Right then, Harouki v Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea [2007] EWCA Civ 1000. The scene in a nutshell. A statutorily overcrowded household, in terms of Part 10 of the Housing Act 1985, s.326, which gives rise to a criminal offence under s.327 A homeless...
Busy, Busy, Busy
I'm flat out at the moment. Even my usual posting windows of a Saturday or Sunday have seen me either too tired or working to manage a post. So all I can manage is to point to two cases for Housing people's attention, to which I will return when I have time....
Homelessness and Ex Parte Injunctions – a warning
Mr Justice Munby has issued a stern statement on the use and abuse of ex-parte injunction applications to the Administrative Court in R (Lawer) v Restormel Borough Council [2007] EWHC 2299 (Admin). Covering failure to use the Pre-Action Protocol,...
Homeless with shared residence order
[Edit Feb 2008 - Richmond have been given permission to appeal this judgment to the House of Lords. No date yet.] An interesting situation, if perhaps an increasingly common one, has just been set out in the Court of Appeal case of Holmes-Moorhouse v London...
Reincarnation of Tenancy?
This is more of a question than a post, a question on a problem that I think I understand, but that I hope has a better conclusion than the one I've got to. The issue is when can a new tenancy be effectively said to have arisen after a Suspended Possession...
Do it yourself
A strong argument for not pursuing a case as a litigant in person can be found in this case. That said, hats off to the applicant for at least getting a Judicial Review hearing in person. Not least after turning up two hours late. There is an indication that...
Disability and tenancy – More on Malcolm
I posted on Lewisham v Malcolm ten days ago. Since then a couple of commentors have raised issues and Tessa has posted on the implications of the case at Landlord Law. So it seemed worth a further look. The caveat is that what follows is my understanding of...
Quantum in Disrepair
I've been meaning to post on this for a while and have been prodded into life by quite a few searchers on the topic. The reason I've been delaying is that, frankly, it is a bit of a sod. Unlike the carefully calculated, quantified, actuarialised and...
Possession claims dropping? Not all.
The latest figures, up to Quarter 2 2007 are available on the Ministry of Justice site, link to the PDF. The figures show quite a drop in the Q2 figures for non-accelerated possession claims issued (including claims by Councils and Housing Associations)...
Tenants' Rights – The Book
I have finally laid my hands upon a copy of the new book by Tessa Shepperson, the maestro of Landlord law blog and old friend of this blog. The book has been out since early summer, so apologies to Tessa for my belatedness. Given this intro, I can hardly...
Catching up – s.21 and tenants' deposits
A very interesting article by Francis Davey in September's Legal Action about the Housing Act 2004. The whole piece rewards a read, but two bits caught my eye. We don't do that many private tenancy possession defences, relatively speaking, so these were new...
Catching up – Disability Discrimination and possession
Time for some substantive law at last. I missed this one while I was on holiday and have just had it brought to my attention. LB Lewisham -v- Malcolm & Disability Rights Commission (Intervener) [2007] EWCA Civ 763. A very interesting case on the...