Three months ago we wrote about a research project and report on housing and health and safety law being carried out for Shelter by legal academics from the Universities of Kent and Bristol. Now the report has been completed. The report is here and summary...
On the naughty step – Physician heal thyself edition
If Nearly Legal has a mantra, it is this: "Everyone should have a housing lawyer with them at all times". Or, at the bare minimum, a landlord and tenant lawyer. We had taken the reasonableness of this to be self-evident. However, it seems even this basic...
Aesthetics, unlawful kitchens and warehousing bus drivers
A triplet of brief notes. Zipporah Lisle-Mainwaring won a judicial review of the Magistrates and Crown Court decisions upholding RB Kensington & Chelsea's Notice under s.215 Town and County Planning Act 1990, ordering her to paint her Kensington property...
Tales of the private sector
A collation of cases and stories from the private sector, and a series of reminders that a database of rogue landlords, and indeed banning orders, can't come soon enough. In Sheffield, John Cashin was convicted of 56 offences involving HMO management,...
Property Guardians & tangled webs (Camelot. Again)
There is a bit of a thing unfolding in Bristol involving property guardians, Bristol City Council and Camelot, one of the larger property guardian firms, upon whom we have had cause to remark upon several times in the past. Several former nursing homes,...
We’re going to need another canto – 2016 roundup
"We to the place have come, where I have told thee Thou shalt behold the people dolorous Who have foregone the good of intellect." (canto 3) Midway between Christmas and new year, I found myself, fat and indolent, on the sofa, contemplating a year-end post....
AirbnBreach – developments…
Things are hotting up on the Airbnb front. We've noted breach of lease issues here and here. Then there has been the big issue of massive and widespread breaches of the Greater London 'no short letting of whole for more than 90 days per calendar year without...
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...
You don’t know what you’re doing
January 5, 2016, sees the Housing and Planning Bill return to the House of Commons for the Report stage (if you want to read about how the Committee stage went, the excellent House of Commons library analysis is here and our comments are here). Now, as...
Bedroom farce
Mr Jones: [...] We want housing association landlords and tenants to reap the benefits from shorter-term tenancies as well. However, we clearly need to consider any changes to housing associations in the light of the recent decision of the Office for...
Look inside Westminster
In which the Nearly Legal team gain exclusive access to a (highly) fictionalised account of one man’s inside view of legislation currently going through Parliament, insofar as it relates to housing *** Morley Peckwitch, Member of Parliament for...
Right to Rent – just how bad is it?
We though it would be bad. And thanks to the JCWI, we can now have an evidence based stab at an answer. JCWI co-ordinated an evaluation of the West Midlands pilot of 'Right to Rent' and have published the report (summary here, and full report here). Notably,...