As many readers will know, Debbie Crew has been conducting a campaign about retaliatory evictions - typically in private tenancies where a tenant has complained about conditions in the property and got Environmental Health in, and the landlord promptly...
Deposits – another County Court decision
Tessa Shepperson at Landlord Law has a report from a landlord's solicitor on another tenancy deposit case in the County Court, this time Bedford County Court. In short, the Court found that payment of the deposit and provision of the required information by...
Trying to avoid Council Tax liability by not being a tenant
In what might be described as an audacious, or perhaps foolhardy, appeal from the Valuation Tribunal, Mr Jackson sought to challenge his liability to pay Council Tax in Jackson v Cambridge City Council [2008] EWHC 2529 (Admin). Normally, this wouldn't...
New PRS Report
Ok, I'm angry again. It's really out of character as I'm usually very mild mannered. Here's a question: what do you do if you've paid a group of people over around 10 years to come up with a series of proposals to regulate renting relationships (ie the Law...
Second time around
Truro Diocesan Board of Finance Ltd v Foley [2008] EWCA Civ 1162 In March 1987 Mr Foley became the tenant of a property owned by the predecessor in title of the Board. In 2000, the Board sought possession of the property. They contended that Mr Foley was a...
On the Naughty Step
Very firmly esconsed on the step are Sutton Estates, managing agents on Merseyside. These charmers came up with the idea of putting notice boards outside the homes of tenants in rent arrears, proclaiming it to be the home of a 'rent dodger'. Sutton Estates...
Stadium Housing to Appeal
Regular readers of this blog will have read our comments on (in our view) a fairly poor example of service charge management by an RSL, entitled On the Naughty Step. To my surprise the RSL in question — Stadium Housing — have decided to appeal the decision....
On the Naughty Step
Or an RSL behaving badly, again. And this time it's personal... 21 Press House, Press Road LON/00AE/LSC/2007/0292 [pdf], an LVT decision. The landlord, Stadium Housing Association, were facing an application over hefty service charges made on an shorthold...
Harvey v Bamforth – now with the benefit of a transcript
Harvey v Bamforth 8PA13344, HHJ Bullimore, Sheffield County Court, 8 Aug 2008 When we first commented on this case (here) we provoked quite a response. Thanks to to Mr Jones of Bury Walkers (who acted for Ms Harvey) we have now been provied with a transcript...
Harvey v Bamforth – request for further information
Harvey v Bamforth, Sheffield County Court, Estates Gazette, 23 Aug, 2008, pg 22. The introduction of the Tenancy Deposit Scheme ("TDS") was one of the more positive reforms to housing law in recent years. It has previously been discussed by NL here and here,...
So what
Seven and a half years on, the Law Commission has now completed its work on the reform of housing law with the publication of its final report, Housing: Encouraging Responsible Letting. The Consultation Paper, on which this report is based, voted in favour...
Letting repossessed property
As a follow-up to the mortgage repossession post below, I've just spotted a sad story on Landlord Law blog. Tessa had a case in which private tenants discovered, when the bailiffs turned up, that the property they had just rented was subject to a mortgage...