News, events and consultations
Allocation Code of Guidance consultation
The DCLG are consulting on a new draft Code of Guidance to Local Authorities on Allocation Policies.
The consultation can be found here.
The closing date is 30 March 2012.
HLPA will be making a response. Any views from members are welcome.
Nearly Legal has a comment on the draft Code here.
The Housing Law Conference 2011
Registration is now open for the Housing Law Conference 2011 via the following link:
www.profbriefings.co.uk/hlc2011
Highlights of the conference include keynote addresses from the following speakers:
Sir Stephen Sedley, recently retired from the Court of Appeal where he sat from 1999-2011 and well known for the important role he has played in the development of human rights law in England and Wales, as well as his long practice in the areas of public law and judicial review.
Andrew Arden QC, head of Arden Chambers and author and editor of many essential housing law texts.
Jan Luba QC of Garden Court Chambers offering his perspective on the problems and challenges that housing lawyers will confront in 2012.
The conference will also include seminars on:
· Funding housing cases
· Housing and the Equality Act 2010
· Calculating and negotiating quantum in disrepair cases
· Unlawful eviction
· Homelesness reviews: Procedure and suitability challenges
Further information is given in the flyer and the full programme will be circulated shortly. Please forward details to any colleagues who may be interested in attending.
A new mandatory power of possession for Anti-Social Behaviour
The DCLG Consultation on ‘A new mandatory power of possession for Anti-Social Behaviour’, including the new proposals to remove the locality condition added immediately after the riots, closes on 7 November 2011.
David Watkinson is preparing HLPA’s response, He has produced a summary to assist members in their own submissions. The summary also contains requests for further information from members. The summary can be downloaded here.
Please send any responses to the requests for information included in the summary to David Watkinson, davidw@gclaw.co.uk by 4/11/2011 or latest 7/11/2011.
Yorkshire HLPA Meeting 9 November 2011
The Yorkshire Housing Law Practitioners Association has its next meeting on 9 November 2011
6.30 pm at:
BPP Law School Leeds
Whitehall 2, Whitehall Quays,
Leeds, LS1 4HR
Phillip Barber, Barrister
“Housing Benefit and Local Housing Allowance – where we are and where we’re going.”
Private Practice/Barristers/ILEX £5
NFP/Trainees – £2
Students – Free
The flyer can be downloaded here
Location details are here.
HLPA response to consultation on directions to the Social Housing Regulator
HLPA has responded to the DCLG consultation “Implementing social housing reform:directions to the Social Housing Regulator”
The consultation concerned the Social Housing Regulator, replacing the TSA, and the directions that should be given to Local Authorities and Social Housing providers, including guidance on the minimum length of the proposed new ‘flexible tenancies’.
HLPA’s response can be downloaded here.
HLPA response to Squatting Consultation
Open Letter on the Misrepresentation of Squatting
Many HLPA members signed the open letter on the misrepresentation of squatting circulated last week. HLPA as an organisation also signed, by the Executive Committee. Many non-HLPA members also signed.
In total there were 158 individual signatures and that of HLPA as an organisation, which shows a considerable strength of feeling on the issue.
The letter was sent to all major newspapers and news organisations on 26 September 2011.
The Guardian published both an edited version of the letter and an article on the issues raised in the paper edition of 26 September. The letter in full, with signature list, was published on the Guardian website here, and the article on the issues raised can be found here.
The article contains a response from the Housing Minster, Grants Shapps. The minster does not address the criticisms made in the letter, but is quoted as saying:
“The guidance I published earlier this year makes clear to homeowners where the law stands on squatters, however commonsense suggests there should be quick and tough sanctions available when someone’s home is squatted, without the homeowner necessarily needing to bring a civil case.
“That’s why we’re consulting on making squatting a criminal offence, to shut the door on so-called ‘squatters rights’ once and for all, and end the misery and expense that homeowners can endure.
This appears to amount to a repetition of the misleading statements complained of in the letter.
For response to the letter and article on other websites, see:
Squatting Consultation paper
As previously noted, the MOJ released a Consultation Paper entitled ‘Options for dealing with squatting’. The purpose of the consultation is to gather more information about the extent of problems caused by squatters, and to invite views on whether existing criminal and civil mechanisms need to be strengthened to deal with them.
We would really welcome input from HLPA members in relation to this. David Watkinson has prepared a summary of the proposals, with requests for further information. This can be downloaded here.
Summary and request for information
If there is an area of the consultation you feel particularly strongly about/have experience with but do not wish to provide a full response yourself, please forward these responses to David Watkinson at davidw@gclaw.co.uk, who is preparing a full response on behalf of HLPA. Please provide these responses by Friday 30th September 2011 so David has time to incorporate your ideas into the response.
The more responses to this paper the better. To make a response easier, HLPA junior have prepared a template which you can add to/amend which can be downloaded here:
Template response
Alternatively just insert your details and send to – squatting.consultation@justice.gsi.gov.uk.
For those of you, who are preparing your own response, please ensure that your responses are sent in by 5th October 2011 (no cut off time has been given by MoJ so to be on the safe side try and get responses in on 4th ).
Northern Housing Conference
North West Housing Practitioners present the Northern Housing Conference
25 October 2011
Mechanics Centre, 103 Princess Street, Major Street Entrance, Manchester, M1 6DD
Speakers include:
- Colin Henderson, CAB and iLegal
- Robert Latham, Doughty Street Chambers
- Mark Robinson, Shelter trainer
- James Stark, Garden Court North
- Anne Seex, LGO
For further details, programme and booking form, download the leaflet
New on the site
We’ve added a couple of new sections to the site, with useful downloads for housing advisors.
Available to all are the new Frequently Asked Questions, addressing some of the common but trickier questions faced by advisors; including eligibility for unemployed EEA citizens, Section 21 notice periods, exclusion from allocation schemes, and more. THe FAQs page is under resources on the menu above, or here.
For members, there are some precedent letters and documents for download and use; including homelessness judicial review pre-action letters, unlawful eviction particulars of claim, and others. Members will need to be logged in. The precedents page is under the members menu above, or here.
We aim to add to these sections in the future, but our grateful thanks to John Gallagher for his huge contribution.