here. The claimants argue that the Regulations are discriminatory and unreasonable. ...
All the blog posts, most recent first
Let’s Not Move to Wales…
...says the RLA. Personally I remain convinced that it is a lovely place and we should all move immediately. Why is the RLA less keen you might well ask. Well, the Welsh Government has today published the White Paper I response to the recent...
The meaning of care and attention
SL v Westminster [2013] UKSC 27 is a very important case concerning the meaning of "care and attention" in the context of s.21, National Assitance Act 1948. We can only apologise for not writing it up sooner. All we can say is that the nearlylegal...
Night Shelters, dwellings and housing benefit
This a late note on OR -v- Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Isle of Anglesey CC [2013] UKUT 065 (AAC) because, bluntly, I had read it quickly at the time and overlooked its broader significance. The issue was whether OR could receive...
Priority need
Hotak v Southwark LBC [2013] EWCA Civ 515 concerned a short point on whether an authority was entitled to have regard to the assistance that a homeless person would receive, in the event he became homeless, when determining whether he was...
Ambling for Justice
We here at Nearly Legal don't just sit around staring at the ever increasing backlog of cases to write up. Oh no. We do other things too. One of the other things some of us are doing is the London Legal Walk on Monday 20 May. The aim of the walk is...
Being civil
Morshead Mansions has been involved in a quite astonishing amount of litigation. Bailii throws up 13 hits (here), cases in the LVT, Lands Tribunal, High Court and Court of Appeal. It's really must be the most awful burden on all those involved. And...
Yet another one…
The Leasehold Reform Act 1967 gives qualifying long leaseholders of houses the right, inter alia, to acquire the freehold. The definition of "house" is quite technical, but, in essence, it turns on whether it could reasonably be called a house...
Bedroom Tax Judicial Review update
Just to note that the 10 joined bedroom tax Judicial Review claims (for initial details see our note) are listed for full hearing on Wednesday to Friday next week (15-17 May). The claims involve a range of challenges to the regulations involving...
Lets try not to break this one – HLPA and the Equality Act 2010
This may not be a universally held view, but I think we housing lawyers aren't really very good at equality law. We were very late to the party with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (the first higher court case wasn't until 2003, with North...
To be incurred or not to be incurred?
Those with good memories will remember that a year or so ago the Upper Tribunal gave judgment in a case called Om Property Management Ltd v Burr (our note here) in which the issue was at what point in time does a cost became incurred for the...
Intention and resulting trusts
Chaudhary v Chaudhary (not on bailii yet but on lawtel) is something of a puzzle, which hopefully will be solved when we see the full transcript (hint, hint). It may be important, but it's a little early to say. The one thing about it that isn't a...