x
By using this website, you agree to our use of cookies to enhance your experience.

TODAY'S OTHER NEWS

Council spends £95k taking landlord to Supreme Court and loses

Nottingham City Council has been slammed for wasting taxpayers’ money after spending £95,000 taking a landlord to the Supreme Court and losing

The council challenged a landlord in court over the size of two student bedrooms, but lost the case. However, rather than accept the verdict, Nottingham City Council decided to mount an appeal against the ruling.

A judge once again sided with the landlord when the case was heard at an upper tribunal, and yet the local authority continued to challenge the verdict, taking the case to both the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, where they also lost.

Advertisement

The council spent a total of £95,742 taking the case to different courts between November 2014 and October 2018, including £86,990 for legal costs, £1,405 on travel, and £7,347 on council staff, according to a Freedom of Information Request.

Speaking to the press, Giles Inman, business development manager for East Midlands Property Owners, one of the largest landlord associations in Nottingham, said: “In these times of austerity we are told the council does not have any money for this or that but they do for a nonsense case.

“If you go to a tribunal and you lose, okay, you appeal again at an upper tribunal but then you would give up.

“But they went to the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court and lost. It is just shocking.

“It is public money. When you look at the costs it is astonishing. We fell off our chairs when we saw how much. I have never come across something like this before.”

The council challenged landlord Dominic Parr over two HMO’s in Rothesay Avenue and Bute Avenue in Lenton, occupied by student renters.

The council was unhappy with the fact that the attics in both properties had been converted into bedrooms, which does not meet the minimum space provision of 8sqm.

But the court ruled that the two rooms were adequate for use as bedrooms.

Cllr Linda Woodings, portfolio holder for housing and planning at Nottingham City Council, said: “We believe as a matter of principle and fairness that there should be a minimum acceptable bedroom size that applies to everyone.

“We were therefore disappointed with the Supreme Court ruling because in effect, it means one group of people are being forced to accept a lower standard of accommodation than others.

“There is a real concern that this could be the thin end of the wedge and that the same interpretation could be applied to other minimum standards for HMOs such as the number and size of bathroom or kitchen facilities.

“The Supreme Court ruling is based on the law as it stands but the Government supported the council’s appeal so we hope it will seriously consider revising the existing legislation to end this unfair anomaly.

“We felt strongly that there was a significant issue of unfairness at stake, which meant that tenants living in shared accommodation were at risk of suffering poorer quality housing than someone living in exactly the same house but on a separate tenancy.

“We aim to achieve quality housing for all, not just some, which is why we were prepared to take this case through the courts and had support from Government on our position, so it’s disappointing the Supreme Court ruled as it did.”

Want to comment on this story? If so...if any post is considered to victimise, harass, degrade or intimidate an individual or group of individuals on any basis, then the post may be deleted and the individual immediately banned from posting in future.

  • James B

    What a disgrace the council should be ashamed but clearly they are not

  • icon

    Agree with above. Right when there wrong.

  • Amanda Elliott

    Council are taking me to court!! They should be ashamed Iv worked for35 years closely with them , my costs are massive for the council to mess me around and now they send me more homeless Teanats who I would normally help !! I’m a loss at this total waste of thousands of tax payers money !! A simple chat with me asking me to do things the way they liked would of been fine !! Court crazy I could go to prison for a lick change

  • icon

    Personally i would not work with councils and i most certainly would not take their homeless in, council's problem not mine, i stick to decent tenants that work for a living.

  • icon

    "....because in effect, it means one group of people are being forced to accept a lower standard of accommodation than others."
    What tosh. The tenant/s had the ability to say no to the room/s so they were not FORCED to accept the standard on offer at all. It was through choice not coercion.
    I have said it before and I say it yet once again - exaggeration for the sake of emphasis.
    Shame on the Council.

