Luton Community Housing Ltd v Durdana (2020) EWCA Civ 445 Ms Durdana was a tenant of LCH. She faced possession proceedings under ground 17 Sch 2 Housing Act 1988 - that the landlord was induced to grant the tenancy by a false statement made knowingly or...
Practice Direction 51Z – to Stay Possession Proceedings
Following the announcement yesterday evening, here is the 117th Practice Direction Update to the Civil Procedure Rules – Coronavirus Pandemic related. This introduces Practice Direction 51Z The Master of the Rolls and the Lord Chancellor have signed Practice...
All housing possession claims suspended from 27 March – Coronavirus update.
(Update 27 March. For the details of the stay, see here on the new Practice Direction 51Z ) Well now, this is big (and also finally, it would seem, some clarity). According to this MHCLG press release from this evening: From tomorrow (27 March 2020)...
Coronavirus – new forms 3 and 6A for s8 and s21
Now that the Coronavirus Act is in force (as of today 26 March 2020), the three month notice period applies to assure and assured shorthold tenancies (as well as secure, introductory, etc). And there is: i) a new Form 6A - the form for Section 21...
Emergency legislation on possession claims
I've seen the draft amendments to the Coronavirus Bill on housing possession. A word of caution, this was a draft from 22 March, not the actual amends due to be put forward today 23 March. I was waiting for those to be made public to check, but that has not...
Law in the time of Covid – Court duty work
What follows is the text of a twitter thread by Simon Mullings (@spikemullings), a housing lawyer and duty scheme advisor, arising from events on a duty session for a possession list last Friday 20 March. Reposted with permission. Following on from our...
No new possession claims (for at least 3 months)
The Government has just announced emergency legislation to do the following: Stop any new possession claims (social and private tenancies) being issued at court for the next three months (at least). Introduce a new pre-action protocol for possession claims,...
Emergency measures
Ahead of the government introducing the bill for emergency Coronavirus related measures later this week, Labour have published a draft bit of legislation which addresses the position of (most) renters where they fail to pay rent due to effects of the...
Is a Section 8 notice on rent arrears a demand for rent?
I kindly been sent a couple of county court Circuit Judge decisions on the issue of whether section 8 notices (where the ground is rent arrears) have to comply with the requirements of section 47 Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 by the inclusion of the...
Leasehold ASTs redux
Following on from yesterday's post by J on the CMA report (with its approach to the 'AST Trap') and from someone helpfully pointing out something that should have been completely obvious to me in the first place, I've re-written my old post on the leasehold...
You know what I mean – Errors in section 8 notices
Pease v Carter & Anor (2020) EWCA Civ 175 Does an error in a section 8 notice - in this case specifically as to the earliest date on which possession proceedings can begin - invalidate the notice? At first instance in this case, the landlord had served a...
Amendments to Part 55
A statutory instrument - The Civil Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2020 - has been laid, and it includes, amongst other things, amendments to CPR Part 55 on possession claims. These will be in force from 6 April 2020. The explanatory memorandum says: Housing...