Archive for January 2009
Social housing agencies
The Housing and Regeneration Act 2008 established two new agencies to regulate, fund and deliver social housing, replacing the Housing…
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Craig McCreight v. West Lothian Council [2009] CSIH 04
On 8 April 2002 the appellant was convicted of having murdered the tenant of 5 Fairinsfell, Broxburn, West Lothian whom he lived with. The appellant thereafter sought to purchase the property. This was an appeal against a decision of the Lands Tribunal dated 13 December 2004 on a preliminary issue arising from an application by the appellant to purchase the subjects. The parties had asked the Tribunal to decide whether the forfeiture rule should defeat the application following the conviction of the appellant. In a decision of a single member it determined that it had such a jurisdiction as the Tribunal considered that since an application under section 71 of Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 had to be made by the tenant, it was open to the respondent to plead that the forfeiture rule should be applied.That was the decision appealed against here. There were two issues in the appeal:- (1) whether, regardless of the forfeiture rule, the Tribunal was bound to grant the appellant’s application simply because the respondent had failed to serve an offer to sell or a notice of refusal; and (2) if not, whether the Tribunal had jurisdiction to decide whether the rule should be applied.
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Ask and ye shall receive
Yesterday evening I asked for more information about Dixon v Wandsworth LBC (No 2) [2009] EWHC 27 (Admin) and, by the next morning, two copies of the transcript had made their way to my inbox. My gratitude to The Chief and to William Flack of Flack & Co, who are acting for Mr Dixon. Without [...]
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The Basildon Endgame
As people may well have noticed from the news on TV and in the press, the last Court of Appeal hearing in the drawn out saga of the (unlawful) Essex traveller sites resulted in a defeat for the travellers. Basildon District Council v McCarthy & Ors [2009] EWCA Civ 13 was the Court of Appeal [...]
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Allocations/Homelessness
Alam v LB Tower Hamlets[2009] EWHC 44 (Admin) is one of those interesting cases that you get in allocations – well, interesting because a council like LB Tower Hamlets should probably know better than to have an obscure clause in its allocations scheme which surely will be challenged sooner rather than later (that it took [...]
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How to get round the s.17/s.20 debate.
The housing/social services relationship is one of the “hot topics” in housing law at the moment and, before we come to R (on the application of A) v Coventry City Council [2009] EWHC 34 (Admin), a bit of background is needed.
A bit of background
There are two principle sections in the Children Act 1989 which are [...]
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No no she’s not dead, she’s, she’s restin’!
Newport City Council v Charles [2008] EWCA Civ 1541, The Times, 11 Aug 2008
The transcript for this (factually remarkable but legally straightforward) case has only just been produced, hence the delay in covering it.
The appellant, Mr Charles, lived at 1B Marlborough Rd, Newport. That property had been granted to his mother on a secure tenancy [...]
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Right to Buy leases and service charges
Leicester City Council v Masters LRX/175/2007 (links to a .pdf)
Pursuant to the Right to Buy provisions, the respondent purchased a leasehold interest in his flat in April 2005. As readers will know, where someone is purchasing a leasehold interest under the RTB provisions, the local authority will serve a notice under s.125 Housing Act 1985, [...]
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Retrospective CFAs on appeal
Birmingham City Council v Forde [2009] EWHC 12 (QB) was the High Court hearing of Birmingham’s appeal from the High Court (Costs) case we reported on in August last year.
In short, the appeal was dismissed, and the judgment of the Costs Judge upheld, but in a lengthy and detailed judgment, there are some considerable differences to the [...]
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Meeting 15/01/2009
6 attended the meeting to address organisational issues on 15/01/2009 at the MoJ meeting room kindly provided by John S…
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