GMAC RFC Ltd v Jones Lambeth County Court 15/11/2010 With thanks to the Legal Action Recent Developments in Housing Law - report in the January 2011 edition. This was a case on the operation of the Mortgage Repossessions (Protection of Tenants etc) Act 2010,...
Catching up with 2010 Part 1 – disrepair
Part 1 of cases - mainly county court - that we have missed or not heard of during 2010. With our grateful thanks to Beatrice Prevatt of Garden Court for bringing these to our notice in her disrepair update at the HLPA conference: Shazad v Khan. Birmingham...
There’s no place like HMO
A brief trip to the Emerald City, or rather Reading, where the Borough Council may have established a record for a fine for breaches of The Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (England) Regulations 2006 and the Housing Act 2004 Section 11. An HMO at...
Localism Bill published
The Localism Bill was published yesterday. I suppose it might be seen as an exciting time for the housing sector - somebody described it as a potential "paradigm shift" at an event I was at last week - but, whether or not that is correct (and it could yet...
Tis the season for giving (1)
Leeds and Yorkshire Housing Association v Vertigan, Court of Appeal, December 9, 2010 (Elias LJ, Norris J, Lawtel note only) Vertigan was the assured shorthold tenant of the claimant. Over the years, it seems that he had done a number of things of which his...
Relying on advice on the LHA
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...