Ombudsman's Decision: Complaint against Newham LB [2010] Complaint no 09 003 325 9 November 2010 Hat-tip to the Garden Court bulletin for this one. Miss Thornton (pseudonym) was in temporary accommodation provided by Newham LBC pursuant to the full housing...
Sale and Rent Back – Priority over charge, Round 1
North East Property Buyers Litigation [2010] EWHC 2991 (Ch) [Not on Bailii yet. Available on Lawtel or here] We noted this case was forthcoming a month ago. Judgement was given on 19 November. Thanks to James Stark, we've got a transcript. Thanks to being...
Social housing reform “consultation”
The heavily trailed (eg here and here), "cataclysmic" consultation paper on social housing reforms has been published by CLG today. There is much to digest and much will be left to individual PRPs and local authorities to work out. The "consultation" is...
Tenancy Deposit Protection Eviscerated
Tiensia v Vision Enterprises Ltd (t/a Universal Estates) [2010] EWCA Civ 1224 (11 November 2010) This is the long awaited Court of Appeal decision on tenancy deposit protection. It is a conjoined appeal of Universal Estates v Tiensia and Honeysuckle...
Mr Pickles is unlawful and other bits
Cala Homes (South) Ltd v Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government & Anor [2010] EWHC 2866 (Admin) found Eric Pickles, SoS at DCLG, acted unlawfully in scrapping the Regional Strategies for housing development, which also, lest we forget,...
Exodus
As we await the impact of the imposed upper limits of Housing Benefit, starting in April 2011, it appears that some London Councils have already decided on the likely results, according to this story in the Observer. Representatives of London boroughs told a...
When more means less
Green v Sinclair Investments Limited Clerkenwell and Shoreditch County Court. 11 June 2010 This is a County Court and non-binding tenancy deposit case reported in September 2010 Legal Action 'Recent Developments'. But it is interesting and harks back to a...
Period? Which Period?
Suvini v Anderson, Staines County Court, 13 August 2010 It is well known that notices under section 21(4)(a) of the Housing Act 1988 must give notice to a tenant that "after a date specified ... being the last day of a period of the tenancy ... possession of...
On the Naughty Step – drop the dead donkey redux
There is very hot competition among the cast of this sorry episode for being placed on the step. This is also a story which has already been commented on by Tessa Shepperson of Landlord Law, who indeed played a small - and entirely virtuous - part. But Tessa...
New Tenancy Deposit Cases in Legal Action
Our new copy of Legal Action flopped onto the mat here at Nearly Legal Towers this morning. Looking at the reported cases a pair of tenancy deposit matters caught my eye. One of these we have already written about here. In Baafi v Mapp, Central London County...
HMOs and Council Tax
Goremsandu, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Harrow [2010] EWHC 1873 (Admin) As many of you will know the definition of an HMO for the purposes of Council Tax is totally different from that used in the Housing Act 2004 (and in relation to...
All mimsy were the borogoves
The Jabberwock of the tenancy deposit scheme came whiffling again, in the tulgey wood of Northampton County Court. This time it was the clause that catch to beware of. And there's a disrepair claim in there too. Paula O'Brien v Jacqueline Jones & Andrew...