There is an interesting note here on a county court case claiming discrimination under Equality Act 2010 for failure to make physical adjustments to a property. As is generally known, a 'controller of let premises' (section 36) does not have to...
All the blog posts, most recent first
Another step for Fitness for Habitation, and getting unlawful eviction wrong
Some quick notes. First, the Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) Bill finally has a Commons committee date! This is the next step after second reading. The committee is on 20 June 2018 and we have high hopes of getting the Bill and amendments...
Late review decisions and homeless appeals
Muloko v Newham LBC, County Court at Central London 6 April 2018 This is from a note of the judgment in June 2018 Legal Action - Housing: Recent Developments. I usually wait a month or two on reporting cases from Legal Action, but I report it now...
Damages for badly performed homeless duties?
Brief notes on a couple of cases, both, in different ways, approaching the issue of whether a homeless applicant can claim for damages arising from the bad performance of the local authority's statutory duties. McDonagh, R (on the application of) v...
Too soon?
Our thanks to Sally Blackmore of Ely Place Chambers for her note of this deposit case, which unaccountably slipped past us at the time (a year ago). The issue is the effect of the landlord providing the prescribed information before a deposit has...
Forthcoming law (and informed consent)
The Tenant Fees Bill has had its second reading. The current Bill and its progress are here. There is a lot to digest in the Bill and I suspect there will be amendments on route. There are a whole new range of civil penalties, possible offences and...
Heavy handed, inaccurate threats of legal action – Metropolitan HT harass their tenants
Worthington & Anor v Metropolitan Housing Trust Ltd (2018) EWCA Civ 1125 The Court of Appeal on an instance of tenancy management going bad, very bad indeed. And the landlord losing a claim against them for damages for harassment under...
Court of Appeal on illegal eviction – quantum and heads of claim.
Smith v Khan (2018) EWCA Civ 1137 Well! It is not often that an illegal eviction case gets to the Court of Appeal, let alone on the tenant's appeal. But that is what we have here. There are some useful bits along the way, the correction of some...
On the Naughty Step – ‘Accommodation Clubs’
To misquote Groucho Marx, you really don't want to belong to any such club that would have you as a member. I've been hearing about these set ups for a while. They seem to be the latest thing in bloody stupid 'get rich quick from residential...
Bits – tenant fees, airbnb and more
The Tenant Fees Bill is now underway. The first reading was on 2 May 2018. The Bill page is here. The Govt response to the CLG select committee report on the proposals is here. Notable in the the Bill is a proposed ban on serving a s.21 notice...
Automatic discharge of suspended possession order – it depends
Armstrong v Ashfield District Council (2018) EWCA Civ 873 Where a suspended possession order has provided for a future date of discharge, does that take effect even when the landlord has applied for a warrant on breach of terms in the interim and...
Capacity and applications: Homelessness
Last night, I was in Leeds at the wonderful Centre for Law and Social Justice, and discussed with some scholars and lawyers (over a few drinks) the way in which housing law appears to have become its own isolated and insular sub-discipline. This...