Devonshires’ HMPL team attend the Five Paper Spring Housing Conference 2024

A number of the Housing Management and Property Litigation team had the pleasure of attending Five Paper's Spring Housing Conference at Lincoln's Inn last Friday.

The day consisted of two elective workshops covering a range of current issues facing housing lawyers, including: Defences to EPA claims; Drafting directions; the Renters (Reform) Bill; a homelessness case update; Building Safety Act updates and, surrender by operation of law. These workshops were held in addition to opening and closing plenary sessions, one of which was led by our very own Department head, Donna McCarthy.

We attended the ‘Moving in the Right Direction - best practice in drafting directions for social housing claims’ workshop led by Sam Philips and now Judge Angela Hall. Judge Angela Hall discussed the reasoning for case allocation to the small claims track, fast track, multi-track and the new intermediate track. Sam Philips went on to highlight the common pitfalls of drafting directions and witness evidence, and how to be tactful in ensuring these court documents cover all bases for your clients.

After some light refreshments, we then attended the ‘Sweet Surrender - Surrender by operation of law and the circumstances in which a new tenancy can be inferred from conduct’  workshop led by Nicholas Grundy KC, Sean Pettit, and Daniel Crehan, regarding their experience acting for the City of Westminster Council in the Rahimi v Westminster Council Court of Appeal case. This became one of the leading cases on the issue of the surrender of a joint tenancy by operation of law and the circumstances in which the Court can infer a new tenancy by conduct. It was inspiring to listen to a junior barrister, senior barrister and Kings Counsel discuss their (at times contrasting) views on a case they were directly involved in which set precedent in the Court of Appeal. 

In the plenary session, Donna was joined by Nicholas Grundy KC and Simon Strelitz, taking a 360 degree look at the Housing Ombudsman’s powers, Spotlight reports and recent decisions.

After an informative day of everything housing law, the sun made an appearance and all attendees and speakers headed out to the scenic garden terrace to enjoy a few drinks and discuss the success of the day!

Please do get in touch with Georgia Maskell if you’d like to hear more on any of the above including what these topics may mean for your organisation.