Hello I hope someone ca assist on this one

I have a client who lost a tribunal last year, she is renting from her parents and it was deemed that the tenancy was not a commerical one. To cut a long story short the parents are now retiring due to ill health, and need the income from their second home. The mortgage payments are still high and they are no longer able to afford it. My client has been served with a S21 notice as parents want to rent the property out for an extra income. My client re-applied for HB as she is due to lose the property and has nowhere else to go. The local authority advised her that as the tribunal was lost she cannot re-apply. My understanding is that as it is a change of circumstances the case could be heard again.

It sounds like though it was possibly not a commmercial agreement before, it has to be one now due to the reduced income of the parents.

Am I right to say we can appeal this deicsion?

Any help gratefully received, if I was picking this up as a new case that had not previously been heard at tribunal I would have been quite confident that we could prove the tenancy is in fact a commercial one and not contrived.

Sarah

If your client wants to claim again the LA is obliged to determine the claim and offer appeal rights. This would be the case even if nothing whatsoever had changed, leaving aside that in this case, something has.

A change to the circumstances of the landlord can be a relevant factor in these cases, so the tribunal could take a different view. In fact the LA itself cannot know that it would not make a different decision. They are wrong if they are really saying that your client cannot apply - they have no right to stop her.

I agree with Andy. The tribunal made a decision based on the facts presented to it.

Because a relevant fact has now changed, a fresh claim would be the way to go. Obviously pointing out the change initially would be helpful and increase your changes of getting it looked at (correctly) first time rather than just a blanket dismissal.

hth