Loveridge v London Borough of Lambeth [2014] UKSC 65 So, if a local authority unlawfully evicts a secure tenant (and yes, it happens) what should the measure of damages be? Under s.27 and s.28 Housing Act 1988, damages fall to be assessed under a valuation...
Southwark: Not appealing
It is not unknown for losing parties in a case to not be happy, indeed very upset. There are two basic options. To shut up and put up with it, or appeal. Rather unusually, faced with one of the most coruscating High Court judgments I can recall, in AA V LB...
Monk silenced
Sims v Dacorum Borough Council [2014] UKSC 63 If there is a positive to take from this, it is that it is a Supreme Court judgment that won't take long to discuss. The issue of the rule in Monk that notice by one joint tenant determines the whole tenancy came...
Elementary maths for LB Barnet
You will all recall that the Localism Act allowed Councils to grant flexible tenancies, at up to 80% of market rent. Now some councils have dipped their toes in the waters of flexible tenancies (here were my notes on one such policy), and this may well yet...
Separated families and bedroom tax
Cotton & Ors, R (on the Application of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions & Ors [2014] EWHC 3437 (Admin) This was the Liberty backed judicial review of the bedroom tax regulations on the basis that the regulations amounted to an article 8...
A very unlawful eviction
(Finally) AA v London Borough of Southwark [2014] EWHC 500 (QB) This High Court judgment is remarkable in many ways, most of them worrying. It was the result of a six day hearing, with Southwark putting Kelvin Rutledge QC up against Mr AA in person and ended...
Bedroom Tax: Upper Tribunal on Article 14
Following my plaintive cry here, I now have copies of the two Upper Tribunal judgments from Scotland referred to by the DWP. And, while the judgments do do something rather more and rather different to the outcomes suggested in the DWP Circular, sadly, what...
Not enough information: Bedroom tax and disability discrimination
[Update 6/10/14 - got the judgments now. Detailed comment here] This is frustrating! A DWP circular HB U4/2014 contains an annex with notes on four Scottish Upper Tribunal bedroom tax decisions. Two of them I have already addressed here, but the first and...
Bedroom tax bits
Here are couple of new First Tier Tribunal decisions (also on the FTT decisions page). A room use decision from St Helens - a room which had been used since the start of the tenancy as a dressing room/home office, and where a sewing machine was kept and...
Tribunals and Reviews and Appeals. Oh My!
I did a talk at a conference on the topic of legal issues about the bedroom tax, it was basically a critical overview of the higher courts and tribunal (FTT and UT) cases. In case they are useful or vaguely interesting, my notes are here. (No jokes though....
A Thursday stuffed with housing stuff
A busy Thursday for housing law, not yet law, housing benefits and housing misc. Item one. A Scottish Upper Tribunal is to hear a room size appeal on 18 September. This is one of the first Fife decisions. It is not the lead case in the English Upper...
Affordable Homes Bill & the bedroom tax
I haven't written about the Affordable Homes Bill, partly because time, and partly because I was deeply cynical about the Bill's prospects of getting anywhere pre-election, and the omissions it contained. (In fact for many of the same reasons contained in...