When I was asked to do a review of this book, I privately thought ‘yeah, yeah, another law book’ and prepared to yawn my way through it.
However, when I actually opened it up and took a look I was impressed. Actually very impressed. If I were to write a law book on landlord & tenant law, this is probably the approach I would take.
The contents
The book is aimed mainly at solicitors or other legal advisors and so starts with a very helpful short section about clients – the questions to ask them and things to watch out for.
The book is then divided into two main sections
- The common law, and
- The statutory codes
The Common Law
When I have written about the common law on this blog I have generally said that it is hard often to find out what it is – it is not set out in a nice clear Act.
Well one way to find out what the common law is, is to get this book. It’s all set out in an orderly way:
- The distinction between a lease and a license
- Creating a tenancy
- Landlord and tenant express and implied obligations
- Assignment and subletting
- Termination of tenancies
- Forfeiture
The statutory codes
The largest part of the book, however, is on the various statutory codes:
- The Rent Act 1977
- The Housing Act 1988
- The Housing Act 1985
- The Protection from Eviction Act 1977
The book is not just confined to short lets though. There are also sections on long leases, agricultural holdings and business tenancies
The law in the book is as at October 2016. The authors cover all the Deregulation Act 2015 changes and look at the changes to come in the Housing & Planning At 2016.
However, they have not looked in any detail at the changes due to come to Wales, for example under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, as this (when it comes) will be a complete new statutory code in itself.
Conclusion
This book is aimed mainly at legal practitioners. If your work includes landlord & tenant law this is an excellent book to have on your desk to turn to when you want to look something up or are unsure of a particular point. Because it is so clear and easy to find things.
Even if your work only sometimes touches landlord & tenant – its a good idea to have access to this book in the office.
I will certainly be keeping it on my desk and I can see that it will be of enormous help to me – already I can see myself mining it for new series of posts on this blog.
If you are an ordinary landlord you probably won’t want to cough up the £54.99 (£51.75 on Amazon at the time of writing) to buy it – although for law books this is actually quite cheap.
However, if property is your business – for example, if you are a letting agent or portfolio landlord, then you may want to consider it – particularly if you are involved in some sort of legal challenge at the moment.
It will be cheaper than getting Counsel’s opinion – indeed, in a way it IS Counsel’s opinion as both authors are barristers.
You can buy it on Amazon and there is also a Kindle edition. This review looks at the eighth edition published in 2017.