DA & Ors, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (2017) EWHC 1446 (Admin) This was the judicial review of the 'reduced' benefit cap - £20,000 pa outside London, £23,000 in London, brought by claimants who were all single...
Bedrooms, river beds and more
A few things... In case you didn't see it through email or social media, I wrote a long piece about social housing in the aftermath of Grenfell Tower, which is on a separate page at that link. In Scotland, the Inner House of the Court of Session heard an...
Making it up as you go.
C, R (on the application of) v The London Borough of Islington (2017) EWHC 1288 (Admin) C was accepted for the full housing duty by Islington, with her 3 children, as a result of domestic violence. C is profoundly deaf. She had been living in Southwark, but...
Service charge disputes and recovery of costs
Bretby Hall Management Company Ltd v Pratt [2017] UKUT 70 (LC) This was an appeal to the UT on various issue arising from an FTT decision. We will not dwell on the issue of specific charges not being consulted on under s.20, but not - as the UT found,...
Homeless duties, human rights and suitability decisions
Poshteh v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea [2017] UKSC 36 (For our report of the Court of Appeal decision, see here). For the facts of the case, see the earlier post. In short, Ms Posheth had refused an offer of accommodation in discharge of duty...
Regrette rien
R (oao Sambotin) v London Borough of Brent (2017) EWHC 1190 (Admin) Once a local authority has made a homeless decision under section 184 Housing Act 1996, can it change its mind? That was the issue in this judicial review. Mr S had applied to Brent as...
A bluffers guide to the Homeless Reduction Act 2017
The Homelessness Reduction Act has now received royal assent. The Act itself is here. There is no date yet for it to come into force - there will need to be statutory guidance produced first - and the current guess is that it is likely to be in 2018....
Research into energy efficiency and flats
This is a request for information from social housing providers in England and Wales. Sue Bright (Oxford University) and David Weatherall (Future Climate) are carrying out a survey of social housing providers in relation to their experiences when delivering...
One Million Pounds!
Diaz v Karim [2017] EWHC 595 (QB) The schedule of special damages - never straightforward. The belongings that had to be thrown out, or were taken and not returned. The difficulty in evidencing them, the difficulty in evidencing proof of purchase (who keeps...
You gotta plan
London Borough of Waltham Forest v Khan [2017] UKUT 153 (LC) It has always been generally assumed that local authorities have a fairly limited discretion when granting a licence under a selective licensing scheme created under Part 3, Housing Act 2004....
The Tribunal unleashed
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions v Carmichael and Sefton BC (HB) [2017] UKUT 0174 (AAC) Oh my. This was the DWP's appeal to the Upper Tribunal of the First Tier Tribunal's decision on the Carmichael's bedroom tax appeal (our report here). It was...
The Tribunal’s enforcer
In Octagon Overseas Ltd and Canary Riverside Management Ltd v Coates [2017] EWHC 877 (Ch), the First-tier Tribunal appointed Mr Coates as the manager of Canary Riverside (a development comprising, amongst other things, four blocks of residential apartments...