I’m going to level with you, dear reader(s), I’m a bit late with this one. In my defence, I point to the fact that the Act as printed is around 250 pages long, consisting of 218 sections and 28 schedules. The explanatory notes run to over 160...
All the blog posts, most recent first
Two More Housing Act 2004 Appeals Reach the Lands Tribunal
Relatively few appeals to the RPT reach the Lands Tribunal. However decisions in two have recently been published on their website. Hanley v Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council is an appeal against the service of a Prohibition Order. These Orders...
Pathway plans and duties
In R(A) v Lambeth LBC [2010] EWHC 1652 (Admin) (Claim 1) and [2010] EWHC 2439 (Admin) (Claim 2), Kenneth Parker J considered first whether it was proper for a personal advisor to complete a ChIldren Act 1989 pathway plan, and, secondly, the degree...
Allocations: Overwriting the effective date
One of the key things that choice-based lettings is designed to achieve is openness and transparency in housing allocation (or lettings, if you prefer). It does so mostly by using a relatively crude mechanism of determining priorities in and...
DWP Research: HB & LHA
The DWP has snuffled out (it seems like the best expression but apologies for it) three research reports on the impact of the local housing allowance. Of course, these reports are largely out of date as a result of recent announcements about the...
“Could have gone better” corner
Just a brief note on a couple of tangentially housing-related cases, both of which serve as illustrations of how not to go about things as claimants and in one case, as a defendant as well. A little cruel, perhaps, as to be human is to err, but the...
Bad landlords and good housing lawyers on the TV
Panorama on BBC1 this evening (link to iPlayer, good for the next few days) was about notably bad examples of private landlords providing 'housing' for benefit claimants. Tame Estates in the North West and some others, who frankly all looked like a...
Accommodating ‘formerly relevant children’
SO, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Barking and Dagenham [2010] EWCA Civ 1101 I'm a bit slow in getting to this one (and the rest of our backlog). We're all more than a little busy. My apologies. This is the Court of Appeal hearing of...
Exodus
As we await the impact of the imposed upper limits of Housing Benefit, starting in April 2011, it appears that some London Councils have already decided on the likely results, according to this story in the Observer. Representatives of London...
Sale and rent back – coming soon?
Word reaches us (via the Garden Court North website) of what appears to be a fascinating piece of litigation in the High Court (Leeds District Registry) concerning sale and rent back schemes (as to which, see our earlier piece, here). A number of...
Power to the people!
NL doesn't have a vote in the New York gubernatorial election but, if we did, we'd probably cast it for the "Rent is Too Damn High" party. The performance of Jimmy McMillan in the recent gubernatorial debates has become something of a Youtube hit...
Squatters make good stories
A squatters story in the Evening Standard caught my eye today and I can't bear to let such nonsense pass. The story (so we are told) is that a hotelier moved out of his home for a week while it was being renovated and, coming back, found that it...