Welwyn Hatfield BC v Wang (2024) UKUT 24 (LC) was concerned with whether Notices of Intent to impose a financial penalty under Section 249A of the Housing Act 2004 were invalid for containing insufficient information. By para 3(a) of Schedule 13A to that Act a Notice of Intent has to  set out the “reasons” for proposing to impose the financial penalty.  The Upper Tribunal says that these reasons have to be “sufficiently clearly and accurately expressed” to enable the recipient landlord to exercise the right, conferred by paragraph 4 of Schedule 13A, to make written representations to the local housing authority about its proposal, to enable the authority to decide whether or not to impose the financial penalty, and, if so, how much.  Similarly, by para 8(b) of Schedule 13A, the final notice had to set out “the reasons for imposing the penalty”.  Those reasons too had to be sufficiently clearly and accurately expressed to enable the recipient landlord to decide whether to exercise the right to appeal to the Tribunal against the decision to impose the penalty or the amount of that penalty.  Those reasons had to be directly referable to the condition of the licence in relation to which it was said that there had been non-compliance on the landlord’s part, and they had to identify clearly and accurately the particular respects in which it was said that there had been non-compliance.  Local housing authorities had to bear firmly in mind that the imposition of a financial penalty was an alternative to a criminal prosecution, and it had to be treated with  the same level of seriousness and transparency.

The issue in RAHIMI v CITY OF WESTMINSTER COUNCIL (2024) EWCA Civ 73 was whether Mr Rahimi was entitled to a secure tenancy on the death of his grandmother.  That, in turn, depended on whether at the date of her death the grandmother was the tenant under a tenancy of the flat granted to her alone.  The tenancy had originally be granted to her and her husband, as joint tenants, but her husband was no longer living there.  Mr Rahimi was a member of his grandmother’s family and had resided with her throughout the period of 12 months ending with her death.

Lewison LJ at paragraphs 17-22 inclusive identified the statutory framework in relation to secure tenancies.  The effect was that if there was a surrender and regrant amounting to the grant of a fresh tenancy to the grandmother alone, a succession was still available, but if the joint tenancy continued in being, Mr Rahimi would not have been entitled to succeed.  The joint tenancy would have vested by right of survivorship in the grandmother’s husband, at which point the tenancy would have ceased to be a secure tenancy, because the husband did not occupy the property as his home.

From paragraph 28 Lewison LJ addressed the principle of surrender and regrant.  Rights held jointly must be surrendered jointly, by both the joint tenants and by the landlord.  Conduct relied upon must be unequivocal.  Individual equivocal acts can however be combined to surmount the evidential threshold.  From paragraph 40 Lewison LJ considered whether there was unequivocal conduct in this case.  What was required was an agreement by the landlord with the assent of the outgoing tenant.  On the facts, there was no such agreement, and no grant of a new sole tenancy to Mr Rahimi’s grandmother.

Newby LJ agreed with Lewison LJ in dismissing Mr Rahimi’s appeal, and Macur LJ dissented.  Newey LJ said, at paragraph 81:-

“No one suggests that there is direct evidence of a fresh tenancy having been granted.  The question is whether there is material from which a grant could be inferred. In that connection, evidence of conduct which is just as consistent with the continuation of the original joint tenancy will not suffice.”