A recent case promises to be the first to the Court of Appeal on the issue of tenancy deposit protection.
HMO Planning Changes and a Consultation
The Department of Communities and Local Government has published new proposals on dealing with HMOs.
Transfers and rent arrears
The question of the interaction between housing debt and prioritisation for an allocation under Part VI, Housing Act 1996, appears to have been in issue in R(Osei) v Newham LBC Lettings Agency, decided on 27.01.10. I say "appears to" because, as of yet, no...
Heffernan v The Rent Service (Again)
The High Court has considered the issue of the calculation of reference rents for the purposes of housing benefit.
Legal Action – Guest Post by Jan Luba and Nic Madge
We have had a request from Jan Luba QC and HHJ Madge who, as I'm sure you all know, edit the 'recent developments in housing law' updates in Legal Action each month. They are looking for feedback on the updates, so we are happy to help with a guest post......
Rack rent, enfranchisement and intermediate leasehold interests
McHale v Earl Cadogan [2010] EWCA Civ 14 is, it's safe to say, probably not going to be one of the most discussed cases on NL this year, but we are nothing if not comprehensive and couldn't fail to write it up. Collective enfranchisement is the process...
Its all in the name
The Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 (Registration of Local Authorities) Order 2010 has just been laid before Parliament in draft form, to come into effect on April 1, 2010. A copy is available here. In short, it makes it compulsory for local authorities...
New(ish) Section 21 Case
BAILII has recently added a case from November 2008. In Chohan v McManus [2008] EWCA Civ 1657 the Court of Appeal was considering what constituted occupation of premises for the purposes of an Assured Tenancy. The facts were that Mr McManus occupied a room...
Catching up with LAG
The January 2010 Housing updates in Legal Action have some County Court case reports that hadn't reached us. You will naturally have already read them in Legal Action, but for our archives... Tenancy Deposits O'Brien v Hill Barnet County Court 22/09/2009 Mr...
Jackson: the waiting begins
'What!' I hear you say, 'wasn't the final Jackson report on costs released on 14 January?' Why yes it was. All 584 pages of it. But amid the headlines about scrapping CFA success fees and recoverable ATE insurance premiums, introducing contingency fees, and...
Rent Repayment Orders
As well as the process of criminal convictions and fines which results from the failure to have the necessary property licence as required by the Housing Act 2004 there is a further penalty which can be imposed on unlicensed landlords. This is the Rent...
Sale and leaseback – a transaction at an undervalue?
Could the sale and leaseback of a house be a transaction at an undervalue and thus be caught by section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986? This was the main question considered by the High Court in Delaney v Chen although some other points of interest were...