swarb.co.uk - law index
These cases are from the lawindexpro database. They are now being transferred to the swarb.co.uk website in a better form. As a case is published there, an entry here will link to it. The swarb.co.uk site includes many later cases. Â
Housing - From: 1990 To: 1990
This page lists 7 cases, and was prepared on 27 May 2018.
ÂJones v Cook (1990) 22 HLR 319
1990
CA
Housing
The defendant held a tenanted property. The landlords sought possession, saying that the local authority would provide suitable alternative accommodation nearby. The authority provided a certificate to say that the accommodation would be similar. The judge accepted the certificte without investigating further. The tenant appealed saying that the certificate did not say just what accommodtion would be available. Held: The judge was mistaken. He should have looked behind the certificate to determine whether the accommodation offered was similar to that referred to in the certificate. If he did not find a similariy, the deeming provisions would not apply.
Rent Act 1977 Schedule 15 Part IV paragraph 5(1)(a)(2)
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Dance v Welwyn Hatfield Distrrict Council [1990] 1 WLR 1097
1990
CA
Lord Justice Nourse
Housing, Local Government
The secure tenants had claimed to exercise their right to buy; the local authority admitted their right and proposed a price which was accepted. The authority offered a partial mortgage which was accepted and by reference to which they had exercised their statutory right to elect deferred completion. The authority then notified them of its intention to demolish the property and contended that, because prior to their exercise of the right to buy it would be entitled to an order for possession on that basis, it was no longer obliged to complete the sale. Held: The authority's appeal was unsuccessful. Lord Justice Nourse held that in the words of s138(1) of the Act, the right to buy had been established and all matters relating to the grant and to the amount to be left outstanding or advanced on the security of the property had been agreed. Once such a right had been established and all such matters had been agreed, the tenants had become entitled under s. 138(3) to enforce completion of the sale and had thus acquired an equitable interest in the property. On any view the tenants had already exercised their right to buy and so the local authority would not remain entitled to an order for possession.
Housing Act 1985
1 Citers
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Wagle v Trustees of Henry Smith's Charity Kensington Estate [1990] 1 QB 42
1990
CA
Dillon LJ, Denning LJ, Sir John Megaw
Housing, Landlord and Tenant
The tenant had used the premises for both residential and business use. He claimed that, the business use having ceased, he had the protection of the 1977 Act. Held: The Pulleng case required te court to reject the tenant's argument. The meaning of the phrase "let as a separate dwelling" had contracted and no longer included a tenancy for mixed purposes.
Rent Act 1977
1 Cites
1 Citers
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Westminster Borough Council v Basson (1990) 23 HLR 225
1990
CA
Housing
The council sought possession of the premises. The defendant had been an unlawful occupier. He said that in the course of the proceedings, the Council had made reference to a tenancy and to the payment of rent and had issued a rent book. Held: The acts during possession proceedings were not inconsistent with the council's assertions, and no tenancy had been created, only a licence.
1 Citers
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Regina v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea ex p Bayani (1990) 22 HLR 406
1990
Neill LJ
Housing
The court set out authoritative guidance as to the scope of a reviewing court's power to interfere on the ground of the insufficiency of inquiry by a local authority to whom a homelessness application had been made. Neill LJ: "(1) The duty to make inquiries is to make such inquiries as are necessary to satisfy the authority ... It follows therefore that as it is the authority which have to be satisfied the scope and scale of the inquiries is, primarily at least, a matter for them. But the introduction of the word 'necessary' indicates that there is a standard which those inquiries must observe. In other words, the inquiries must be those which are 'necessary' to enable the authority to make a decision. (2) If the court is to intervene by way of judicial review, it must be on the basis, as I see it, that the inquiries have not reached the required standard in the circumstances of the case . . . (3) In deciding how a reasonable authority would have acted and what inquiries they would have made in the circumstances, the court must have regard to the speech of Lord Brightman in R v Hillingdon LBC ex parte Puhlhofer [1986] AC 484 where he said at p.518: '... it is not, in my opinion, appropriate that the remedy of judicial review, which is a discretionary remedy, should be made use of to monitor the actions of local authorities under the Act save in the exceptional case ... Where the existence or non-existence of a fact is left to the judgment and discretion of a public body and that fact involves a broad spectrum ranging from the obvious to the debatable to the just conceivable, it is the duty of the court to leave the decision of that fact to the public body to whom Parliament has entrusted the decision-making power save in a case where it is obvious that the public body, consciously or unconsciously, are acting perversely' ...".
1 Cites
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Jackson v Pekic and O'Brien [1990] 22 HLR 9
1990
CA
Ralph Gibson LJ, Staughton LJ
Housing
The court looked to the meaning of “a resident landlord” in the section. The question was whether the landlord in that case was on the 14th August 1974 occupying as her residence another dwelling house which formed part of the same premises in which the dwelling to which the tenant had been granted a furnished tenancy was situated. Held: By reason of paragraph 5 of Schedule 2 of the 1977 Act and Section 2(3) of the Act and Section 3(2) of the Rent Act 1968, the phrase “occupying a dwelling house as his residence” had to be construed as fulfilling the same and only the same qualifications as had to be fulfilled under the earlier Rent Acts. Parliament was providing that in construing that phrase a court had to look at the earlier decisions on the meaning of “retaining dwelling house as his residence”. Ralph Gibson LJ "It is clear, in my judgment, from the passages cited that the concept of a tenant not losing the protection of the Rent Acts for his occupation of the dwelling house as his residence, although he is not himself in physical occupation, was designed to ensure protection notwithstanding those absences which are consistent with the tenant retaining and intending to retain the dwelling house as his residence and not, where for example the tenant’s absence is because he is merely making money by sub-letting .... It is also clear to my mind that the continuing intention to return to occupy the premises at some later date is not by itself sufficient to constitute occupation of the dwelling house as his residence if the tenant has left no sufficient physical sign of that intention. It may be that in some circumstances furniture will serve as such a visible sign, particularly if the tenant leaves also those personal possessions such as books, pictures and ornaments, which are capable of indicating that a tenant is still treating the premises as his home. There is no principle of law which says that the mere presence of furniture, consistent with an ordinary furnished letting at market rent could serve for that purpose."
Rent Act 1977 12
1 Citers
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Family Housing Association v Jones [1990] 1 WLR 779
1990
CA
Balcombe LJ, Farquarson LJ, Slade LJ
Landlord and Tenant, Housing
The association as licensee of a local authority granted what was described as a licence to the defendant to occupy premises on a temporary basis. Held: The court found that a licence granted to satisfy a housing duty was a tenancy.
Slade LJ rejected an argument that there existed special circumstances whereby the defendant, albeit in exclusive possession of the premises, was not a tenant.
1 Citers
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