Some brief notes on recent Upper Tribunal (LC) service and administration charge decisions Marshall v Northumberland & Durham Property Trust Ltd (2022) UKUT 92 (LC) The First Tier Tribunal had been wrong to grant dispensation from section 20 consultation...
Suitability, enquiries, gender reassignment and the public sector equality duty.
Biden v Waverley Borough Council (2022) EWCA Civ 442 An interesting Court of Appeal decision on the sufficiency of enquiries to establish suitability of accommodation offered in discharge of section 189B Housing Act 1986 duty where the homeless person has...
Fixed term secure tenancies and forfeiture
Croydon London Borough Council v Kalonga (2022) UKSC 7 In which the Supreme Court considered the position on termination of 'flexible tenancies' - fixed term secure tenancies - during the fixed term. We saw the Court of Appeal judgment dismissing Croydon's...
Delays to services…
Apologies, I know updates have been slow in the last few weeks - I have been very busy on a lot of time sensitive stuff and what down time I've had, has really been needed as, well, down time... But the blog has not been forgotten or abandoned, honest. There...
The forthcoming Ukranian housing scheme
The media are today (Sunday 13.3.22) reporting that the government are going to launch an extra-statutory scheme on Monday whereby people will be able to offer accommodation to Ukranians fleeing the invasion. Details are sketchy, but the main points seem to...
Property Guardians and HMOs – they are, you know.
Global 100 Ltd v Jimenez & Ors (HOUSING - HOUSE IN MULTIPLE OCCUPATION - RENT REPAYMENT ORDER - "property guardians") (2022) UKUT 50 (LC) In which Global 100, flushed by their win in the Court of Appeal in Global 100 Ltd v Laleva (2021) EWCA Civ 1835...
Excluded grounds of possession and subsequent grounds
Poplar HARCA v Kerr. Clerkenwell & Shoreditch County Court. February 2022. DJ Bell (Unreported, we've seen a note of extempore judgment.) Our thanks to Daniel Skinner for the note of judgment in this case, which is of interest on the argument that the...
Homelessness – second applications and new facts threshold.
Minott v Cambridge City Council (2022) EWCA Civ 159 This was Mr Minott's appeal from a judicial review that upheld Cambridge's refusal to accept a second homeless application. Our note on the JR decision is here. In short, Mr M had applied to Cambridge as...
This is not my beautiful house
Rasool v Paddington Company One Ltd (2021) EWHC 3633 (QB) A combined hearing of a return date on an ex parte interim junction for re-entry, and a claim for possession by the property owner against a trespasser. A somewhat unusual combination, you might...
Notes (various)
As I stagger towards writing up some case law at the weekend, some notes on things that have happened. The Solicitors Regulation Authority published a Guidance note - "Advising on leasehold provisions including ground rent clauses". This covers a lot of the...
Suitability and affordability – Court of Appeal on assessing affordability
Paley v London Borough of Waltham Forest (2022) EWCA Civ 112 This was a second appeal to the Court of Appeal on the issue of whether Waltham Forest had taken to correct approach to assessing the affordability of an offer of a private tenancy in Stoke on...
No relief, no unjust enrichment.
Golding v Martin (2022) EW Misc 2 (CC) We first saw this forfeiture case when it went to the Court of Appeal (our note). Briefly, Ms Martin had bought a leasehold flat, and indeed extended the lease. In 2003, she went to live in Majorca. She left no...