The claimant had obtained an order for possession against the defendant for her repeated anti-social behaviour. The court granted in addition to the possession order an injunction restraining the defendant from coming near the premises for a further five years.
Held: The jurisdiction to make such an injunction lasted only as long as did the contract underlying it. Once possession was taken, the contract came to an end, and so did the jurisdiction for an injunction. The order had been wrongly made and was discharged. Kaly LJ: ‘Parliament has itself recognised the problems that this situation can cause and has made provision in some circumstances to deal with the problems that arise. Section 152(1) of the Housing Act 1996 permits the grant of an injunction to prohibit antisocial behaviour but only to a local authority, and such an application therefore could not be made by the respondent. Parliament has not seen fit to give any wider statutory power than that which is contained in section 152(1), which would enable the housing authority to take action in circumstances such as this. That is why they have had to seek to rely on the common law and simply to seek an injunction as part of their contractual rights. Those rights extend up to the termination of the contract but no further than that.’
Judges:
Kaly LJ
Citations:
[2002] EWCA Civ 2001, [2003] HLR 37, [2003] 1 All ER 1084
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Moat Housing Group-South Ltd v Harris and Another CA 16-Mar-2005
The defendant family was served without notice with an anti-social behaviour order ordering them to leave their home immediately, and making other very substantial restrictions. The evidence in large part related to other people entirely.
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Housing, Litigation Practice
Updated: 13 October 2022; Ref: scu.189013