A free webinar:
The Supreme Court has now handed down its decision in the case of Rakusen v. Jepson and the decision is in favour of landlords.
Or rather landlords who rent out their properties to tenants, not to live in themselves, but to sublet them to others. A situation known as ‘rent to rent’.
This is an important decision for both landlords and for tenants:
- For landlords, it is a good decision as it means that only the person who actually receives the rent can be made liable to repay it
- For tenants, it is a bad decision as it means that where their immediate landlord has no assets they will be unable to enforce their claim against the property owner – who may have sublet deliberately to avoid liability
As well as the main parties, there were also two ‘interveners’ in the case:
- The National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) representing the interests of landlords, and
- An organisation called ‘Safer Renting’ (run partly by Ben Reeve Lewis, who used to write for this blog) representing the interests of tenants
To explain the decision to us all, I have invited barrister Robert Brown who appeared from the NRLA, to present a free webinar and explain it to us. Here are the details:
Date: Friday 10 March
Time: 11.00 am – to last approx 40 minutes to an hour
Guest speaker: Robert Brown, barrister, of Selborne Chambers in London
Cost: FREE
A fair and reasonable decision. Hopefully councils will now use their extensive powers to focus on the real criminals.