England and Wales Court of Appeal (Civil Division) Decisions

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE SHOREDITCH COUNTY COURT
(Mr Recorder Morris)

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2 Thursday, 8th March 2001

1. LORD JUSTICE TUCKEY: The applicant in this case, Mr. Michael Markou, applies for a stay of and permission to appeal from an order made by Mr. Recorder Morris in the Shoreditch County Court on 21st February 2001, in which he dismissed the applicant's appeal against an order for possession made by a district judge in the same court on 20th November 2000. The Recorder also gave the Council claimants leave to enforce the order for possession.
2. The premises concerned, 8 Lauriston House, Lauriston Road, London, E9, belong to the Council. In 1994 they let this flat to a Mr. Cybunch. He was not allowed to sublet it but did so illegally to the applicant on or about 8th April 1999. Mr Cybunch did not tell the applicant that he was a council tenant and led him to believe that he was a private landlord. He took £300 off him in the process. The applicant was obviously defrauded by Mr. Cybunch, but that of itself gave him no right to remain in possession of or to occupy the flat.
3. In due course the Council took proceedings for possession against the applicant and, after a hearing in which the judge ordered possession, the applicant was evicted on 19th November 1999. Following his eviction he tells me that he went to the Council's offices where he asked that they should rehouse him as a homeless person, and when they refused to do so he broke back into the flat from which he had been evicted earlier that day. He has been living there ever since with his young son. I am quite clear that he had no right to do this.
4. The Council took proceedings to evict him yet again, and the District Judge made the order for possession to which I have referred.
5. Before the Recorder the applicant argued that he had a right to remain in the flat because the Council had failed to discharge their duty to him as a homeless person under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996. This argument was incorrect. Any public law duty owed to the applicant under the 1996 Act is quite separate from any private law right, if any, which the applicant had or has to occupy this flat. Failure to discharge the duty to house him as a homeless person is not capable as a matter of law of giving rise to any right to occupy the flat.
6. The other point which the applicant relied on was that in some way the Council had accepted him as a tenant after he revealed the fraud to them in April 1999 because they issued him with a rent card (which I have seen) and received payments in the shape of housing benefit for his occupation of the flat. Those circumstances arose and created a right, if there was one, before the first county court hearing. The judge on that occasion made an order for possession and there is no appeal against that order. Technically, therefore, it does not arise for consideration today and, clearly, nothing that has happened since the applicant broke back into the flat would be capable of giving him any right to occupy it along the lines that I have indicated. But it does not seem to me that the issue of that card and the payment of money by way of housing benefit does, in any event, as a matter of law enable a court to conclude that the Council intended to grant the applicant some legal right to occupy this flat.
7. There are no other grounds that I can see or are advanced on the applicant's behalf to justify his continued occupation, as a matter of law, of this flat. It follows from this conclusion that the applicant had no defence to the claim for possession made against him which was determined by the district judge and on appeal by the judge, and that they were right to reach the conclusions which they did.
8. In support of his application to this court the applicant complains that he was not given enough time to present his case before the Recorder and that what has happened breaches his human rights. There is nothing in either of these points. I have seen an attendance note of the hearing before the Recorder. It is clear that the applicant was given a fair hearing and every opportunity to put his points before the court. His real complaint is that the judge did not accept his arguments. The Human Rights Act does not give anyone the right to occupy someone else's property as a trespasser, for that is what in law the applicant is.
9. This is a second appeal where permission to appeal to this court will not be granted unless the case raises some important point of principle or practice, or there is some other compelling reason for the Court of Appeal to hear the case. None of these features are present in this case. I am therefore bound to refuse permission, and it must follow from that that I cannot grant a stay of the order for possession which the Recorder authorised. I have attempted to explain to the applicant a way in which he might be able to solve his acute housing problem but I can do no more than that. This application must, for the reasons I have given, be dismissed.
Order: Application refused.