housing law practitioners association

The period for a 10% discount for renewing membership for 2012 has been extended to 29 February 2012. New members or those who are returning to HLPA and were not members in 2011 receive a further 10% discount, 20% overall, if joining before 29 February 2012.

The members password for the website will be changing at the end of February and the new password will be emailed to 2012 members shortly beforehand.

In what is going to be a challenging year, HLPA is working hard to provide members with information, support and training, and also to make HLPA’s voice heard in policy and funding decisions. We hope you can join us.

It is time for HLPA memberships to be renewed for 2012.

We have a full programme of meetings for the year with expert speakers, details of which will be put up shortly. The next meeting is on 18 January 2012, examining the new provisions of the Localism Act.

HLPA will also be running a series of seminars for training in specifics of practice.

In addition, for those who could not make it to the 2011 conference, the speakers papers from the workshop session will soon be available on the members area of this site for a few months. The members’ password for this site will be changing at the end of January 2012 and members will be sent the new details

And of course, members get the reduced rate for the forthcoming 2012 Housing Law conference.

Those renewing their membership before 31 January will get a 10% discount on the usual membership rates.

New members and those returning to HLPA after more than a year will get a further 10% discount for applications submitted before 31 January 2010, making a 20% discount on the usual rates.

To apply for membership or to complete the forms for renewal, go to the Join HLPA page.

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:

Nearly Legal

Landlord Law

UK Human Rights Blog

Jon Dickins

Dale & Co

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.

The Community Legal Service (Funding) (Amendment No. 2) Order 2011 has been made, implementing the 10% fee cuts from 3 October 2011. A copy of the Order with the revised fee schedules can be downloaded here [pdf].

The Order affects new Legal Helps and certificates from 3 October 2011. Existing matters remain on the old fee rates.

The draft Order contained a proposal to limit surveyor/EHO expert fees to £225 for a report. This would have made it impossible to run disrepair claims or counterclaims on legal aid. After vigorous lobbying, not least by HLPA, this has been removed. Instead surveyor/EHO fees are limited to £50 per hour, with no set fee for a report.

The Equalities and Human Rights Commission has just issued guidance on human rights for social housing providers. The guidance can be found here [link to PDF].

HLPA played a part in the drafting of this guidance.

The Commons Select Committee on Justice has released its Third Report, dealing with the proposed legal aid reforms.

The report can be read here.

The Committee has a number of significant concerns, including over the reductions in scope, and raises alternative cost savings and the need for adequate research into cost drivers.

The Government’s response to the consultation on reforms to civil litigation and costs (the Jackson reforms) has now been released.

The full response can be downloaded here [pdf] and the associated impact assessment is here [pdf]

The press release is here.

In short, the Government intends to go ahead with its original proposals. From the perspective of HLPA members, some things are not at all clear.

While a 10% uplift in general damages is envisaged, in part to replace the success fees payable by the Defendant, this is referred to at some points as being solely damages in tort (personal injury), which would not apply to disrepair, which is contractual. However, at other times, the reference is to general damages or non-monetary losses per se. Whether the 10% uplift in damages will apply to disrepair will have to be clarified in the forthcoming legislation. However, disrepair CFA success fees will not be recoverable from the Defendant. Given the level of disrepair damages, this makes success fees difficult in such cases, even though, unlike Personal Injury, the success fees are only capped to 100% of costs. The same applies to the proposals to make contingency fee agreements lawful.

ATE insurance premiums will not be recoverable from the Defendant. There was an emerging market in disrepair ATE insurance, that protection for the claimant client will not be available under the proposals unless paid for by the client.

Further, qualified one way costs shifting, where the Claimant is largely not liable for Defendant’s costs is not initially to be introduced for non PI/Clinical negligence matters, so not for disrepair or indeed judicial review. So there will still be liability for the Defendant’s costs on a failed or lost claim.

There is a change to Part 36 rules proposed, making Defendants liable for a further 10% of the value of a claim in damages if they failed to accept a reasonable offer by the Claimant, even if the Claimant did not beat that offer at trial. There may be a further or different sanction for non-monetary claims.

In view of the Government’s intention to take many disrepair claims out of legal aid scope, these proposals make difficult reading for those looking to fund claims for clients on low incomes in other ways.

It has been announced that the Public Sector Equality Duty provisions of the Equality Act 2010 are to come into force on 6 April 2011.

The Government Equalities Office page has the following available for download:

• *Draft regulations on the specific duties;
• *Draft order amending Schedule 19, listing the public bodies to which the duty applies;
• *A ‘Quick Start’ guide for Public Sector Organisations;
• *Equalities and Human Rights Commission Guidance.

There will be a discussion of HLPA’s response to the proposed legal aid reforms at the meeting of 19 January 2011. Members are asked to bring a copy of the questionnaire to the consultation with them to the meeting. The consultation questionnaire can be downloaded here [doc]