October, new post qualification job and all, is going to be something of a crunch point for this blog. Time, which has been very tight for the last few months, is simply not going to be available to keep Nearly Legal going in the same way. There are three...
Incoming
The House of Lords is due to hand down judgment in Doherty v Birmingham tomorrow (30/7). This will include their Lordships' first take on McCann v UK. I'm aiming to have some sort of case note up by tomorrow night. It will be the start of a busy patch for...
Mentioned in dispatches
A couple of cases came up today, one at the Court of Appeal, one Judicial Review, that are of marginal or tangential relevance to housing law, but may well be of interest to some. I'm not doing reports but the cases are: Liverpool City Council, R (on the...
Homeless maladministration
Garden Court's bulletin for 14 July (I'm catching up after the holiday) mentions a couple of interesting Local Government Ombudsman's reports on the operations of Homeless Units in Lambeth and in Haringey. Complaints 07/B/01138 & 07/B/05232 against...
Housing and Regeneration Bill
The Housing and Regeneration Act has now received royal assent. A full history of its passage through Parliament is here. 24/7 - the full text of the act is now up on the OPSI site [pdf]
Possession and evidence
North Devon Homes Ltd. v Batchelor [2008] EWCA Civ 840 concerned a claim for possession of an assured tenancy. At County Court, the claim was brought on grounds 10, 12 and 14 HA 1988. While the claim resulted in a postponed possession order for ground 10...
Brief news
On applications for permission to appeal to the House of Lords: Omar v Birmingham City Council - Omar refused permission to appeal from this Court of Appeal judgment. Very disappointing given the ambiguity, to put it mildly, of the Court of Appeal judgment...
Constructive trust and dodgy RTB
There is an all too common situation. A tenant with the right to buy is offered a capital sum and the mortgage payments for the (in this case) three years needed to avoid repaying the RTB discount on transfer. In the meantime, they either get to stay or hand...
Faarah Allocation Appeal
This was a judicial review against Southwark's allocation policy, reported in this post, which Southwark, rather surprisingly, appealed. Faarah, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Southwark [2008] EWCA Civ 807 was the result. The issue was the...
S.204 Appeal out of time
Barrett v LB Southwark [2008] EWHC 1568 (Comm) was an appeal of a dismissed application for permission to make a s.204 appeal out of time on an intentional homelessness decision upheld at s.202 review. For some reason it was heard in the Commercial Court (?)...
Just passing
I have been and remain extremely busy, but thankfully there has been nothing of significance to post about. I'm toying with a summary of the fascinating and now very, very lengthy comment thread on the Malcolm post, but that too will have to wait. While I am...
In passing…
The Housing and Regeneration bill has been amended so that homeless applicants with families who are subject to immigration control will have that family count towards priority need. This will apply for UK/EU/Commonwealth citizens. Good. That will hopefully...