13 December 2016, Royal College of Surgeons, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE The Housing Law Practitioners Association conference - the biggest and, let's be honest, best housing law conference of the year. This conference faces forward to the...
Known unknowns – Considering disability in homelessness
Birmingham City Council v Wilson [2016] EWCA Civ 1137 In Pieretti v Enfield LBC [2010] EWCA Civ 1104 (our note) the Court of Appeal held that under (the predecessor to) the Equality Act, in the course of Housing Act 1997 Part VII inquiries, a reviewing...
Private sector updates
Section 8 notice prescribed form The Govt has made The Assured Tenancies and Agricultural Occupancies (Forms) (England) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations 2016. The Schedule contains a new 'form 3' - the prescribed form of Section 8 Notice Seeking Possession....
A touch of sanity? Mandatory Pay to Stay gone away.
The Housing minister, Gavin Barwell, has today announced that the Government will not be pursuing the provisions in the Housing And Planning Act 2016 that implemented mandatory 'pay to stay' provisions for local authority tenants. Instead, it will be...
PRS enforcement corner
Three items relating to PRS licensing/HMO regulations and property management enforcement, with some added harassment of tenants thrown in. Thanks to Dean Underwood at Cornerstone for news of this Magistrates Court case. London Borough of Waltham Forest v...
Initial Requirements and late prescribed information
Our thanks for this county court possession and deposit appeal case note to Josephine Henderson of Five Paper Chambers and Dambudzo Tenner of Duncan Lewis Amak Property Investments (London) Ltd v Laura Sonny B01CL657. 15 September 2016, The County Court at...
With and without foundation – Bedroom tax in Supreme Court
MA & Ors, R (on the application of) v The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2016] UKSC 58 R (on the application of Carmichael and Rourke) (formerly known as MA and others) (Appellants) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Respondent) R (on...
Odds and Ends
Assorted updates. Right to Rent - the new criminal offence. The Immigration Act 2016 (Commencement No. 2 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2016 have been made and come into force on 1 December. The draft DCLG Guidance for the courts on the defence of...
New facts, ex-marriages and homeless applications
Abdulrahman, R (on the application of) v The London Borough of Hillingdon [2016] EWHC 2647 (Admin) This was judicial review of Hillingdon's refusal to accept a homeless application from Ms A. Ms A and her then husband had made a joint homeless application...
Second (non-) succession
In Holley v Hillingdon LBC [2016] EWCA Civ 1052, Mr Holley was seeking to challenge the council's decision to evict him and his brother from a three bedroom property that could sleep up to six persons, in which Mr Holley had lived for 32 years of his life...
A non-binary outcome
This is a cautionary tale for DJs and DDJs hearing Equality Act defences. In Birmingham CC v Stephenson [2016] EWCA Civ 1029 (not on Baili yet, but we have seen a transcript), the Court of Appeal considered whether a possession order granted in respect of...
Homeless Reduction Bill – part 2
After my rantette about clause 1 of the Homeless Reduction Bill as published for second reading, it is time to turn to the substance of the Bill in terms of new duties and so on. And, some drafting issues aside, these are broadly positive. But first, I...