1 June 2019 is quite a big day for the PRS. The Tenant Fees Act 2019 is now in force. The MHCLG Guidance for tenants, landlord and agents is here. Along with this, there is a new Form 6A, the mandatory form of section 21 notice, which must be used for all...
Wearing different hats
Pandongate House Management Co Ltd v Barton, High Ct (Newcastle District Registry), January 2019 (with thanks to Alice Richardson for a copy of the judgment) Lessee-owned companies are now pretty common. They generally come about in one of three ways. The...
Rights and Right to rent
Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department (2019) EWHC 452 (Admin) (For transparency, I acted for one of the interveners, the Residential Landlords Association, in this case.) This was...
Service charge claims – paying trial fees and concurrent jurisdiction
Hyslop v 38/41 CHG Residents Company Ltd QBD 05/11/2018 (not on Bailii. Lawtel note of extempore judgment) CHG were the freeholder of a property with various leasehold flats. The FTT had determined that Ms Hyslop and other leaseholders owed CHG certain...
Appealing rent increases for assured tenancies
Robertson v Webb, Re Honley Road (LANDLORD & TENANT - rent determination) (2018) UKUT 235 (LC) Just a brief note on this - where a landlord serves a notice of proposed increased rent under section 13 Housing Act 1988, the tenant can apply for a...
How to Rent Guide – a bit of a snafu
There is a new version of the MHCLG 'How to Rent Guide' out (apparently updated on 6 July 2018). Though according to MHCLG it dates from 26 June 2018. This is because there was a bit of a mess up with the previous version. (Update. During the course of this...
‘How to rent’ updated (and other non statutory guides)
A new 'How to Rent' Booklet was released today (26 June 2018) by MHCLG. This version must be provided to the tenant by the landlord (not just a link) for all new assured shorthold tenancies and replacement ASTs (including statutory periodic tenancies) that...
‘How to rent’ Guide updated – important for all PRS landlords and tenants
A quick note to highlight that the MHCLG 'How to rent' booklet was updated on 17 January 2018. Apparently this was just to remove references to the 'London Rental Standard'. However, this is still important. For all new assured shorthold tenancies, the...
Doing the same thing twice, expecting different results.
After some noises in the press that a reconsideration was underway, the government, via the DWP, has decided that it is going to go ahead with removing housing benefit (or rather 'housing costs element' of Universal Credit) from anyone under the age of 22....
Perversity in Brent
Our thanks to Garden Court Chambers, Hackney Law Centre and Liz Davies for their note of this case. Cieicierska v Brent LBC. Central London County Court, 5 September 2016. Ms C, a single parent with 3 children, was owed the full housing duty by Brent and was...
Oppression and the rent arrears protocol
Home Group Limited v Jacqueline Emery & anor, Edmonton County Court 08/08/16 (County Court decision unreported elsewhere). This is a county court case, so not binding, but involves an interesting issue on what might amount to oppression in obtaining a...
Rent increases and rent lawfully due
This is a guest post by Prof. Ian Loveland of Arden Chambers, first published in Legal Action June 2016, and gratefully posted here with permission. A few years ago now, I was instructed by Luton Law Centre in a series of possession cases brought by BPHA (a...