The Government in the form of the DCLG has issued its response to consultation on the directions it is to give the Tenant Services Authority under s.197 Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 and also the directions on regulatory standards themselves. The...
Extending the role of the TSA
The Government has just issued a consultation paper (available here) on extending the TSAs regulatory role to local housing authorities. Whilst the document is expressed to be a consultation, the tone of the document suggests that the Government is already...
Peverse incentive
We don't usually cover gypsy & traveller planning permission cases, since they tend to turn on their own facts, but Rafferty and another v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and another [2009] EWCA Civ 809 has one point of wider...
Shocking lack
And I apologise for the pun in the title, which is in dubious taste. Normally on NL, we restrict putting our view on matters to a few comments or the odd, albeit caustic, remark. But the events and legal requirements that are set out in this story from the...
Tales from the pink campervan
The Tenants Services Authority (the new regulatory body for RSLs and, from April 2010, local authorities) has been holding a "national conversation" with tenants, touring round in a pink campervan amongst other engagement techniques. The outcome from that,...
Regulating renting proposals
I'm just in the process of marking what feels like thousands of coursework essays on proprietary estoppel and constructive trusts. The thing that gets me - time for a rant - is that my very clever three As students can't actually write a proper sentence,...
Green Paper "within 10 days"
It's the little things in life which get me excited and, as a bit of a policy nerd on the side, it looks like a Green Paper is to be expected within 10 days if The Times is to be believed. I'd heard on the grapevine that the GP had been canned because they...
The Basildon Endgame
As people may well have noticed from the news on TV and in the press, the last Court of Appeal hearing in the drawn out saga of the (unlawful) Essex traveller sites resulted in a defeat for the travellers. Basildon District Council v McCarthy & Ors...
Not another review …
Yes, it's true, another review has been published, this time of the regulation and redress in the UK housing market. And yes, if you're wondering, this was what the Law Commission did in their Issues paper on proportionate dispute resolution and further...
The Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 – an update
Two new Statutory Instruments have just come out relating to this Act, and, given that I'm updating my seminar notes about the 2008 Act, I thought I'd share them with you. The Allocation of Housing (England) (Amendment) (Family Intervention Tenancies)...
New PRS Report
Ok, I'm angry again. It's really out of character as I'm usually very mild mannered. Here's a question: what do you do if you've paid a group of people over around 10 years to come up with a series of proposals to regulate renting relationships (ie the Law...
Alternative sites – the burden of proof
South Cambridgeshire District Council v Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government & Ors [2008] EWCA Civ 1010 was an appeal of a High Court decision on Judicial Review of the decision of an Inspector in the appeal of a planning decision not...