Ward & Ors, R (on the application of) v The London Borough of Hillingdon & Ors (2019) EWCA Civ 692 Regular readers will remember the judicial reviews of Hillingdon's allocation policy requirement for a 10 year residence period (those without 10 years...
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...
Nominations agreements and the Equality Act
I was excited to see R(Z) v Hackney LBC & Agudas Israel HA (2019) EWHC 139 (Admin), because it is the first case in which the thorny issue of "nomination" rights and, potentially, the concept of a "true void" have arisen for full decision by a court of...
Equality Act and ‘reasonable to remain’
Lomax v Gosport Borough Council (2018) EWCA Civ 1846 This was a second appeal on a homeless application by Ms L to Gosport. Ms L "suffers from a number of both physical and mental problems. She is wheelchair bound and is confined to bed for large portions of...
Fergus Wilson is running out of protected characteristics to discriminate against.
My apologies for the link to the Daily Mail, but it appears that Fergus Wilson is at it again. For newcomers, Wilson has a considerable history of being a Very Bad Private Landlord. For example, losing to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission on a case...
‘No DSS’ and discrimination
The BBC ran a new report today on a case in Birmingham. The headline - "Landlords who say 'no DSS' breaking equality laws" - was, as we shall see, somewhat misleading, but the report did indeed cover a discrimination claim against a letting agency who had...
‘I’m not racist, I just won’t let to them’. Fergus Wilson meets the Equality Act
Fergus Wilson (for it is he) has managed to cap such highlights of a landlording career as being convicted of assaulting his letting agent, and evicting tenants (including single mothers or 'battered wives') because they were on housing benefit or likely to...
“Real misery is being caused to no good purpose”
DA & Ors, R (On the Application Of) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (2017) EWHC 1446 (Admin) This was the judicial review of the 'reduced' benefit cap - £20,000 pa outside London, £23,000 in London, brought by claimants who were all single...
Community contribution, priority stars and discrimination
XC, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Southwark [2017] EWHC 736 (Admin) This was a judicial review of Southwark's allocation policy as it applied to transfers. Specifically, the issue was whether Southwark's policy, in awarding 'priority stars'...
Succession, partners and bright line rules
Turley v London Borough of Wandsworth & Anor [2017] EWCA Civ 189 Did the pre Localism Act 2011 succession rules for a secure tenancy amount to a breach of article 8 and 14 (private life and non-discrimination), and if so, should a declaration of...
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....
Tales of the private sector
A collation of cases and stories from the private sector, and a series of reminders that a database of rogue landlords, and indeed banning orders, can't come soon enough. In Sheffield, John Cashin was convicted of 56 offences involving HMO management,...