'What!' I hear you say, 'wasn't the final Jackson report on costs released on 14 January?' Why yes it was. All 584 pages of it. But amid the headlines about scrapping CFA success fees and recoverable ATE insurance premiums, introducing contingency...
All the blog posts, most recent first
Rent Repayment Orders
As well as the process of criminal convictions and fines which results from the failure to have the necessary property licence as required by the Housing Act 2004 there is a further penalty which can be imposed on unlicensed landlords. This is the...
Sale and leaseback – a transaction at an undervalue?
Could the sale and leaseback of a house be a transaction at an undervalue and thus be caught by section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986? This was the main question considered by the High Court in Delaney v Chen although some other points of interest...
On the Naughty Step
And what a thoroughly deserving new entrant to the roll we have in Anthony Carroll, apparently known as 'Uncle Tony', although 'Uncle' to whom and whether any Godfather style references were intended is not at all clear. Mr Carroll is a Nottingham...
Credit where it's due?
Walsh v Singh [2009] EWHC 32 is a fascinating case about constructive trust (CT) and proprietary estoppel (PE), or at least it could have been. First credit goes to HHJ Purle QC, sitting as a judge of the High Court, who has managed the seemingly...
Don’t answer the phone…
[Update 03/04/2011 - the Court of Appeal decision on the further appeal in this case is here.] Makisi v Birmingham City Council (Birmingham County Court Appeal Ref: BM9 0166A, 6 Jan 2010) This was the County Court hearing of a s.204 Housing Act...
Rent arrears, transfers and Weaver in operation
McIntyre & Anor, R (on the application of) v Gentoo Group Ltd [2010] EWHC 5 (Admin) This was the judicial review of North Sunderland Housing Company's refusal to permit an exchange of homes by the Claimants, joint assured tenants, with another...
It's a confused world out there…
And for the new year, it seems an opportune moment to delve into the Nearly Legal search logs in a vaguely quixotic attempt to provide answers to some of the questions that brought people here. Alternatively, where this is not possible, we can...
Ending 'Horsham' possessions?
The Ministry of Justice has issued a consultation document on a proposal to require mortgage lenders to obtain a court order or the consent of the borrower before repossessing and selling residential owner-occupied homes. (The consultation document...
That was the year, that was…
But we're not going to do a 'roundup of the year' kind of post. It is all searchably there and anyway, we've already linked to one (although it is probably subscribers only by now). Instead, I just wanted to gaze at our collective navel a little...
Service charges up, enfranchisement down: some LVT statistics
As food for reader's thought as 2009 draws to an end, a quick comment on a recent written answer given to the Shadow Housing minister Grant Shapps. Since many readers' will be full of seasonal fare I thought some pictures rather than words would be...
The HRA and precedent
We've been a bit slow on this one, but R v Horncastle [2009] UKSC 14 offers further light on the quarter pounder v royale with cheese debate, which has occupied much of our time this year. J noted that R v Purdy suggested that the UKSC would offer...