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[Update 9 June 2014. The Statement of Reasons in this case is here. Well worth considering.] There has been an odd bedroom tax development, one on which details are tantalisingly still absent. Mr & Mrs Carmichael have won their appeal to the First Tier...
2013 was a difficult year for claimant disrepair. Changes in legal aid funding have made it all but impossible to pursue a disrepair claim under legal aid alone, as funding is only available for an order to carry out repairs to where there is serious risk to...
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...
We don't often publicise events here, but given that this one involves at least couple of the NL team, we are damn well going to. Housing Law: The Welsh Devolution Effect 1st May 2014 Cardiff Law School, Museum Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3AX A one day...
I've added a couple of new bedroom tax First Tier Tribunal decisions to the FTT page. There is a Newcastle decision (Reasons here. Known as the Isos decision after the landlord who supported the appeal) which is a separated family decision. The appellant's...
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...
A successful FTT bedroom tax appeal in Birkenhead has raised some new questions over 'room use' as an argument. The decision notice is here (HT Speyejoe). The appellant had moved into the '3 bedroom' property on marriage. He and his wife had lived there. A...
I was one half of a seminar at Garden Court Chambers on Thursday last week on the bedroom tax for housing advisors. The excellent Liz Davies of Garden Court tackled the Court of Appeal decisions in MA & Ors and the benefit cap judgment in SG & Ors, R...
A couple of bits and pieces. The DWP has issued a circular in the wake of the Court of Appeal judgment in MA & Ors, R (on the application of) v The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2014] EWCA Civ 13 (Our report coming soon, honest). The...
A new First Tier Tribunal bedroom tax appeal decision from Liverpool, again a successful one, and this time on wholly new grounds. The decision statement is here (and also on the FTT decisions page) The Applicant was separated from his partner in 2006, when...
A new bedroom tax First Tier Tribunal decision from Monmouthshire raises some issues on the FTTs' approach to room use. The decision notice with summary reasons is here (and also on the FTT decisions page). The Claimant lived in the property with his wife...
The DWP has laid the Statutory Instrument amending the benefit regulations to do away with the 'pre 1996 claim' exemption to the bedroom tax. It is to come into effect on 3 March 2014, making all those exempt liable for the bedroom tax from that date. (It is...