[Ben Reeve Lewis is missing the missus…)
So the missus, Frazzy, is off on a second travel agent jolly.
A month ago it was Abu Dhabi, dune surfing in 4X4s and generally larging it in swanky restaurants, all paid for by their hosts.
This week its Mexico.
Test driving 5 star resorts for her banker clients without having to spend a penny. War is hell.
Meanwhile my own career path has this week seen me dealing with scammers, sex trafficked homeless children and desperate people facing eviction for minor mortgage arrears.
A jolly for me is someone buying me a pint at the end of a long day!
Taramasalata
On the bright side, as the sole house cook I get to have my favourites that she can’t stand. So its been a week of clams, squid and home made Taramasalata:
250g smoked cod roe
Half an onion grated
Olive oil,
Stale bread for body
Lemon juice.
You’ll never go back to the cheap pink gloop again
Interesting news week on the housing law front though.
More deposit cases
The ever vigilant but occasionally unreliable (Joke for Giles) Nearly Legal reported an interesting Superstrike based decision where the recalcitrant landlord Mr Pigeon got done twice for failing to protect the same deposit.
Once for not protecting it at the start and again for not protecting it when the fixed term became a periodic. Return of deposit of £425 and the three times penalty of £1,275 awarded twice.
A cautionary tale if ever there was one.
And on the topic of deposits and Nearly Legal again, there has been a contradictory development on the legal view of when a deposit is considered returned.
In the case of Ahmed v Shah (2015) the issuing of a cheque for the returned deposit that wasn’t accepted by the tenant was deemed to have not been returned but in the later case of Yeomans v Newell (2016) the cheque satisfied the court that the deposit had been returned.
Both county court cases so not binding but an indicator of the differences of opinion going on in the county court depending on:-
- The case being before the judge at 12:50pm, eating into their lunch time.
- The case being before the judge at 15:50, eating into time on the golf course.
- Their medications having worn off.
- The fact that they have just had a massive row with their partner.
- The fact that the either of the parties have chosen to walk into court on a hot day without their jacket on, without being told it was ok by the judge first (Guilty as charged)
- The fact that the judge is a family law specialist instead of a housing law one and is mightily pissed off at running the risk of looking clueless.
None of the above are jokes by the way.
Any solicitor, barrister or lay advocate will be able to tick the boxes and add some of their own…..in fact please feel free to do so in the comments.
A case on surrender
While I’m on a strictly legal tip this week I was genuinely intrigued to read this piece in the Solicitors Journal. Scroll down to the bottom and look an interesting case about the surrender of tenancies.
The case of Padwick Properties ltd v. Punj Lloyd Ltd (2016) concerns the often vexed issue of whether or not a tenant has surrendered their tenancy [also reported here on the blog – Ed].
Short legal lesson. For a genuine implied surrender to be in force there must be two things going on, an unequivocal act of surrender and an unequivocal act of acceptance of that surrender. So dumping the keys through the landlord’s letterbox only satisfies test number one and for implied surrender to kick in there must be two components.
Now, in the case in question the lessees argued to the court that the fact that the landlords had secured the property and marketed it with vacant possession was proof that the landlords had exhibited an unequivocal act of acceptance of surrender and proved that the lease and all its subsequent liabilities had ended.
However the courts disagreed, saying that that Padwick had not behaved in such an unequivocal manner, so the tenancy and all its liabilities were still extant.
Oops.
Another example of how nit picky the law is on detail and a classic example of what I have been saying to landlords for 26 years, that loan to value ratios and profit/loss matrices promoted by investment specialist is all well and good until you encounter a problem, at which point your exciting investment opportunity becomes a hugely expensive and nightmare legal issue for those blundering forward with their fingers crossed, a copy of the ‘Little book of calm’ in their back pocket and a post it note stuck on their computer screen reading “Its not a problem, its an opportunity”.
Louise Hay, Deepak Chopra or M Scott Peck cannot help you when you cross this line.
You cannot be serious!
Don’t be like the landlord I once had to call to warn him off from an illegal eviction who responded when advised of the process said “You aren’t seriously telling me there are laws that tell a man what he can and cant do with his own property? They’d laugh you out of court man”
To which I responded “Well, I’ll see you in court then. I like a laugh”.
I did see him in court and I did laugh. An expensive lesson for someone who I like to think got himself trained up.
What made me smile this week.
So I dropped Frazzy off at Gatwick at 7:30am last Saturday and saw a motorway sign saying “Brighton 22 minutes” and off I went to walk him in the surf. Why not?
Upon hitting town I realise I don’t have any food or water for him, no plastic bags to pick up his poop and no change for the notoriously expensive parking meters on the Brighton sea front.
Just as I arrive in town I find a Sainsbury’s Local next door to a pet shop that is open at 8am.
Then I get to Marine drive and find all the parking meters out of action and parking free.
We walk right up the beach and at some point I dropped the car keys without realising. After 40 minutes we wend our way back and I glance down and see the keys I had lost half an hour before without even knowing.
What are the chances of that????????
Feeling blessed by the cosmos I bought a lottery ticket for the first time ever.
Not a single bleedin number came up.
See ya next week.
