R(Anon) v LB Southwark (Claim No CO/2035/2014 - settled by consent) Courtesy of Hansen Palomares Solicitors comes news of this settled Judicial Review of LB Southwark's gatekeeping practices on homeless applications. It appears, to put it mildly, that...
Illegal occupation is no bar to adverse possession
Best, R (On the Application Of) v The Secretary of State for Justice (Rev 1) [2015] EWCA Civ 17 The Court of Appeal considered the clash of s.144 LASPO and the rules on adverse possession, on appeal from the Administrative Court. Our report on the Admin...
A new approach to improvements
Waaler v LB Hounslow [2015] UKUT 17 (LC) The background to this case is quite familiar to anyone who has been dealing with local authority leasehold service charge disputes over the last few years. Hounslow embarked upon a scheme of major works on an estate...
Violent Conduct and Homelessness
A brief note on Hussain v LB Waltham Forest [2015] EWCA Civ 14, which concerns the definition of 'other violence' in s.177(1) of the Housing Act 1996. In Yemshaw v LB Hounslow [2011] UKSC 3, the Supreme Court held that 'violence' under s.177(1) included...
Zambrano carers and social assistance
There must be times when Court of Appeal judges think that they have bit parts in an ongoing drama - they have a walk on role. And that must be how the Court felt in Sanneh v SSWP and others [2015] EWCA Civ 49, which concerns the eligibility rules for...
Let’s all move to Wales …*
Yesterday, the Welsh Government published the Renting Homes (Wales) Bill. The Bill seeks to implement the Law Commission's Renting Homes Bill, with some major amendments partly reflecting the devolution settlement (ie what can be done) and partly to update...
Lord Justice Lewison and the Return of English
I recently found myself reading and writing about the Court of Appeal judgement in Edwards v Kurasamy (our report here). Doing so made me think about the recent spate of judgements given by Lewison LJ that have touched on the private rental sector. I am...
Shared care isn’t occupation as a home.
A short Upper Tribunal decision has put an end to bedroom tax appeals based on the 'part-time' residence of a child of a separated family with shared care. MR v North Tyneside Council and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Housing and council tax...
Proposed changes to S.21
As well as the clauses introducing the retaliatory eviction proposals, the Government's proposed amendments to the Deregulation Bill would make some other changes to s.21. The effects would be: No s.21 notice can be served within the first 4 months of the...
ECtHR Update
Anthony Aquilina v Malta 11/12/14 This is the latest in a line of judgements from the ECtHR dealing with rent control and Article 1 of Protocol 1 (see previous reports here and here). Mr A was the owner of a property in Malta, which he had inherited from his...
The revenge of retaliatory eviction law
After the Teather 'revenge eviction' member's bill was talked out by a couple of Tory MPs, (Chope and Davis), the question was would the proposals survive in another form before the election. Well today, the DCLG announced the Government's proposed...
Nuisance and reasonable steps
As an illustration of the perils of a claim in nuisance, here is Yianni v Shakeshaft [2014] EWCA Civ 1639 [Not on Bailii. We've seen a transcript] Ms Y is the leaseholder of a flat below that of Mrs & Mr Shakeshaft, who had a tenant in theirs. There had...