With very grateful thanks to Beatrice Prevatt’s annual disrepair update in the December 2014/January 2015 Legal Action, here is a bumper pack of County Court cases and settled cases on damages for disrepair. Armes v Wheel Property Co Ltd, Clerkenwell and...
Hot, hot, hot
Here is an interesting First Tier Tribunal bedroom tax appeal decision from Bexleyheath. [Decision notice]. It is a decision made after the Fife Upper Tribunal decision, but upholds the tenant's appeal on the basis, in part, that the room is inadequately...
Too late for Art 8?
When should an article 8 defence be raised? And are there different kinds of social landlords, such that the analysis of Article 8 defences in Pinnock and Powell might not be applicable to all? These were questions in Lawal & Anor v Circle 33 Housing...
Not quite, Minister
Following the Upper Tribunal judgment in SSWP v David Nelson and Fife Council, SSWP v James Nelson and Fife Council [2014] UKUT 0525 (AAC) [our report], the DWP has issued a Circular - HB U6/2014 The thing is that it isn't quite right, in some quite...
The elephant in the bedroom
Finally, the long awaited Upper Tribunal decision on room size and the bedroom tax has been released. A copy of the decision can be downloaded here. SSWP v David Nelson and Fife Council, SSWP v James Nelson and Fife Council [2014] UKUT 0525 (AAC) And the...
Separated families and bedroom tax
Cotton & Ors, R (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions & Ors [2014] EWHC 3437 (Admin) This was the Liberty backed judicial review of the bedroom tax regulations on the basis that the regulations amounted to an article 8...
Bedroom Tax: Upper Tribunal on Article 14
Following my plaintive cry here, I now have copies of the two Upper Tribunal judgments from Scotland referred to by the DWP. And, while the judgments do do something rather more and rather different to the outcomes suggested in the DWP Circular, sadly, what...
Not enough information: Bedroom tax and disability discrimination
[Update 6/10/14 - got the judgments now. Detailed comment here] This is frustrating! A DWP circular HB U4/2014 contains an annex with notes on four Scottish Upper Tribunal bedroom tax decisions. Two of them I have already addressed here, but the first and...
Bedroom tax bits
Here are couple of new First Tier Tribunal decisions (also on the FTT decisions page). A room use decision from St Helens - a room which had been used since the start of the tenancy as a dressing room/home office, and where a sewing machine was kept and...
Tribunals and Reviews and Appeals. Oh My!
I did a talk at a conference on the topic of legal issues about the bedroom tax, it was basically a critical overview of the higher courts and tribunal (FTT and UT) cases. In case they are useful or vaguely interesting, my notes are here. (No jokes though....
A Thursday stuffed with housing stuff
A busy Thursday for housing law, not yet law, housing benefits and housing misc. Item one. A Scottish Upper Tribunal is to hear a room size appeal on 18 September. This is one of the first Fife decisions. It is not the lead case in the English Upper...
Affordable Homes Bill & the bedroom tax
I haven't written about the Affordable Homes Bill, partly because time, and partly because I was deeply cynical about the Bill's prospects of getting anywhere pre-election, and the omissions it contained. (In fact for many of the same reasons contained in...