We all knew that Lambeth Housing was in a bit of a self imposed mess, and this is an outline of what it amounts to. I'm not going to add much in the way of comment, but anyone who acts on occasion for Lambeth tenants or leaseholders or homeless...
All the blog posts, most recent first
Nelsonian ignorance
Iyekekpolor Ugiagbe is a dream appellant - or, rather, an appellant whose homelessness story is a dream for a neo-liberal Court of Appeal who allowed her appeal against Southwark's finding that she was intentionally homeless (Ugiagbe v Southwark...
The Gas Man Cometh
The case of Ferguson v British Gas [2009] EWCA Civ 46 concerns a complaint that British Gas harassed a former customer for some 6 months after she had transferred her gas supply to nPower. Although it is not a housing case, the report contains some...
Mersey Paradise?
The Court of Appeal has - today - given judgment in R (Liverpool CC) v London Borough of Hillingdon and Ayan Khan (interested party) [2009] EWCA Civ 1702, a case concerning two local authorities who were in dispute over which one of them should be...
Protection from repossession
Andrew Dismore MP (he of Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights fame) has introduced a ten minute rule bill entitled 'Home Repossession (Protection) Bill'. In his own words, the Bill will: amend the Law of Property Act 1925 to require a...
Evictions and Proportionality
We're a bit late with this one, and it is arguably quite a biggie (hat tip to Niki Goss who first pointed it out, to me at least, in the comments here). Anyway, Cosic v Croatia is a decision of the European Court of Human Rights that should be of...
Bankruptcy and disrepair
In the end, I couldn't resist writing this one up from the report in January 09's LAG updates. It is a very late report and only a County Court decision, but is a) just too topical for these insolvent times and b) vaguely technically interesting....
Councils bribing tenants shock!
In apparent confirmation both that the Times is now a tabloid newspaper and that today was a quiet news day, this was the lead story in Saturday's Times. I'll just quote the opening sentence: Council tenants are being offered £30,000 bribes or...
We're not in Sparta any more.
The House of Lords Opinions in Holmes-Moorhouse v LB Richmond upon Thames [2009] UKHL 7 were handed down today. This concerned whether a shared residence order under s.8 Children Act 1989 meant that a child was 'reasonably expected' to be resident...
Applying under Part VII via Part VI
This is another decision of the Welsh Ombudsman, again concerning Conwy Council. Case 200702044 - Conwy County Borough Council. I don't propose to go into detail on the specifics of this matter - which principally concerned delay and muddle in...
'We rule the estate'
A local authority's failure to effectively implement the range of sanctions for Anti Social Behaviour is the subject of a report by the Public Service Ombudsman of Wales, Case 200702044 - Conwy County Borough Council. The whole report (there is a...
Ask and ye shall receive
Yesterday evening I asked for more information about Dixon v Wandsworth LBC (No 2) [2009] EWHC 27 (Admin) and, by the next morning, two copies of the transcript had made their way to my inbox. My gratitude to The Chief and to William Flack of Flack...