  • icon

    Paid for my their empty house council tax scam all these rotten parasites of councils operate

  • icon

    This is how stupid councils are.
    If you have a single person living in a property they apply a 25% reduction in council tax as less of council and public services are being used by that single person. If you have Nobody living in a property because say its being refurbished due to last tenant trashing it, so nobody using council and public services you get No discount! Work that one out but don't ask the council because they will spend council tax money giving a reply that confirms they are a bunch of money grabbing brainless idiots. Also the biggest landlords in UK caused the largest number of fatilities in one building and not one council worker has been prosecuted.

    icon

    Great post their squeezing of landlords is and will bite them back through homelessness and temp accommodation. So they try to extort money out of hard working landlords and it costs them more in the long run housing the vunerable in b&b and travel lodges u really couldn’t make it up. Here’s an idea stop milking us with ur rotten licensing schemes and empty house council tax and work with us and u just may solve the quite evident homelessness problem and housing crisis.

     
  • icon

    I helped councils with taking "on benefit tenants"
    NO more,let them house them,councils are useless idiots.who ,by the way,pay themselves,very well.!

  • icon

    What a ridiculous waste of time and money.

    icon

    our money

     
  • icon

    Public sector officials and "representatives" should have to risk their OWN money and positions - like the hapless landlords - when they persecute the public they're supposed to serve. Only then will we have a level playing field. HMRC are also very guilty of this.

    If the council think tenants are"forced" to live in "sub standard" conditions they should build more homes. I've never seen a cardboard box that gives 8 square metres of floor space.

  • icon

    Typical council losing sight of sense and reality. Convictions and rules over pragmatism.
    "People being forced" to accept lower standards....I can see the landlords there, stealing money from the tenant with a gun to there head.....forcing them to take the room!!

  • icon

    What is this 8 square metres they are referring to. I am licensing a HMO and it states single occupancy 6.51 square metres and double occupancy 10.22 square metres. Am I missing something?

    icon

    Yes,i am confused too,please someone explain,

     
  • icon

    One of my extenant became homeless believing his family would get accommodated in a house according to the size of the family. They (5 members) were bundled into a small sized room emergency accommodation? Where did 8sqm standard fit in there?

  • icon

    One of my tenants said yesterday that they were looking to move as I had increased the rent to cover the cost of landlord licensing in Nottingham. Her plan is to go into a council house. Which one I don’t know even some tenants are as thick as the council. I told her that should a council house come available she could leave without penalty (new ast signed) expect to see her to sign new ast again next year lol

  • icon

    To show nottingham councils mentality I parked my car in a disabled bay my disabled badge was 4 days out of date the reason it was out of date was it took the council 10 weeks to process my renewal which i had applied for a month prior to expiry plenty of time to renew
    BUT that isn't the real point when i submitted my appeal they initially sent their rejection. to my address but when i replied straight away saying i wanted to take the matter to the independent adjudicator they stopped sending any communications to me and sent all letters to accountants (YES you did read that) the accountancy firm very kindly sent the post to me as i was the only person in the city with my surname , by the time i got the letter the council said it was out of time to lodge an appeal despite numerous letters sent by both post and email repeating my postal and email addresses they continued to refuse to communicate with me at my address and sent all letters to this firm of accountants , the accountants were very good about it but obviously acting as a mail forwarding service for myself was not a priority , I then informed this council the accountants were shutting down as a result of coronavirus, as far as i know they are still sending mail to them
    HOWEVER we now get to the meat of the matter (no insult to vegans intended) as i understand it 70% of appeals to the independent adjudicator are lost by councils If Nottingham council are prepared to go to such extraordinary lengths to deny me access to a fair hearing over a £35 parking fine which has already cost them at least a couple of hundred pounds in staff time it is hardly surprising they are prepared to spend tens of thousands of other peoples money on persecuting landlords and their families ,unfortunately as always these people are totally unaccountable

    icon

    Morons driving office desks in town (and city) halls they are all the same, especially the loony left ones like Norwich city council

     
icon

Please login to comment

MovePal MovePal MovePal
sign up