Court of Appeal provides procedural guidance on combined possession proceedings involving anti-social behaviour

The Court of Appeal has provided helpful procedural guidance to social housing landlords who want to take back possession of properties from anti-social tenants who’ve been convicted of serious criminal offences.

Here, Isobel McCluskey and Josephine Morton set out the relevance of this outcome for landlords and the communities they serve.

Hajan v Brent LBC & Poplar HARCA v Kerr 

The Court of Appeal considered the largely similar cases of Hajan v Brent LBC and Poplar HARCA v Kerr collectively.

The cases differed somewhat on the facts in that Mr Hajan held a secure tenancy and had been convicted of criminal damage. On the other hand, Mrs Kerr held an assured tenancy and had accumulated rent arrears. In addition, her son — who resided in the property — had been convicted of being in possession of an imitation firearm with the intent to cause fear of violence and sentenced to a prison term.

At the time of the convictions, the social housing landlord had already secured suspended possession orders against the tenants on discretionary grounds for anti-social behaviour (ASB).

Subsequent proceedings & appeals

In light of the serious convictions, the landlords wished to amend the existing proceedings to rely on the mandatory ground for possession (7a of the Housing Act 1988) and evict the tenants/occupants.

This brought about the appeals and the Court of Appeal judges considered whether landlords could amend an existing set of possession proceedings to include the mandatory ground or whether an entirely new set of possession proceedings needed to be commenced, while bearing in mind that the Housing Act 1985 prevents landlords from commencing possession proceedings until the Notice Seeking Possession (NSP) has expired. 

It was argued that varying an existing set of proceedings fails to consider this.

Dismissing the appeals

The appeals were both dismissed. It was upheld that rather than issuing a separate set of court proceedings, landlords could simply seek to vary (amend) the existing possession proceedings that had originally been commenced on discretionary grounds for anti-social behaviour to include the relevant mandatory ground.

The Court of Appeal said that it had taken a ‘purposive approach’ when making the decision. 

Paragraph 38 of the Judgment reminds us that: “The overall purpose of the mandatory ground (in both the 1985 Act and the 1988 Act) is to expedite the eviction of landlords’ most anti-social tenants to bring faster relief to victims”.

Accelerating possession being granted

As well as alleviating the strain on limited court resources and landlords avoiding incurring the costs of a second set of proceedings with the same objective (possession), in practice this decision should enable the acceleration of possession being granted. This will undoubtedly be welcomed by both social housing landlords and the communities they serve, as well as the direct victims of anti-social behaviour.

Overall, the decision provides for possession claims that are brought on the grounds of anti-social behaviour to be dealt with more efficiently, provided that landlords follow the correct procedure and keep detailed logs of all reported incidents.

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