Here is a case which just goes to illustrate how bonkers litigation can be, and which also casts a worrying light on the competence of local authority legal departments.
If at first you don’t suceed …
It is the case of Allen v. the London Borough of Southwark which was a claim by Mr Allen alleging harassment by Southwark Council contrary to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
Why were they harassing him? They had issued five separate sets of proceedings for possession against him, none of which had succeeded, and none of which had had any merit.
The nub of the problem was the Councils request that Mr Allen pay his rent at the post office and Mr Allens dogged determination to pay it at Leathermarket housing office. Even though they no longer had a cash office there.
However Mr Allen had right on his side, as his tenancy agreement had never been amended to require him to pay elsewhere. It seems unbelievable that the Council should issue four sets of possession proceedings for rent arrears only to have them all fail on the same point, and STILL not get their paperwork in order, but this it seems is what happened.
Enough already
After the fifth case, Mr Allen decided that this was harassment and gamely issued proceedings. They were promptly struck out by the Judge as showing no cause of action, but Mr Allen, not a man to give up easily, appealed this decision to the Court of Appeal. They decided that the claim was an arguable one and that a trial must take place. However this was the end of Mr Allen’s run of luck. The Judge ruled against him at the trial, finding that the possession claims had each been brought in good faith by the council “however mistakenly or incompetently”
You can read more about the facts on Nearly Legal here and then here.
What are we paying Council tax for?
However what the good citizens of Southwark are going to want to know is, why is their council wasting money on mistaken and incompetent possession claims, leading to harassment claims by aggrieved tenants, when if only they had got their paperwork right in the first place, the whole thing would never have happened?
Surely it would have been cheaper to invest in a bit of staff training?
I AM A SOUTHWARK COUNCIL TAX PAYER RRRAAARRRGGGHH
Trouble is, I work for a neighbouring borough I know how bonkers local authorities can be, not the individuals you understand, just the systems.
A person comes in with a set of problems but none of them can be sorted by 1 person. Harassment, rats, disrepair? Yeah I do harassment but for the disrepair you have to go to EH and the rats are done by pest control. Refer disrep to EH, they say because of type of repair it is dealt with by a different statute so is a different team
Its no wonder rogue landlords get away with so much
That’s if they’re not in bed with the rogue landlords.
Had a client about two years back who was being harassed by their landlord. This was in a certain borough in Surrey and they went to the Council over it and spoke to a TRO, who firstly claimed “nothing could be done” about it and then gatekept them when they tried to apply as homeless. Client even had recordings on his phone of the landlord screaming abuse at them etc.
We did a bit of digging and it turned out that apparently this man made his money by repaving roads, and had done every road in the Borough at one time, and when he quit that he bought loads of rental properties and entered into an arrangement with the Council that they’d refer him qualifying offers of homeless applicants and he’d give them 12 month ASTs etc.
So no wonder the Council didn’t want to do anything and were actively obstructive, or he’d up sticks and leave them, and they’d not be able to house the homeless as effectively.
Which brings us to the question of the Localism Bill – how can we be sure that the landlords of these qualifying offers of ASTs are trustworthy folks and not ill-tempered roadmenders?
‘Shakes head’. Its a sad, sad world we live in …
Back in the 1990s our head of the right to buy scheme got 18 months for fraud of the scheme. She came out at the end of her sentence and promptly opened a letting agency.
A year later I was in Tower Bridge Magistrates court getting an arrest warrant against a landlord and one of the judges in the tea room told me he had comitted her to prison for 7 days for being rude to him with instructions that she should be brought back to apologise. He said she was released and stood before him. He said “Right, you’ve been brought here to apologise. What have you got to say for yourself?” The judge said her reply was “You’re a F*&£$*g W*&ker” to which he replied “I accept, because I know that is the closest I’ll get to an apology from you” haha you couldnt make it up.