Howe v Brent London Borough Council (2024) EWCA Civ 1444 Just a quick note on this Court of Appeal judgment on whether a family member (B) of a secure tenant with a right to buy their home (A) is able to exercise a shared right to buy if A, whose right is...
Not at home alone, but intending to return
Weintraub v London Borough of Hackney (2024) EWHC 845 (Ch) An appeal of the dismissal of a claim for a declaration that Rabbi Weintraub had the right to buy, which was dismissed on the basis that he was not occupying the property as his only or principal...
When help with wood pellet fuel means no right to buy
Milton Keynes Council v Bailey (HOUSING – Right to Buy) [2018] UKUT 207 (LC) A bit of an oddity, this one, but there is perhaps a broader principle. Paragraph 11 of Schedule 5 to Housing Act 1985 provides that a property is exempt from the Right to Buy...
Somebody else’s money
Sheffield City Council v Oliver [2017] EWCA Civ 225 We saw this case in the Upper Tribunal, here, and I'll borrow the brief facts. Ms Oliver was the long leaseholder in a block of flats on the Lansdowne Estate, which was owned by the Council. The Council...
A right without rights?
Just a quick note on an interesting point that came up for decision in Plant, R (on the application of) v Lambeth London Borough Council [2016] EWHC 3324 (Admin) This was a judicial review of Lambeth's decision (after a 'reconsultation' after Lambeth lost a...
The mystery of the Minister’s many bits
There might be much to mock and/or weep at in the Housing and Planning Bill, but this afternoon reached a degree of the surreal, as the Bill returned to the House of Lords following the Govt vote in the Commons to reject all the Lords amendments. Shelter...
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...
The law of unintended consequences (or, why everyone needs a housing lawyer)
As you might have noticed, the Housing and Planning Bill had its last day in Committee today in the House of Commons. It was the 15th and 16th (penultimate and final, respectively) sessions. Surely, you might think, this would be the fag-end of the Bill....
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...
Trial judge and costs. Ooops.
I've heard about a few costs decisions by trial judges recently which might be considered, to put it politely, interesting, or brave, in the Yes Minister sense. So it was with some interest that I read the Court of Appeal decision in Begum v Birmingham City...
End of days miscellany
No, I am not going to comment much on the ongoing, unravelling farce of the NHF 'voluntary deal' on housing association right to buy. Partly because nobody seems to have a clue what is going on and what it would actually mean - apparently including the NHF....
The way you Mackie me feel*
The latest episode in the ongoing saga of the unlawful moneylender Dharam Prakash Gopee [or sometimes Ghopee] has just been handed down. (To catch up with the extraordinary history of the predatory, unlawful secured lending of Mr Gopee's many and various...