Section: Antisocial Behaviour & Nuisance
ASBO Powers for TMOs
New regulations were laid before Parliament that will give Tenant Management Organisations (TMOs) powers to apply for Anti-Social Behaviour Orders.
The new powers aim to give TMO residents greater influence on their estates, by supporting them in dealing with anti-social behaviour swiftly and effectively.
All Tenant Management Organisations will have to undergo a rigorous procedure before taking on antisocial behaviour responsibilities. There will be clear safeguards to ensure the new powers are used responsibly. However, where a TMO has been assessed as competent, the Government says it sees no reason why it should not be delegated ASBO functions.
Information Notes
The Local Authorities (Contracting Out of Anti-Social Behaviour Order Functions) (England) Order 2006 will, if approved, enable local authorities to ask those bodies managing their housing (under section 27 of the Housing Act 1985) to also carry out some or all of their functions relating to Anti-social Behaviour Orders.
Tenant Management is a means by which council or housing association tenants and leaseholders can collectively take on responsibility for managing the homes they live in. Tenants form an independent legal body - a Tenant Management Organisation (TMO). The members of the TMO are tenants and other residents from the area it covers. Usually the members elect a tenant-led management committee to run the organisation. The TMO can then enter into a legal management agreement (contract) with the landlord. The TMO is paid annual management and maintenance allowances in order to carry out the management duties that are delegated to them. Duties vary between different TMOs.
New regulations are planned for 01 October 2007. These will streamline the current Right to Manage Regulations making the process less bureaucratic. In particular it will make it easier for tenants who want to take responsibility for only one or two management functions in the first instance.
Transplant Patient Suffered Abuse
Mr P, a single man, held the tenancy of a flat owned by Milton Keynes Council for about ten years. He had cystic fibrosis, and had a heart and lung transplant in 2001. In his absence, a new tenant, Ms B, moved into the flat above his.
Mr P experienced problems with Ms B almost as soon as he returned to his flat following his transplant. He suffered episodes of abuse, threatening behaviour, rudeness, harassment, and general noise nuisance. Other residents also complained about Ms B, and the Police were involved. Mr P was so badly affected he left his home to live with his parents.
Mr P's mother, Mrs P, complained to the Ombudsman about the Council's investigation into her son's complaints about Ms B's antisocial behaviour and about its handling of his request for a transfer.
The Ombudsman upheld Mrs P's complaints on behalf of her son: the Council failed to deal with Mr P's complaints of antisocial behaviour properly and also failed to treat his transfer request with the urgency it required, since a move could have been arranged two years before it actually was.
The Ombudsman found maladministration causing injustice and recommended that the Council should pay compensation of £3,500 to Mr P and £750 to Mrs P. It should also review its Voids and Lettings Policy, to give a clear indication of how applicants might be awarded each of the medical priorities.
Local Government Ombudsman Report 05/A/2280
Case Law Update
The defendant, who was a secure tenant, failed to attend the hearing of the claimant council's claims for possession and an ASBO arising from the defendant's antisocial behaviour towards her neighbours.
The Court awarded an outright Possession Order, and an Antisocial Behaviour Order (ASBO) containing an exclusion area was granted.
The tenant's application to set aside the Orders was dismissed on the grounds she had no prospects of achieving a different result at retrial.
A High Court judge dismissed her appeal and held that the High Court had the same power as a County Court to postpone the possession date or stay or suspend execution of the Order, but those powers would not be exercised because the tenant had breached the ASBO and there was no evidence suggesting any likely future change in her conduct.
Sheffield CC v Fletcher [2007] EWHC (Ch), 12 January 2007
The defendant, who was a secure tenant, was guilty of harassment of a neighbour's daughter. That harassment had been the subject of criminal convictions and breach of an interim Antisocial Behaviour Order (ASBO).
The Council sought an outright Possession Order and a final ASBO excluding the defendant from the city. The Judge made a suspended Order and a limited ASBO.
The Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal by the Council and ruled that the judge had been entitled to rely on an assessment by a probation officer that the tenant was capable of reform and the victim had moved away from the area. No error was made in suspending the order.
Sheffield CC v Shaw [2007] All ER (D) 35 (Jan), 12 January 2007
As a result of complaints from his neighbour, Hackney served the defendant with Abatement Notices under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 Part III. These required him to cease chanting, shouting and jumping on internal floors and causing such noise as to be a nuisance.
The Council's Environmental Health Officers gave evidence, which was not challenged, that the Notices had been breached by further noise constituting a nuisance. Magistrates convicted but the Crown Court allowed an appeal.
The Council appealed unsuccessfully to the High Court, where it was held that the trial Court was not obliged to accept even the expert evidence tendered. It had to be satisfied, in its own judgement, that there had been noise such as to cause nuisance.
Hackney LBC v Rottenberg [2007] All ER(D) 174 (Jan), 24 January 2007
Brent Council applied for a Possession Order against the defendant, who was a secure tenant, on the grounds of nuisance, and an Order for his committal to prison for breach of an Antisocial Behaviour Injunction. The latter was in response to the defendant verbally abusing a neighbour at a railway station. The Judge refused both Orders.
The Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal on the following grounds:
- The Judge had not made an error in deciding that, although there had been some noise and annoyance, it was not reasonable to order possession - given that there had only been 2 or 3 incidents in 18 months.
- The railway station had not been within the area delineated by the Injunction. Therefore the incident there could not amount to a breach of that Injunction.
Brent LBC v Doughan [2007] All ER (D) 83 (Feb), 6 February 2007
New Publications
Promoting Respect: Tackling Nuisance Behaviour sets out what the Housing Corporation has done and intends to do to encourage and enable housing associations to tackle anti-social behaviour. It focuses on issues including:
- The Respect Standard for Housing Management;
- Family Intervention Projects; and
- The importance of tenant involvement and satisfaction.
The publication is available online via the Housing Corporation website, www.housingcorp.gov.uk.
The Government issued a consultation draft of a new statutory Code of Guidance on Allocation of Social Housing.
The Government published Housing Research Report Summary 232: Priority review of the uptake by social landlords of legislative powers to tackle anti-social behaviour.
The paper considers the experience and ability of social landlords to handle legal tools to control anti-social behaviour.
© Copyright 1996 - 2008 UK Housing Ltd. Housing Monthly Diary
Issue: March 2007 Reporting on Jan-Feb 2007
- Antisocial Behaviour & Nuisance
- Heating & Energy Efficiency
- Homelessness & Asylum Seekers
- Housing & Estate Management
- Housing Benefit & Council Tax
- Housing Provision
- Private Sector
- Repairs & Improvements
- Right to Buy
- Social Landlords
- Travellers and Gypsies
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