Housing Allocation and Homelessness: Law and Practice

This is the second edition of this book, written by Jan Luba QC and Liz Davies, both of Garden Court Chambers and both very well known to anyone in the sector.

The overall aim of the book, as the subtitle suggests, is to provide both a comprehensive view of the law in these areas, but also to provide the clear and practical information required by advisors and practitioners in dealing with individual cases. It generally succeeds in this admirably.

The first part deals with allocation policy and practice. This is a substantial and detailed address which starts with an outline history of the statute and government guidance governing local authority allocation policies and procedures, including the major amendments of the Housing
Act 1996 and the Homelessness Act 2002.

This is highly useful for anyone new to advising on allocations who is trying to make sense of the complex history of case law. An overview of the current position is followed by a detailed breakdown of eligibility, allocation schemes and the practicality of being allocated a property.

The latter chapter acknowledges the transformation in the legal landscape brought about by the House of Lords in R(Ahmad) v Newham LBC and the green light given for simplified banding in choice based schemes. The topic of ‘challenges to allocation schemes’ now occupies just two pages.

As well as dealing with nominations to Registered Social Landlords by Local Authorities, the book also has a separate section on lettings by RSLs and their duty to maintain a lettings policy, a useful inclusion given the potential for challenge by judicial review, following Weaver v L&Q.

Although a stop press dated 91 March 2010 at the start of the book records the Tenants Services Authority becoming the regulatory body for social housing, both RSL and Local Authority, events threaten to overtake this in short order, with the threatened demise of the TSA. This is unlikely to have an immediate effect on the relevant statutory requirements and guidance, however.

The second section deals with homelessness. Opening chapters on strategy and on homeless prevention policy and guidance set the broad context. The next chapters focus on the individual applicant and the local authority’s powers and duties, from making an application, through the initial inquiry and decision process, to the statutory checklist of being homeless, eligible, in priority need and not intentionally homeless familiar to any housing advisor.

The following chapters, logically organised, deal with interim accommodation, duties and powers to assist the homeless, suitability of accommodation, reviews and appeals of decisions (including judicial review), and other help with accommodation from Local Authorities outside Part VII Housing Act 1996.

These chapters are clearly set out, detailed and fully supported with reference to relevant case law, as one would expect. Case law is up to date to the end of February 2010, including Tomlinson v Birmingham City Council in the Supreme Court.

The organisation of the sub-sections throughout these ‘practical’ chapters is particularly helpful to an advisor trying to find their way through this most complex interaction of fact and law, with a clear breakdown into points and issues to consider.

A final chapter considers the contracting out of homeless and allocation functions by Local Authorities. This last chapter is interesting, given the increasing tendency of Councils to contract out homelessness functions and potentially of use to advisors, as very recent cases on ‘contracting out’ of review functions have shown. Full appendices with relevant statute, SIs and guidance complete the book.

Overall, this is a worthy competitor to the LAG Homelessness and Allocations. On allocation, this book is considerably more detailed, and I would recommend it to anyone trying to fathom the basis and requirements of allocation policies, although by the very nature of the statute the discussion is inevitably at a fairly general level.

On homelessness, I wouldn’t want to chose between the two, on the content. Each has its own style and approach and which they prefer is something for the readers to decide.

Giles Peaker, our reviewer, is an assistant solicitor in the Housing and Public Law team at solicitors Anthony Gold.

Housing Allocation and Homelessness: Law and Practice can be purchased online from Amazon (affiliate link).

Like

Unlike

I am not a tax adviser, so I was really pleased to be emailed just now by the Tax Cafe to say that they had produced one of their excellent tax guides to deal with just this situation. It is by Carl Bayley who is a well known and respected author on tax matters – you may already have one of his other books.

I have not had time to read this in detail, but the chapter headings are as follows:

• The ‘Current’ Capital Gains Tax Regime
• Special cases
• What happens next
• Should You Take Action Now?
• Creating a Capital Gain
• Open market sales
• Transfers to Another Individual
• Transfers to a trust
• Transfers to a company
• What if it goes wrong
• Other planning issues
• Problem areas

There are also several helpful appendices such as on tax rates and allowances.

I expect that many people will find this book very helpful. The blurb suggests that it will be essential reading for all Property investors, Second home owners, Business owners and Share investors. It costs £24.95.

You can read more and buy the book online >> here (affiliate link).

Buyers will also receive a complimentary electronic copy of the Tax Cafe comprehensive tax guide ‘How to Slash Your Tax 2009/2010′ – worth £19.95.

Like

Unlike

Homelessness and Allocations. 8th Edition

This may not be a book of much use to private landlords, although a glance between its covers would rapidly disabuse some of their conviction that ‘the Council’ will automatically help tenants that they evict. But for housing lawyers, advisors and indeed some local authority homeless unit officers, the LAG Homelessness book has long been the bible. Even now that there is strong competition in the form of Jan Luba QC and Liz Davies’ ‘Housing Allocations and Homelessness’, a new edition of ‘Homelessness and Allocations’ is a significant publication.

Andrew Arden QC has been joined by a new team of co-authors, Emily Orme and Toby Vanhagan, and they have collectively taken the opportunity to rework the structure of the book as well as add and revise material. This works well. Homeless and allocation law has changed significantly over recent years and there is always a fresh wave of case law, an old structure will end up creaking under the weight of additions and not suited for new issues.

The 8th edition has fused the discussion of public law into the homeless and allocation sections, so that it is no longer a discrete chapter. Public law remedies have a significant track record in this area now, so there is no need for an independent section on the operation of public law. There is a completely revised chapter on immigration and homelessness and on immigration and allocation. The chapter on allocations now also considers allocation by other providers of social housing.

