Something wicked this way comes – LAG Housing Law
‘Sam Madge-Wyld considers the housing law agenda for 2016.’
LAG Housing Law, 12th January 2016
Source: www.laghousinglaw.com
Category: landlord & tenant
Collective Enfranchisement: Validity of Notices – Tanfield Chambers
‘Chapter I of Part I of the 1993 Act confers on certain tenants of flats held under long residential leases in certain premises the right to collective enfranchisement, that is to say the right to have the freehold of those premises acquired on their behalf by a person appointed by them for that purpose and at a price determined in accordance with Schedule 6 to the 1993 Act. Tenants entitled to participate in collective enfranchisement are called “qualifying tenants”. The premises must comprise two or more flats held by qualifying tenants. The total number of flats held by such tenants must be not less than two thirds of the total number of flats contained in the premises’
Tanfield Chambers, 7th January 2016
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
Landlords in England get ready for right to rent – Home Office
‘Landlords in England are being reminded that there is less than a month to go before “right to rent” rules go live.’
Home Office, 8th January 2016
Source: www.gov.uk/home-office
A scandal unfolds: High Court enforcement again – Nearly Legal
‘In our last post, we dealt with the issue of an application for a High Court writ being made in tenant possession cases by way of form N293A. To recap, this is the form which expressly states “This judgment or order has been sent to the High Court for enforcement by (Writ of Possession against trespassers) only”.’
Nearly Legal, 6th January 2016
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
Just walk away (beforehand) – Nearly Legal
‘Briefly, the issue was that lease clauses for some (but not all) holiday chalet leases in the Gower effectively provided for a 10% per annum increase in fixed charges for maintenance etc. The compound effect of this was that leases that started with a £90 pa service charge in 1974 would have a charge of £1,025,004 pa by the end of the term in 2072. Even by 2012, the amount payable was considerably in excess of the actual costs to the landlord of the services.’
Nearly Legal, 1st January 2016
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
Moorjani v Durban Estates Ltd – WLR Daily
Moorjani v Durban Estates Ltd [2015] EWCA Civ 1152; [2015] WLR (D) 509
‘In a case in which a residential tenant claimed to have suffered loss arising from the landlord’s breach of its repairing and insuring obligations, which had caused disrepair to his flat, the loss lay in the impairment of the amenity value of the tenant’s proprietary interest in the flat, and discomfort, inconvenience and distress were only symptoms.’
WLR Daily, 4th December 2015
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
Disrepair miscellany: Good, bad and ugly – Nearly Legal
‘Perhaps illustrating the need for the Court of Appeal to deliver the judgment in Moorjani (see preceding post), the December 2015 issue of Legal Action has Beatrice Prevatt’s excellent annual “housing repairs update”. We have covered many of the cases noted in the update already, but there are some county court cases unreported elsewhere, remarkably this time including some Councils taking cases to trial. As ever, our thanks to Beatrice Prevatt and Legal Action.’
Nearly Legal, 13th December 2015
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
Council tenants lose lifetime right to live in property – The Guardian
‘People will no longer have the right to live in their council home for life in future after ministers moved to impose a five-year limit on new tenancies.’
The Guardian, 9th December 2015
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
West End Investments (Cowell Group) Ltd v Birchlea Ltd – WLR Daily
West End Investments (Cowell Group) Ltd v Birchlea Ltd [2015] EWHC 3381 (Ch); [2015] WLR (D) 499
‘There must be a significant deviation from the vertical plane for the exception in section 2(2) of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 to apply.’
WLR Daily, 27th November 2015
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
Radical thinking on enfranchisement – Tanfield Chambers
‘The law of enfranchisement is very complicated. A whole industry has evolved to try to interpret the provisions of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 (“the 1967 Act”) and the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (“the 1993 Act”) and put them into practice. The cost and frustration to leaseholders of such a convoluted process is considerable.’
Tanfield Chambers, 3rd December 2015
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
Arbitration in landlord and tenant disputes – Tanfield Chambers
‘Most landlord and tenant disputes end up in court. From the perspective of landlords, this can be a lengthy, frustrating, and costly process. For tenants, the experience is often uncertain, draining, and also costly. Is there a place for arbitration in this?’
Tanfield Chambers, 30th November 2015
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
Interim Rent under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 – Hardwicke Chambers
‘While many practitioners are familiar with the general workings of lease renewals under the ’54 Act, there is one aspect of the law that is often overlooked: interim rent under sections 24A to D. Andy Creer takes a look at the law.’
