I caught someone from the National Citizens Advice Bureau on BBC Breakfast this morning, commenting on a CAB report on the large number of people in private rented properties in bad condition who are promptly evicted if they complain or do anything about the...
Housing Duty – stating the obvious
For once, Birmingham was on the winning side of an entirely predictable Court of Appeal judgment on homelessness law. Omar -v- Birmingham City Council 2007. (7 June 2007. Times Report. Not yet freely available elsewhere) Birmingham had discharged duty to the...
EU citizens and social housing
Head of Legal had an interesting post in response to my post on Hodge's outburst (the ramifications of which rumble on, including the BNP noting gratefully that they win whether the ideas become policy or if they are not carried through. Unfortunately true....
What's mine is yours, unfortunately.
To everything there is a season and housing issues are no exception. While winter brings a flood of disrepair cases, Spring is the time for relationship breakdown. Whether involving partners or spouses, this brings its own housing problems, particularly...
Succession in secure tenancies – House of Lords
An eminently sensible House of Lords decision today in Birmingham CC -v- Walker [2007] UKHL 22, maintaining the sensible Court of Appeal decision ([2006] 1 WLR 2641). At issue was whether a transmission or change of a tenancy in one of the forms set out in...
Riverside Housing v White, House of Lords
The Court of Appeal judgment in Riverside suggested that if rent increases hadn't been levied pretty much exactly as per any provision in the tenancy agreement, those increases were invalid. Riverside had levied rent increases later than the date specified...
Farewell then… (Part 1 hopefully).
To the DCA, now part of the thoroughly Orwellian overtoned, or is that Pétain-ist Ministry of Justice (at justice.gov.uk, no less). I don't, in principle, object to the partition of the Home Office, but that was worryingly quick. Either the assorted...
White v Knowsley – Court of Appeal Judgment
Given today and no surprises. The upshot is that assured tenants and secure tenants are in exactly the same position in regard to suspended possession orders and that s.9 Housing Act 1989 and s.82 Housing Act 1985 have the same effect despite the difference...
A busy day
So noted in passing: Everybody's favourite still wet behind the ears barrister, Tom Brennan, has had the full day of argument on the validity of his claim and the matter has apparently been adjourned. Of course, the BBC don't tell us whether Mr Brennan was...
Now there's a thought
I was talking with a friend this weekend, one of the few people who know my secret identity. 'Why', my friend asked me, 'don't you have more about criminal law and practice on the blog?' 'More?', I said, 'I have nothing about Criminal on there'. 'Exactly',...
Small claims limits unchanged
As regular readers may recall, the limit for disrepair claims to fall into small claims was under review. Proposals were made to raise the current limit of £1000 to £5000. Regular readers will recall that I thought that this was a Bad Thing. According to the...
More on London & Quadrant v Ansell
Musing over the Court of Appeal judgment ([2007] EWCA Civ 236) today, it struck me that the case does something rather dramatic to the issue of tolerated trespassers, extending the thrust of Swindon v Aston [2003] HLR 610. What we knew from Swindon v Aston...