Archive for August 2011
Sinking feeling
I’m afraid that this is beyond parody, but couldn’t go unremarked. Anyway, it is a quiet time for judgments.
Today the National Housing Federation took the view that housing provision in the UK, or England at least, is basically demented, with millions to be locked out of property ownership, but the resulting demand for private rental properties (given the lack of social housing) is putting private rent levels up to unaffordable levels.
The Housing Minister, Grant Shapps, took to the broadcast media to announce how his policies would improve things – according to his twitter feed (@grantshapps), there were some 6 or 7 recorded or live appearances.
And… Read the full post
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More on service charges….
Peter recently asked what is the best way to recover Insurance Premiums having written to the Lender and not received any reply and should he go to the County Court or the LVT?
The situation is not clear cut. Both methods could be adopted and both hav…
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Case Comment: Belmont Park Investments v BNY Corporate Trustee and Lehman Brothers Special Financing [2011] UKSC 38
On 27 July, amidst the traditional flurry of judgments handed down at the end of the Trinity term, a 7 strong Supreme Court (Lords Phillips, Hope, Walker, Hale, Mance, Collins and Clarke) gave its ruling in the Belmont Park case, concerning the applic…
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The Swimming Pool
In Grimes v Hawkins the High Court held that a Claimant that dived into a private pool and became tetraplegic did not have a claim against the homeowner.
It turned out that the Claimant was an 18 year old girl who had been invited to a party at the Cl…
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Service charges: what do you need to know?
Over the past two decades the rules dealing with service charges have changed completely and there now exists a fairly comprehensive set of rules which as can be seen in cases reported from the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal (LVT) can catch out the unwar…
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AGENTS BEWARE!
We have recently heard of a situation where an Agent was fined for having a To-Let Board in a Conservation Area.
Whilst this of itself is not unusual the circumstances are. The area had only been very recently designated as a Conservation Area and whi…
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Tenancy deposits – two recent cases
Courts it seems are still making awards in respect of breach of the tenancy deposit regulations in a few cases, if the circumstances permit …
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Losing localism
Or, more accurately ‘locality’. Sorry if that got anyone excited over nothing.
As has been widely announced, the DCLG consultation on introducing a mandatory ground for possession on grounds of conviction for a housing related ASB offence etc, previously discussed here, has been amended to include a question on amending Ground 2 of Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1985 and Ground 14 of Schedule 2 to the Housing Act 1988 to remove the locality condition for certain offences. The amended consultation paper is here. The closing date is 7 November 2011
This is an exercise in two parts. In this, the first, I’ll outline and discuss the… Read the full post
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Starter tenancy: proportionality ‘just about arguable’
West Kent Housing Association v Haycraft [2011] EWCA Civ 992 (Not on Bailii. We’ve seen a transcript)
This was a renewed application for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal on a second (or perhaps first- see below) appeal from the granting of a possession order. The ground of appeal was that the appellant tenant had a defence of proportionality which had not been considered by the District Judge and not considered adequately by the Circuit Judge in dismissing the first appeal.
Mr H had a starter tenancy (or AST) from West Kent Housing Association, an RSL/PRPSH. In January 2010, the RSL had a meeting, described as a re-hearing… Read the full post
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Unaccompanied Service Charge demands
Tingdene Holiday Parks Ltd v Cox and others [2011] UKUT 310 (LC)
By s.21B, Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, a demand for the payment of service charges must be “accompanied” by a summary of rights and obligations of tenants in relation to the same. The form of that summary is prescribed by the Service Charges (Summary of Rights and Obligations, and Transitional Provisions) (England) Regulations 2007 (as amended; similar provisions exist in Wales). In the present case, demands were sent in 2008 and 2009 but the prescribed information was not sent until shortly afterwards. The LVT found that this was not compliance with s.21B, 1985 Act, as the prescribed information… Read the full post
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