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...
Qualification criteria and allocations: An outlier?
In R(Hillsden) v Epping Forest DC [2015] EWHC 98 (Admin), McCloskey J held the council's allocation scheme valid in circumstances which, I must say, did not seem propitious to the council. The council's new allocation scheme, which came in to force in...
A return of sanity: Allocation and reasonable preference
Jakimaviciute, R (On the Application Of) v Hammersmith And Fulham London Borough Council [2014] EWCA Civ 1438 Eligibility for allocation list, reasonable preference and homelessness. After a run of Court of Appeal housing decisions that might be mildly...
Only connect – allocation priority
Just a brief note, partly about Barnet's Allocation policy and partly about the surprising way that things can develop from a blog post. In September 2014, I noted that Barnet's proposed changes to its allocation policy had the effect of excluding domestic...