8:39 AM, 24th January 2025, About 5 days ago 14
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Lambeth Council is facing a legal action after issuing eviction notices to hundreds of tenants living in properties rented on the private market.
A resident of the Central Hill estate in south London has filed a claim for Judicial Review against the council.
They argue that its decision to evict tenants from around 160 homes leased to a council-owned company, Homes for Lambeth Living Ltd, is unlawful.
The controversy stems from Lambeth’s estate regeneration programme which involved creating HfL Living, a private sector landlord, to rent council-owned properties at market rates.
However, the council has now decided to bring these properties ‘back in-house’ with vacant possession and is evicting all current tenants.
Public Interest Law Centre (PILC) solicitor, Alexandra Goldenberg, who represents the claimant, said: “Lambeth’s decision to rent these properties on the private market is unlawful and has created a devastating impact on hundreds of residents across the borough who have been evicted or are facing eviction.
“This is yet another chapter in a troubling history of estate ‘regeneration’ schemes that have disregarded the rights of residents and communities.”
She adds: “It is time for Lambeth to take responsibility and do the right thing, starting with an immediate halt to all evictions.”
The case argues that the council should not have been renting homes in the private rented sector under assured shorthold tenancies (ASTs).
The claimant says that Lambeth Council, not HfL Living Ltd, is their landlord.
PILC says that Lambeth Council claims it wants to use the homes for those with ‘the most urgent housing need’.
However, it points out that the council has failed to consider that this is precisely what HfL tenants will become if the council evicts them.
They contend that the council should not have used ASTs because local authorities are legally prohibited from doing so.
This arrangement, the claimant argues, has resulted in Lambeth Council granting tenancies that are legally invalid, leaving residents vulnerable to Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions.
The law firm also says that Lambeth insists that, as private renters, HfL tenants ‘will simply be able to move elsewhere, yet that assumption appears to be incorrect’.
One HfL tenant said: “None of us were told we were renting from the council, or that Lambeth saw it as a short-term solution.
“On the contrary, we asked and were assured we’d be able to stay here long-term.
“This decision seems hypocritical as it’s going directly against Labour’s promise to ban Section 21 evictions, and Lambeth is a Labour-led council.”
The council has until February 5 to respond to the claim.
A judge will then determine whether the case will proceed to a full hearing.
Lambeth’s eviction of tenants featured in a Commons debate on 14 January:
Cider Drinker
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Sign Up5:34 AM, 24th January 2025, About 5 days ago
Please tell me there’s a go fund me page. I’ll donate.
Tiger
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Sign Up8:28 AM, 24th January 2025, About 5 days ago
We will probably see a lot with labour council. It is about time councils need to work as operational staff. The decisions to be made by a committee made of people living in the borough both working and non working groups to decide on how to spend money in welfare, genuine people needing social accomodation, including once they get on their feet, they need to move and make room for other needy people. Social homes should not be for life. Some get good jobs, paying well but still wish to stay there and buy council flats. Council owned properties need never be sold, but maintained and always have them for people who are in dire requirements.
Reluctant Landlord
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Sign Up9:39 AM, 24th January 2025, About 5 days ago
The big question on which the JD is seemingly based is concerned over whether the tenants are renting from a private company or the council. Can the council legally set up a Ltd company and operate it as such when it would have been set up in the first place with taxpayers money?
The law though for the purposes of S21 is that the notice is issued correctly from the landlord. The landlord does not need to be a Ltd company. If there was an AST between T and the Ltd company (ownership irrelevant for this purpose) then the S21 is valid.
A case to watch. if the JD states that housing companies cannot be set up by Councils then this will have implications - there are many councils that do this (ironically most badly run and cost ineffective anyway).
NewYorkie
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Sign Up10:54 AM, 24th January 2025, About 5 days ago
I have some director-level knowledge of the inner workings of Lambeth's housing department, and it's a mess, like many other councils. But it's not the operational management who make these decisions.
I suspect the reason these homes were not passed to a housing association was they could get much higher inner London market rents from tenants in the PRS; greed. The properties are not owned by a private landlord. The Ltd company is an artifical construct; a mask. Tenants weren't told they were living in council housing, and councils cannot serve a S21. This is the basis for the claim.
GlanACC
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Sign Up10:55 AM, 24th January 2025, About 5 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Cider Drinker at 24/01/2025 - 05:34
Cider, won't be a gofund page, the tenants will get legal aid and the council will end up spending an absolute fortune in court costs. hoho
Tim Rogers
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Sign Up11:41 AM, 24th January 2025, About 4 days ago
I can't help but wonder.
If the council set up a Ltd company, did the company act as management agents or owners? If as management agents then the tenants were still paying the council weren't they? If as owners, then did the council pay the CGT on the transfer of the properties? If the properties revert to council ownership then will the Company pay any CGT on the return transfer?
I'm getting old and cynical, but it does seem there is one rule for national and local government and another for the PRS.
NewYorkie
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Sign Up12:19 PM, 24th January 2025, About 4 days ago
Reply to the comment left by Tim Rogers at 24/01/2025 - 11:41
Lambeth has got itself into a right pickle, deservedly so.
ellis freeman
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Sign Up12:32 PM, 24th January 2025, About 4 days ago
On a slightly different subject, is the fact that EPC ratings only effect the prs sector when it comes to being able to rent a property with the required EPC rating, when a council property can be rented without this requirement,is this not discrimination and can it not be challenged
Gromit
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Sign Up13:51 PM, 24th January 2025, About 4 days ago
Reply to the comment left by NewYorkie at 24/01/2025 - 12:19
.... and the taxpayers will end up footing the bill. No individual will be held accountable as usual.
Gromit
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Sign Up13:55 PM, 24th January 2025, About 4 days ago
Reply to the comment left by ellis freeman at 24/01/2025 - 12:32
.... It is discrimination (just as Sec. 24 is). It is not being done for the benefit of tenants otherwise it would include the SRS which houses the poorest tenants would benefit the most.