Law Commission blasts housing inadequacies

A comprehensive overhaul of existing housing law has been called for by the Law Commission as it released its annual report this week.

The commission...A comprehensive overhaul of existing housing law has been called for by the Law Commission as it released its annual report this week.

The commission published a paper on the reform of housing law, calling for the serious inadequacies of existing law to be addressed.

It proposes to identify problems and solutions relating to private and state sector rented housing.Rosaleen Kilbane, the chairwoman of the Law Societys housing law committee, welcomed the paper.

She said: Reform of housing law is long overdue and the Society continues to support the overall aim of simplifying housing law, although care will be needed to ensure that this is not done at the expense of tenants rights.

In its annual report, the Law Commission hailed 2000 as a year of transition for the institution.

The Trustee Act 2000 and the Powers of the Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 were enacted from Law Commission reports last year.

But the decision in Heil v Rankin and R v Z in the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords respectively, saw commission recommendations on damages for non-pecuniary loss effected through case law rather than the traditional method of instigating statutory changes.The commissions chairman, Robert Carnwath, said there was more potential for the commission to have such influence in the future on case law relating to the Human Rights Act 1998.The commission has 21 outstanding reports awaiting implementation by the government; some are on ice pending the completion of the governments company law review.Jeremy Fleming