High Court To Hear Crowdfunded Challenge To 'Begging Fines'

A landmark high court case will determine whether fines for begging, loitering and leaving bedding in doorways unfairly targets homeless people, after a fundraising campaign for legal costs reached its target. Lawyers for Sarah Ward, who lives in Poole, will outline their challenge on Monday to a public space protection order (PSPO) in the town centre which prohibits obstructing doorways, sitting with a receptacle “for the purpose of begging” and other behaviour associated with homelessness. People found to have violated the order are liable to a £100 spot fine, which can rise to £1,000 if left unpaid, and receive a summary conviction. Read more on the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/04/high-court-to-hear-crowdfunded-challenge-to-begging-fines

Landlords To Have Say In Right To Rent Case

Landlords will have a major role to play in a court case considering the future of the government’s Right to Rent scheme. The government has decided to appeal against a damning criticism by the High Court earlier this year that the Right to Rent breaches human rights law because it causes racial discrimination that otherwise would not happen. Following a Judicial Review of the policy secured by the JCWI and supported by the RLA, the presiding judge concluded that discrimination by landlords was taking place “because of the scheme.” In his judgment he said that discrimination by landlords was “logical and wholly predictable” when faced with potential sanctions and penalties for getting things wrong. Read more on the RLA website.

https://news.rla.org.uk/landlords-to-have-say-in-right-to-rent-case/

High Court Rules Right To Rent Breaches Human Rights

The High Court has ruled that the government’s Right To Rent scheme breaches human rights law in a damning verdict on government immigration policy. Mr Justice Martin Spencer ruled that the scheme breached the European Convention on Human Rights on the basis that it led to discrimination against non-UK nationals with the right to rent and British ethnic minorities. Referring extensively to argument and evidence provided by the RLA, Justice Spencer concluded that discrimination by landlords was taking place “because of the Scheme”. He went on to conclude that “the government’s own evaluation failed to consider discrimination on grounds of nationality at all – only on grounds of ethnicity”. Read more on 24housing.

https://www.24housing.co.uk/news/breaking-high-court-rules-right-to-rent-scheme-breaches-human-rights-law/

Attitudes Harden On Right To Rent

As the High Court hears a Judicial Review of the government’s Right to Rent scheme, new stats show 44% of private landlords are less likely to rent to those without a British passport. Revealed in research released by the RLA, the percentage is up from 42% last year and comes as the High Court today begins a Judicial Review of the government’s flagship Right to Rent scheme. The RLA wants Right to Rent policy to be scrapped altogether, arguing it discriminates against those unable to easily prove their identity and foreign-born nationals who have documents unfamiliar to landlords. Read more on the RLA website.

https://news.rla.org.uk/attitudes-harden-on-right-to-rent/ 

High Court Overturns Housing Legal Aid Changes

The High Court has overturned controversial planned changes to legal aid for housing support. In a judgement published on Friday, the judge, Mrs Justice Andrews, found in favour of the challenge to the Ministry of Justice’s (MOJ) decision to make changes to the way housing advice is procured. These controversial changes would have consolidated and reduced housing legal aid schemes, and introduced price competition. The MOJ will now reconsider the remitted proposal. The proposed changes relate to the Housing Possession Court Duty Scheme (HPCDS), local schemes which provide immediate legal advice to people at risk of losing their home. Read more on Inside Housing.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ze8zQ6a0wrAJ:https://www.insidehousing.co.uk/home/home/high-court-overturns-housing-legal-aid-changes-56933+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&safe=vss

High Court Agrees To Review Of Right To Rent Policy

The High Court has given permission for a legal review to be launched into the Government’s Right to Rent policy. The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) has been granted permission by the High Court to proceed with their legal challenge against the policy, which the RLA supports. Right to Rent is a flagship part of the ‘hostile environment’ strategy for illegal immigrants introduced by the Prime Minister whilst she was at the Home Office. Read more on the RLA website.

https://news.rla.org.uk/right-to-rent-judicial-review-bid-heard-in-high-court/

Government Appeals Against High Court Benefit Cap Ruling

The Government has launched an appeal against a ruling that its controversial benefits cap unlawfully discriminates against lone parents with children under two. The cap, which came into force last year, limits the total amount of benefits a household can receive to £23,000 a year in London and £20,000 elsewhere. But in June, a High Court Judge said the benefit cap was disproportionately affecting lone parents, and causing “real misery to no good purpose". Read more on the Independent website.

