When the First Respondent in a possession case is styled "The Sovereign Indigenous Peoples of Scotland" and the second, named, Respondent describes himself as "A Member of the Government of Scotland", you suspect that you know in advance how things will go....
You’ve lost that loving Ealing. (Sorry)
H & Ors, R (On the Application Of) v Ealing London Borough Council [2016] EWHC 841 (Admin) Ealing's allocation policy has already had lawfulness problems, compounded by Ealing's unlawful refusal to do anything about that unlawfulness. But this judicial...
Discrimination in allocation
Courtesy of Garden Court North Chambers and Joseph Markus of GCN is this note of a settled judicial review claim on an allocation policy's local connection requirements. R (VC) v North Somerset Council (Equality and Human Rights Commission intervening)...
Ealing Comedy
R (on the application of A) v Ealing London Borough Council (2015) QBD (Admin) (Patterson J) 16/12/2015 (Not on Bailii yet, note on lawtel) Back in August, Ealing's allocation policy was found to be unlawful in HA, R (On the Application Of) v London Borough...
Wherever I lay my hat… Residence tests for allocation policies
HA, R (On the Application Of) v London Borough of Ealing [2015] EWHC 2375 (Admin) This is, I think, a very significant case for all Councils who have or are considering setting residence requirements in their allocation policies. Like quite a few councils,...
IT wasn’t
In Wandsworth LBC v Tompkins [2015] EWCA Civ 846, Wandsworth had purported to grant Mr and Mrs Tompkins an introductory tenancy of a property; only, as the Court of Appeal found, it wasn't an IT because it couldn't be. Mr and Mrs Tompkins had made a...
Human Rights Update
Zammit & Attard Cassar v Malta [2015] ECHR 751 This is the latest in the sequence of cases dealing with rent controls and breaches of A1P1 (previous note here). The property in this instance was let under a commercial lease and in 2002, the applicants...
Westminster again…
In R(Alemi) v Westminster CC [2015] EWHC 1765 (Admin), which has been widely reported already (eg here; and all over my twitter feed), HHJ Blair QC found that Westminster's allocation scheme was unlawful in disbarring successful homeless applicants (other...
ECtHR and Social Housing-Two Recent Judgements
Happi v France 9/4/15 (judgement in French only) Mr H lives with his family in unsatisfactory and hazardous accommodation in Paris. On 28/12/10, Paris' Administrative Court ordered the Ile-de-France authority to provide the family with urgent accommodation....
No duty of care in allocation decisions
Darby (administratrix of the estate of Lee Rabbetts deceased) v Richmond Upon Thames LBC [2015] EWHC 909 (QB) [Not on Bailii, we've seen the judgment]. Can a council's failure to carry out its responsibilities under its allocation scheme be the subject of a...
Part 7 and capacity
R (MT) v Oxford CC, High Ct, (Lawtel note only as far as I can tell) is an interesting little case on capacity and homelessness Mr MT lacks capacity and is unable to manage his housing or financial affairs. He (or, I suspect, his father who was also his...
Zambrano carers and social assistance
There must be times when Court of Appeal judges think that they have bit parts in an ongoing drama - they have a walk on role. And that must be how the Court felt in Sanneh v SSWP and others [2015] EWCA Civ 49, which concerns the eligibility rules for...