Housing law is also hard law because of the effect that housing cases can have on people. At worst, they may result in homelessness for tenants or severe economic problems for landlords. At best, they may result in the provision of good quality accommodation for tenants or the realisation of substantial economic assets for landlords. The conflict of interest between landlord and tenant is frequently great, with cases bitterly fought. There may be an equally stark conflict of interest between often destitute homeless people and local authorities, which frequently do not have the financial resources or organisation to comply with their statutory obligations. The complexity of the law and the benefits which can be lost or won have resulted in a plethora of cases before the courts. Some of these are reported in a range of different law reports. Others are not formally reported. The result is that a knowledge of housing case-law is particularly important in understanding the legal rights of tenants and landlords, homeless people and local authorities, but often difficult to achieve.

The aim of the Housing Law Casebook, like all the other housing books in LAG’s law and practice series, is to make housing law easier and more accessible – for those who are advising about housing problems, for those who are representing clients in court and for those who are studying the subject. We hope that experienced housing law practitioners, with easy access to law reports, will find this book useful in helping to track down and read quickly cases which they know about, but the details of which they have forgotten. Similarly, we hope that it will be useful to less experienced advisers who do not have ready access to law libraries and who need short summaries of cases to help them understand particular areas of housing law. It should not, however, be treated as a replacement for the law reports; advisers should not attend court without a proper copy of the relevant law report.

Our original aim was for this book to contain all the cases that housing practitioners will ever need. That is no longer possible. Housing law has become too big for us to cover everything. Unfortunately, this means that anything relating to enfranchisement (right to buy, leasehold and collective enfranchisement), management disputes (right to manage and to appoint a manager), enforcement under the Housing Act 2004 (HMOs), criminal sanctions for unlawful eviction, Rent Act 1977 rent registration and other leasehold rights under Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 (lease variations and right of first refusal) are no longer covered in this book. By doing this we hope that the other areas of law are comprehensively covered and every case, that remains relevant, is included. Increasingly, though, we have had to edit out case summaries which appeared in previous editions. We have tried to sign-post these with cross-references, but the message is ‘keep your old copies of Housing Law Casebook – they may come in useful.’

As with previous versions, the seventh edition of the Housing Law Casebook is organised by subject, with subdivisions within each area of housing law. The chapters have been reordered and re-structured since the last edition so that, we hope, it is now easier to find relevant cases. Within the divisions, cases are listed alphabetically, but with those from the higher courts, which carry greater weight, appearing first. Many cases, such as those decided in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and High Court are included because they are precedents in the strict legal sense, cases which the lower courts are bound to follow. As more housing law takes place in the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) this is increasingly the case for cases from the Upper Tribunal as well. As with all previous editions, there are extensive reports from the county court on issues of damages for disrepair and unlawful eviction. Occasionally, Scottish or Northern Irish cases and other county court decisions, are included because, while they are not binding, they are good examples of points that have been run that have failed or succeeded.

Many of the cases decided over the last 32 years have been noted in ‘Recent developments in housing law’ which Jan Luba QC and Nic Madge write monthly for Legal Action. Indeed, it was Nic and Jan’s original intention that they should write this book together, but the demands of Jan’s busy and successful practice at the Bar (before his appointment at the circuit bench) have prevented this. We have drawn heavily on Jan’s input into ‘Recent developments in housing law’ and the debt which we owe him in writing this book is immense. Similarly, much of Claire Sephton’s contribution to the fourth and fifth editions remains in this book. Likewise, we are very grateful to Beatrice Prevatt, Marina Sergides and Derek McConnell, whose ‘Housing repairs update’ and ‘Owner-occupiers law review’ in Legal Action have also been relied on.

We are very grateful to all the staff at LAG who over many years have worked on different parts of the text. We owe special thanks to Lesley Exton at Regent Typesetting, who worked on the first five editions of the Housing Law Casebook and to Val Williams, who for eighteen years, edited Legal Action and oversaw ‘Recent developments in housing law’.

The law in this book is up to date to 8 February 2017.