Benefit Cap On Lone Parents Of Under-Twos Is Unlawful

The government’s policy of imposing the benefit cap on tens of thousands of lone parents with children under the age of two is unlawful, discriminatory and has resulted in “real damage” to the families affected, the high court has ruled. The benefit cap, which limits the total amount households can receive in benefits to £20,000 a year, or £23,000 in Greater London, was envisaged as an “incentive” to persuade unemployed people to move into work. However, Mr Justice Collins said in his judgment that the policy visited “real misery to no good purpose” on lone parents with very young children who were subject to the cap despite there being no official requirement for them to find work. Read more on the Guardian website.

High Court Test Case Will Determine Future Of Rural Housing Development

A judicial review of a Suffolk district council’s planning decision in the High Court will be a test case with potentially far-reaching implications for rural housing developments in England. The case, which is being brought by East Bergholt Parish Council, concerns the building of 10 homes in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty best known for inspiring the works of John Constable. A separate decision on the same day by the same district council to allow 144 homes to be built on another site in East Bergholt is now being reconsidered and could depend on the outcome of this test case. Overall, the development of more than 415 houses in rural parts of Suffolk depend on the outcome of this case. Read more on Housing Excellence.

Landmark Ruling To Hit Council Waiting List Rules

Councils could have to overhaul residency requirements for social housing or risk a High Court challenge, following a landmark legal judgement. The judgement, handed down by the High Court, could confound some local authorities’ attempts to control their housing waiting list after the government relaxed allocation rules in 2011. Ealing Council in 2013 introduced a policy stopping people from joining its housing register unless they have lived in the borough for at least five years. The court found the policy breached the 1996 Housing Act, which requires councils to give ‘reasonable preference’ to homeless people. Lawyers now believe that the ruling sets a legal precedent for other English local authorities. Read more on Inside Housing.

Government Policy on Affordable Housing Exemption Thresholds Quashed

Two Berkshire councils have won a landmark High Court challenge over government policy brought in last November which set a threshold on the size of developments beneath which planning authorities should not seek affordable housing contributions through section 106 agreements. That has now been quashed as has the vacant building credit policy. Under those provisions affordable housing requirements were reduced according to the extent to which a housing proposal involved the re-use or redevelopment of vacant buildings. As a result of the ruling by Mr Justice Holgate some 12 paragraphs have been removed from the National Planning Policy Guidance. Read more on the Planning Portal website.

High Court Stops Council from Blocking Access to Social Housing for the Homeless

A family lost their privately rented home in Westminster because the benefit cap meant they could no longer afford their rent. Westminster Council agreed it had to accommodate them. But first it placed them in Enfield and then it applied a new rule blocking them from bidding for social housing in Westminster for 12 months. This happened despite the law requiring that homeless people are to be given a “reasonable preference” in the allocation of social housing in the area to which they apply. Westminster’s thinking was that it would use the 12 months to find homes for homeless applicants in the private rented sector – in order to bring its own duties to an end. The High Court has decided that Westminster’s new rule unlawfully blocked homeless people by denying them the preference the law requires them to have. The judge declared the new provisions (brought into Westminster’s Housing Allocation Scheme last year) to be unlawful. Read more on the Garden Court Chambers website.

Disabled Couple Wins Watershed Case on Housing Payments

Councils may have to review their emergency housing payment policies after a High Court ruled that routinely considering disability benefit when calculating discretionary housing payments is unlawful. The High Court has quashed Sandwell Council’s decision to lower its discretionary housing payment (DHP) award to a bedroom-tax hit couple because they received disability living allowance (DLA). In September 2013, the council granted a lower DHP award to a disabled couple because it calculated their DLA as part of their income when they applied for help to cover the bedroom tax. The couple, who live in a three bedroomed specially adapted property, took a judicial review against the local authority in October 2013, arguing that its decision was discriminatory. Read more on Inside Housing.

