A quick note on a recent Court of Appeal decision: Northumberland & Durham Property Trust Ltd v Ouaha. From 1/8/1980 until his death on 19/11/2010, Mr Al-Faisal held a protected Rent Act tenancy of Flat 15, 1 Royal Avenue House, London, SW3. In 1987, Ms...
Approximate grounds
Masih, R (on the application of) v Yousaf [2014] EWCA Civ 234 When a notice is served under Section 8 Housing Act 1988, how precise does the wording of the ground(s) under which possession will be sought have to be? In this case, reaching the Court of Appeal...
Tweets from rented rooms
A series of tweets gathered under the hashtag #LDNlandlord today (Thursday 15 May) offered an insight (if one were needed) into the state of the London private rental market. For the housing lawyer, it was also a opportunity to play claim/offence bingo. So,...
Adverse possession through criminal trespass
Way back when s.144 LASPO 2012 was first proposed, I noted that one of the unaddressed questions (indeed a question that nobody even thought to consider) was how what because s.144 would interact with statute and case law on adverse possession. Now we have...
Oh Mr Ghopee.
God, we are told, loves a trier. Perhaps fortunately, the Court of Appeal takes a less emollient approach with an unlawful money lender who has been repeatedly featured on this site. Ghana Commercial Finance Ltd v Sawyer & Anr [2014] EWCA Civ 489 [Not on...
Spoiling the Broth
Blake and others v LB Waltham Forest [2014] EWHC 1027 (Admin) is a judicial review challenge to the local authority's decision to terminate a licence held by Christian Kitchen (the 3rd Claimant) to operate its soup kitchen out of the Mission Grove Car Park,...
Disrepair – counterclaims after possession order.
Here is an interesting prospect* (and a big tug of forelock to Beatrice Prevatt at Garden Court for the initial suggestion). Can a counterclaim for disrepair be brought after a possession order is made? Conventionally, we've thought that a counterclaim...
Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me*
Gustovarac v Croatia App. No, 60223/09 is a game-changer of a case. A possession case in which the European Court of Human Rights seems to be saying you don't need a proportionality assessment. Now, as you'll all know, there is a line of European Cases,...
A game of forfeits
The flexible tenancy, that marvellous and oxymoronic invention of the Localism Act, is now in place and in use by a number of Councils. The last time I considered flexible tenancies it was largely about how they were created and how they were terminated at...
Article 8 and the Private Sector
In one sense, the possession claim in Manchester Ship Canal Developments v Persons Unknown [2014] EWHC 645 (Ch) follows a fairly predictable course. The Defendants were a group of activists who had set up camp on Barton Moss Lane, Manchester, in protest at...
Housing and Human Rights Round-Up Pt 2
Pelipenko v Russia 16/1/14 We reported the ECtHR's decision on the merits here. There now follows the Chamber's decision on the claim for just satisfaction. The Applicants' claim for the breaches of Art 6 and Art 8 broke down into 4 parts: 1. the purchase...
Housing and Human Rights Round-Up Pt 1
Winterstein v France 17/10/13 (judgement in French only) The applicants in this case were travellers who were part of a community that had occupied land on a site (known as bois du Trou-Poulet) in the Herblay region of France and had made it their home over...