The Designated Civil Judge for London (His Honour Judge Luba QC) is a highly respected authority on Housing Law and has written many books on how to defend possession claims, but is he bias in favour of the tenant? If he is bias does it even matter that a senior Circuit Judge with links to Shelter  is not impartial? Can a person at the top of the legal tree have a bias? Is to fall on the side of the tenant unreasonable and to be a judge?

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The courts are giving a consistent and illegal response to possession claims since CPR 51z. This gave a three month stay to 25th June (Now extended to the 23rd August) and this is the matter in point.

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We at the Process Experts have assisted quite a number of landlords filing court papers since the 27th March, and with each one the courts had a very simple rule on which to obey and give a legal order. In many cases they even put the wording of CPR 51z in the order contradicting it simultaneously. And the most relevant line is this:

‘All proceedings for possession brought under CPR Part 55 and all proceedings seeking to enforce an order for possession by a warrant or writ of possession are stayed for a period of 90 days from the date this Direction comes into force’.

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We expected the courts to issue the delay correctly but to our horror and amazement every single case we have issued has come back with this:

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Because of corvid 19 this case is stayed for 90 days.

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All of these illegal court orders extend the stay beyond the date at which the court would lawfully be able to kick start the case buying more rent free time in the property for the tenant, sanctioned by a court order. What is really interesting is the consistency of the order throughout the country, because one massive complaint if you are dealing everyday with different courts is the fact that the only constant is a huge lack of consistency but not in this case.

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For each of these we write a letter to the court manager which the landlord sends to the court and in one reply our client received the admission that the order was an error and that it has been amended to the 25th June and that all errors will be rectified. The officer of the court candidly said that they were using a template which they were told to send out. A template from ‘on high’ is the reason why all of our cases were getting illegal orders from the court it seems. Then just by chance, a client received their notice of issue and it read ‘This letter is issued on the authority of the Designated Civil Judge for London (His Honour Judge Luba QC).

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After a little bit of research on His Honour Judge Luba QC you will discover that he claims to have begun the legal department of Shelter, not a favourite of the landlord. He also worked for Citizens advice (which will not advise a landlord) and has written books on one particular angle of the eviction process which is how to successfully defend a possession claim. He is a Senior Circuit Judge at Central London County Court and on all accounts he is said to be one of the highest authorities on Housing law in the land. The question is this.  Did he innocently misinterpret CPR 51z?  to be stayed ‘on receipt’ of the claim for 90 days because he truly believes this, or are we dealing with a senior Circuit Judge who leans with bias toward the tenant allowing them to live rent free for longer than CPR 51z legally allows because he has  an agenda? Had the court manager not received the template would she have stayed it until the 25th June or could she have misinterpreted it in that same way as His Honour Judge Luba QC has done? This is the same Senior Circuit Judge who has turned all assured shorthold tenancies into assured tenancies without it even going to a high court appeal on his belief system as a circuit judge in the gas safety certificate case.

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The impact of this 90 day stay is to add more time and more rent arears and more misery for the landlord on a massive scale. All the landlord asks is that the court administers the case correctly under the rules is this too much to ask and all illegal 90 day stays should be immediately reissued correctly.