Case law has been updated throughout, including a last minute note on Tomlinson v Birmingham City Council [2010] UKSC 8, a Supreme Court decision on whether the housing duty under the Housing Act 1996 was a civil right for the purposes of the Human Rights Act 1998, which was only handed down in February 2010. In fact there are more than 80 new decisions of significance added to this edition, affecting both homelessness and allocation law. The supplementary and new statutory guidance on homelessness and allocations respectively has also been addressed and also included in the appendices.

The basic structure remains unchanged however, and rightly so. The chapters on homelessness provide a logical breakdown of the qualification criteria for a full housing duty to be owed by a local authority and do so in a manner that effectively sets out a checklist for anyone dealing with a homelessness application. A chapter on the decision making process and the review process follows, then a chapter on the discharge of duty by the local authority. There is a section on appeals of the review decision to the County Court, contained in a chapter on ‘Enforcement’ generally. This could perhaps have been better signposted as the next step after a review in the chapter on decision making.

The chapter on allocations is relatively brief and has, if anything become even briefer as a result of case law since 2006. But it has been significantly updated and reworked and is as clear a guide to the duties of a housing authority on allocation as could be hoped for.

There have been some very important changes since the 7th edition was published in 2006, in particular in regards to allocations, with the growth of choice based letting schemes and the impact of R (Ahmad) v Newham LBC [2009] UKHL 7. These, together with the opening up of public law challenges to what are now private registered providers of social housing, following R (Weaver) v London & Quadrant, are all addressed in the revised edition and this is done with the clarity and concern over the practical effect of the law that characterises the whole book.

The following chapter on enforcement contains practical and detailed advice on the procedures for challenging decisions, or a failure to make decisions, in homeless and allocation processes. It covers Judicial Review, appeals to the County Court and mentions the alternative of a maladministration claim to the Local Government Ombudsman.

The remaining chapters concern other statutory provisions that may be of use if a homelessness application fails and discuss requirements on the local authority to have a strategy and to provide advice. The appendices include relevant statute and guidance as at January 2010, very helpfully gathered together.

Although perhaps no longer the only bible on this subject, ‘Homelessness and Allocations’ has long been one of the vital books for any housing solicitor or advisor. The updates to the 8th edition ensure that it remains so.

******

Giles Peaker, our reviewer, is an assistant solicitor in the Housing and Public Law team at solicitors Anthony Gold. Homelessness and Allocations can be purchased online from Amazon (affiliate link).

Like

Unlike

Are you a landlord? Have you had a dispute over a tenancy deposit go to arbitration? Did you lose when you felt you ought to have won? If so you are no longer alone. Tom Deritt of ADR Solutions, who contacted me recently, is on your side.

ADR stands for Alternative Dispute Resolution also called arbitration. One of the selling points of the new tenancy deposit schemes, was always the free quick and easy arbitration service.  No more time consuming and expensive county court claims.  A quick ADR with your answer back in a couple of weeks.

But after an experience of the ADR procedure, many landlords are not happy.  We have featured quite a few of these complaints on the Landlord Law Blog.  However a big problems is that many landlords do not appreciate that the starting point for the arbitrator is that the tenancy deposit is the tenants money not the landlords, and they also do not understand what they need to do to prove their case.

“Until recently” Tom told me, “I worked as an adjudicator for one of the deposit protection schemes. I found myself increasingly concerned at the number of cases where I suspected that the landlord or agent probably deserved the money they were requesting, but where I couldn’t award the full amount because the evidence submitted did not justify the claim.

Only this week, My Deposits announced that landlords only succeed or partially succeed in 51% of cases. The figures unquestionably show that in 49% of disputed deposits, the landlord comes away with absolutely nothing. I don’t accept that in half of the cases referred to ADR, the landlord does not deserve anything at all. “

So he decided to do something about it.  The result is a new web-site www.adrsolution.co.uk, where, for as little as £50 you can get Tom, or one of his colleagues, to check over your paperwork (as all these cases are decided just on the paperwork) and advise whether or not you have a good case.

Sounds like a good idea to me (although not perhaps if the disputed sum is only £4.20!)

What do you think?  Is this service going to provide a need among landlords?  Please let us have your comments.  And if you use the service, let us know how you get on.

In fact the introduction gives us a useful short history of the period from 1999 to date, touching briefly on the Law Commissions and subsequent reports (which have resulted in a resounding lack of action by the government, presumably because the answers provided in the reports are not those they want to hear), the 2004 Housing Act, the Decent Homes program, the tolerated trespassers problems, claims farmers, and the problems of obtaining professional legal help under legal aid.

The book covers very much the ground you would expect.

• Chapter 1 looks at contractual rights and the provisions of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
• Chapter 2 looks at common law rights  (ie negligence and nuisance) and statutory rights  (Occupiers Liability Act 1957, Defective Premises Act 1972 and the Human Rights Act 1988)
• Chapter 3 looks at civil remedies, covering direct action and court action
• Chapter 4 looks at the vexed question of funding, covering legal aid, insurance, and conditonal fee agreements
• Chapter 5 covers proceedings under the Environmental Protection Act 1990
• Chapter 6 covers the various provisions of the Housing Act 2004
• Chapter 7 is a useful chapter covering various miscellaneous matters such as asbestos, condensation and dampness, gas safety,, HMOs and overcrowding, and
• Chapter 8 looks at damages
• There then follows some useful appendices including extracts from the legislation, some guidance on understanding experts reports, and some precedent documents

The book is clear and authoritative, and everyone working in the field of housing law should have it on their desk.

Published by LAG, the book authors are Jan Luba QC and Beatrice Prevatt, both barristers at Garden Court Chambers in Lincolns Inn Fields, and Deidre Forster of Powell Forster Solicitors. You can buy Repairs: Tenants’ Rights online from Amazon (affiliate link).

Like

Unlike