A case appearing on my radar, though one that may not excite many readers is Landlord Protect Limited v St Anselm Development Company Limited [2009] EWCA Civ 99. A case concerning whether a landlord has imposed an unreasonable condition for a consent to...
Possessions up, down and about the same
The quarterly statistics for quarter 4 2008 on possession claims and orders are out [pdf]. Unsurprisingly, it is the mortgage repossession figures from the CML that got the headlines, being up significantly on 2007 - albeit by less than initially forecast by...
Closure orders
There have been two recent cases on closure orders of passing interest. The first, less important case was reported in The Guardian's Society pages. The hearing appears to have been an amusing event, attended by "a large group of sex workers and their...
Who wants to know?
A very odd case was noted on Lawtel this morning - AB v Leicester City Council, Court of Appeal, 19.2.09. ([2009] EWCA Civ 192) AB had applied under Part 7, Housing Act 1996, to Leicester City Council ("Leicester") for assistance as a homeless person. It...
North of the border
Glasgow City Council v Mitchell [2009] UKHL 11 This is a Scottish appeal to the House of Lords on the scope of the duties owed - if any - by landlords in respect of the behavior of their tenants. It is a difficult case to read (at least for any English...
Dead and gone
The mopping up of the tail end of tolerated trespasser cases continues. Barry Austin v LB Southwark [2008] EWCA Civ 66 was the Court of Appeal hearing of the appeal from the High Court hearing we noted earlier. The issue at stake was whether Mr Austin would...
Something for the weekend
The House of Lords will be giving judgment in Glasgow CC v Mitchell on Wednesday 18 Feb 09 (link is to a .pdf). This is a case that we've missed so far but, in essence, is about the scope of the duty of care (if any) owed by a landlord to their tenants in...
Housing waiting lists in Parliament
Yesterday the House of Commons debated a Conservative Party motion on housing waiting lists: That this House notes that social housing waiting lists have increased to a record 1.8 million families, over 4.5 million people, over the last 12 months; recognises...
Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear
We all knew that Lambeth Housing was in a bit of a self imposed mess, and this is an outline of what it amounts to. I'm not going to add much in the way of comment, but anyone who acts on occasion for Lambeth tenants or leaseholders or homeless applicants...
Nelsonian ignorance
Iyekekpolor Ugiagbe is a dream appellant - or, rather, an appellant whose homelessness story is a dream for a neo-liberal Court of Appeal who allowed her appeal against Southwark's finding that she was intentionally homeless (Ugiagbe v Southwark LBC, [2009]...
The Gas Man Cometh
The case of Ferguson v British Gas [2009] EWCA Civ 46 concerns a complaint that British Gas harassed a former customer for some 6 months after she had transferred her gas supply to nPower. Although it is not a housing case, the report contains some useful...
Mersey Paradise?
The Court of Appeal has - today - given judgment in R (Liverpool CC) v London Borough of Hillingdon and Ayan Khan (interested party) [2009] EWCA Civ 1702, a case concerning two local authorities who were in dispute over which one of them should be providing...