By s.87, Leasehold Reform, Housing and Urban Development Act 1993, the Secretary of State has power to approve codes of practice in relation to the management of residential long leasehold blocks. Currently, he has approved (for non-retirement properties)...
Urgent appeals in warrant suspension cases
We’ve all been there. Perhaps more frequently, litigants in person have been there (although hopefully not the same LiP over and over again). A warrant for possession is due to be executed the next day. It may even be the same day. The occupier has applied...
Bedroom tax JR
The headline here, as has been widely tweeted/flashed etc, is that the challenge to the bedroom tax contained in Regulation B13, Housing Benefit Regulations (both generically and specifically in relation to households with a disabled person) was unsuccessful...
Confirming my irrational prejudice
I've never liked the Gower. I recognise that, objectively, it's quite beautiful, but it was ruined for me by a camping holiday as a child. It was cold and wet. The rain was almost biblical in volume. There was nothing to do. And I ran out of books to read....
Immigration and the PRS: Coalition Summer madness
The questions raised about how the Coalition were going to implement Cameron's proposal that private landlords should check the immigration status of their future occupiers have now been answered in part by the Home Office Consultation Paper, Tackling...
Law Commission Draft Programme
The Law Commission is currently consulting on what projects it might take on under its next law reform programme. It has a few specific suggestions in relation to landlord and tenant law and is seeking evidence (particularly about how far they have...
The BBC and the PRS
Last Thursday night, BBC 1 broadcast Meet the Landlords. It's still available on Iplayer, here. It just confirms my view that - save for limited circumstances - one person should not be allowed to own the home of another. Others may have different reactions...
Allocations: where have all the claims gone?
Allocations under Pt.6, 1996 Act. A big topic. A sexy topic. A true behemoth of a topic. And, for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, a topic that isn't giving us very many cases these days. Which is odd, given the ever-growing tendency by local...
McFail
Malik v Fassenfelt & Ors [2013] EWCA Civ 798 The idea that an Englishman's home is his castle is firmly embedded in English folklore and it finds its counterpart in the common law of the realm which provides a remedy to enable the owner of the castle to...
Going Dutch
Brusse and another v Jahani BV C488-11 is a case from the European Court of Justice concerning Directive 93/13/EEC, better known to us in this country as the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999. In outline, the Directive (and the Regs) apply...
Leasehold repair covenants and damages
Hunt & Ors v Optima (Cambridge) Ltd & Ors [2013] EWHC 681 (TCC) This is a brief note on what was a complex case arising out of what, by any measure, appears to have been a very poor construction and subsequent maintenance of a new build block of...
What Barclay did next
As regular readers will know, the NL naughty step posts are not restricted to housing law, though tend to have a legal connection. It is just a question of who might attract our attention at any given moment for the right, or rather wrong reason.. Every now...