{"id":6467,"date":"2014-01-14T12:38:14","date_gmt":"2014-01-14T11:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.propertysurveying.co.uk\/newsletter\/?page_id=6467"},"modified":"2016-02-02T13:09:45","modified_gmt":"2016-02-02T13:09:45","slug":"court-of-appeal-rules-against-city-council-in-defence-of-widows-right-to-be-considered-for-new-tenancy","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.propertysurveying.co.uk\/newsletter\/?page_id=6467","title":{"rendered":"Court of Appeal rules against City Council in defence of widow\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right to be considered for new tenancy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ref.<\/b> Leicester City<\/em> Council v Shearer<\/em><\/span><\/a>\u00c2\u00a0[2013] EWCA Civ 1467<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Mrs Shearer brought a public law defence to possession proceedings against Leicester City Council when, after her husband died, she succeeded the tenancy by statute. Unfortunately for her, the council operates a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcchoice based allocations scheme\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, under which applicants are placed in bands of housing need.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"RentedThat meant that the authority insisted that she and her children could not continue to live at the property and they were advised to seek alternative accommodation through the Housing Options Department. That Department asked for papers from Mrs Shearer to assess her re-housing suitability, but neglected to tell her that the very same information can be used to support a direct offer that would have let her stay on in the house.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mrs Shearer has fought the subsequent possession proceedings on the basis of unlawful conduct from the council and was successful in the County Court. After the authority escalated the decision to the Court of Appeal, they were nonetheless defeated again.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal fundamentally decided that misleading Mrs Shearer into thinking that the sole purpose of the requested documentation was to consider rehousing her away from the property, when it was actually needed to consider granting her a direct let of the property, was unlawful. They raised the following two fundamental points:\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n