Terms & Conditions

[Julian Hobson]

what a thorny question ? and there is a lot to think about. I think I’ve made my position clear on landlord appeal rights and the question as to whether suich a right exists.

The real issue here is that IF a landlord can’t appeal against a decision to recover from them, what decision can they appeal against. They can appeal against the parts of any decision that they disagree with (if of course they have any evidence to suggest the decision is wrong) practically speaking I think this would generally relate to issues of rent and occupancy.

The landlord is a person affected by virtue of reg 3(1)(d) and (e) of the HB&CTB Decision and Appeals regs 2001 and hence are a person affected if they are:

3(1)(d) – deemed to be the target for recovery in OP cases . or

3(1)(e) – the decision to be appealed against is made under reg 93 or 94.

Given the commissioners decision in CH/4943/01 and notwithstanding the fact it is now at the court of appeal, a landlord cannot appeal on the issue of who to recover from. They can appeal on any any other issue and so MUST get a letter advising them that an OP has occured if the decision is made to recover from them.

IF the landlord does not appeal this decision because they have no reason to dispute that the OP occured then they must pay up if invoiced later, they should not wait for an invoice before appealing.

If the LA send an OP decision to a L/L and it does not say who the OP is recoverable from, the L/L should assume that the reason it was sent was because the OP is deemed recoverable from them, and they should appeal given the restriction on what they can appeal against.

If the LA decide not to recover from the L/L then no decision should be sent to the L/L, in respect of the OP decision.

I suggest however that they are to receive a notice of decision as laid out in Schedule 6 Part I para 1 to 8 that is a decision which revises or supersedes the original decision specified in Part IV. In accordance with Reg 10 of the D&A regs. That would simply say that the HB is now rediced or stopped and the reason why.

Hopefully the outcome of the Court of Appeal case will include what L/L should be notified of and why AND software suppliers will be expected to sit up and listen.

Just on the “its not difficult to do letters on PC’s” no its not but I would hasard a guess that your caseload must be quite small ?