Council Faces High Court Challenge over Crisis Payment Conditions

The High Court has given the go-ahead to a legal challenge that could prevent councils forcing people to join a work programme or move home as conditions of receiving housing crisis payment awards. Anti-poverty charity Zacchaeus 2000 Trust has been given permission to pursue a judicial review against Westminster Council for making receipt of discretionary housing payments (DHP) conditional on seeking work and searching for more affordable properties. Zacchaeus 2000 Trust says Westminster Council’s policy on deciding DHP claims for tenants affected by the £26,000-a-year total household benefit cap is unlawful. Read more on Inside Housing.

Tribunal Ruling Blow to Bedroom Tax Tenants

The vast majority of appeals against the bedroom tax on discrimination grounds are now likely to fail following a landmark tribunal ruling. An upper tier tribunal – which is binding on other British courts – ruled last month that all first-tier tribunals must follow a High Court ruling in favour of the bedroom tax, which means more than 100 current claims against the policy are unlikely to succeed.

The tribunal ruled in favour of the government’s policy against a disabled Inverclyde housing association tenant and concluded that all courts must follow a High Court ruling that the bedroom tax was not a breach of the European Convention of Human Rights because, although it was discriminatory against disabled people, it was justified because it was government policy. Read more on Inside Housing.

Hope for Homeless Families In Need Of Legal Aid

In response to a challenge brought by legal charity the Public Law Partnership, the High Court has ruled that Government changes, which would have left homeless families without help, have been ruled ‘unauthorised, discriminatory and impossible to justify’. Regulations introducing a residence test for civil Legal Aid were aimed at preventing those who could not prove that they had been lawfully resident in the UK from receiving Legal Aid.  The test would withhold Legal Aid from recent, lawful migrants and irregular migrants.  It would also catch British nationals, including children, born and living abroad, along with people unable to prove past residence, including women fleeing domestic violence, victims of trafficking and families with pre-school age children. Read more on the Shelter website.

Bedroom Tax Inflicted On Disabled Child

The disabled grandparents of a child who cannot walk, talk or feed himself vowed to fight on after a High Court ruling said they would have to pay the bedroom tax - as he isn't old enough to be exempted.  Rejecting the family's application for a judicial review, Mr Justice Stuart-Smith said a discretionary government housing grant would make up the difference until April 2015 and that, assuming the scheme remained, there was no evidence to suggest the council would refuse to make up the shortfall in future. He said the family were not financially disadvantaged by the intended and actual operation of the scheme and that none of the detriments which had been suggested would have an "unreasonable discriminatory effect." Read more on the Morning Star website.

Mothers In 'Benefits Cap' Challenge

Three single mothers and their children are challenging the legality of the Government's flagship "benefit cap" policy in the Court of Appeal. Two High Court judges, who ruled in favour of the Government, conceded that the mothers were "particularly hard cases". But they decided new capping regulations did not breach human rights laws and were not disproportionate. the mothers are asking three appeal judges to overturn the High Court ruling. Lawyers acting for the mothers and one child from each family, all from the London area, say the "cruel and arbitrary" cap is "reminiscent of the days of the workhouse", and the women fear it will leave them destitute. Read more on the Evening Standard website.

Disabled Campaigners Take Fight against Bedroom Tax to Court Of Appeal

Disabled people are taking their legal fight against the Government's hated bedroom tax to the Court of Appeal. A three day hearing is expected, where judges will consider several test cases said to illustrate the "devastating" impact of the regulations in social housing up and down the country. The appeal, brought by two law firms, is against a High Court decision in July last year that upheld the legality of new housing benefit rules .The appeal judges will be asked to rule that disabled people should be entitled to full housing benefit "for the accommodation they actually need". Read more on the Daily Mirror website.

Council Wins Challenge over ALMO Assessments

A council which contracted out its homelessness decision making to an ALMO acted lawfully, a court has ruled. Welwyn Hatfield Council faced appeals from three residents who were denied priority need after being assessed by the ALMO. Under the council’s constitution, ‘discretionary decision making’ powers cannot be contracted out, and the appellants had argued it was therefore unlawful to put the ALMO in charge of homelessness assessments. But Justice Robert Jay, sitting in the High Court, dismissed the challenge after finding that decisions on who is owed a homelessness duty are a ‘tightly controlled statutory scheme’, not discretionary. Read more on Inside Housing.