Hardwicke Chambers, 20th November 2015
Source: www.hardwicke.co.uk
Austerity and Public Law: Alexander Latham: Defending Rights in the Face of Austerity: Is the Supreme Court Calling Time on Social Housing Managerialism? – UK Constitutional Law Association
‘In cases involving social housing, English courts have traditionally taken what we might call a “managerial” approach: their starting-point for analysis has not been the tenant or applicant for housing as a rights-holder, but the need of local authorities to distribute their scarce resources effectively. In Burrows v Brent LBC [1996] 1 WLR 1448, for example, where a tenant who was permitted to remain after a possession order was held not to have been impliedly granted a new tenancy, Lord Browne-Wilkinson said that “housing authorities try to conduct their housing functions as humane and reasonable landlords” (at 1455). The tenant might be forgiven for wondering why this should count against him, but clearly the implication is that as ‘humane and reasonable landlords’ local authorities should be left to manage their housing stock with as little interference from the courts as possible. More recently this attitude led to the courts’ extreme reluctance to enable a public sector tenant to rely on article 8 ECHR in possession proceedings. When the Supreme Court finally acceded to pressure from Strasbourg, it nevertheless drew the teeth from the human rights defence by agreeing with the Secretary of State’s submission that “a local authority’s aim in wanting possession should be a ‘given’ ” (Manchester CC v Pinnock [2011] UKSC 6, per Lord Neuberger at [53]), so that “there will be no need, in the overwhelming majority of cases, for the local authority to explain and justify its reasons for seeking a possession order” (Hounslow LBC v Powell [2011] UKSC 8, per Lord Hope at [37]). The local authority is simply assumed to be acting in a way which benefits the general welfare; this assumption is then taken to justify the effect of its actions on individuals in all but the most extreme of cases.’
UK Constitutional Law Association, 9th December 2015
Source: www.ukconstitutionallaw.org
Leasehold disputes and costs – Nearly Legal
‘Leasehold disputes, like any litigation, are capable of generating significant legal and other professional costs. The position is generally better for freeholders/third party managers than it is for leaseholders in that a well-drafted lease will usually give the landlord/manager a right to recover legal costs, often through a variety of different forms of covenant. These clauses can (and do) “trump” any procedural restrictions on the award of costs, see, e.g. Chaplair, but, of course, it is always a question of construction as to what the clause in question covers.’
Nearly Legal, 5th December 2015
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
Marks and Spencer plc v BNP Paribas Securities Services Trust Co (Jersey) Ltd and another – WLR Daily
‘A term would only be implied into a detailed commercial contract if its implication were necessary to give business efficacy to the contract or so obvious that went without saying.’
WLR Daily, 2nd December 2015
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
Deposits, dog hairs, doors and defamation – Nearly Legal
‘As if tenancy deposits weren’t complicated enough, now we can add libel claims to the consequences of a heated deposit dispute. It turns out that sending potentially libellous accusations to the deposit scheme adjudication service is possibly covered by qualified privilege.’
Nearly Legal, 21st November 2015
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
Possession claims by trustee in bankruptcy – Nearly Legal
‘This was an appeal arising from a claim for possession against three properties by the trustee in bankruptcy of a bankrupt landlord. The Lawtel note rather confusingly refers to it as “accelerated possession proceedings for an order for sale”, which it can’t possibly have been.’
Nearly Legal, 22nd November 2015
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
Over egging it – Nearly Legal
‘This was a Court of Appeal hearing on an appeal on costs. The original case was the landlord’s claim for rent arrears of some £6,000 and interest. The landlord also claimed for physical damage to the property by the tenant amounting to some £20,000 and consequential loss of rent. The tenant agreed some £6,000 in rent arrears, but denied the property damage. The tenant counterclaimed for failure to repair the property and breach of quiet enjoyment. The tenant also challenged the landlord’s identity as landlord and the interest rate claimed.’
Nearly Legal, 9th November 2015
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
Watford landlord fined £30,000 for housing 12 tenants in five-person flat – The Guardian
‘A landlord who made almost £27,000 a year by cramming 12 tenants into a property meant for five – with some sleeping in storerooms – has been fined £30,000 after pleading guilty to overcrowding.’
The Guardian, 4th November 2015
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
Do Right To Manage Baby (Do Unto Others) – Nearly Legal
‘There have been plenty of Upper Tribunal decisions on RTM (we covered the UT decision in this case with six others back in December 2013 – our note here, where your correspondent would like it noted that he suggested that there was “plenty for the Court of Appeal to tuck into”), but there has only been one previous excursion into this area by the Court of Appeal. That case, Gala Unity Ltd v Ariadne Road RTM Co Ltd [ 2012 ]] EWCA Civ 1372 (our note), is quite the predecessor to Ninety Broomfield Road in that both cases concerned more than one block of flats seeking to exercise the right to manage together. And quite the oddity, too. The Court of Appeal in Ninety Broomfield Road has restored some sense to the application of RTM in multiple block cases. It is also plainly right (a seal of approval that will doubtless cheer the hearts of the Court of Appeal judges involved).’
Nearly Legal, 29th October 2015
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
