A council admitted this week that it was an example to all local authorities of how not to run its housing services - after a squatter won the right to keep a £200,000 council home
Lambeth housing secretary Tom Franklin said: "Lambeth is a lesson for everybody to see. The council has a whole cupboard of skeletons from the 1980s and a rather large skeleton has come out this time. My advice is don't get into the mess that Lambeth got into."

His comments followed what Franklin described as a "bizarre" Court of Appeal ruling which allowed squatter Timothy Ellis to take possession of the double-fronted Victorian council house in Brixton which he has occupied for 16 years.

The law gives ownership to anyone who has occupied a property for 12 years or more without anyone else having "asserted ownership".

Franklin said the council had not yet decided whether it was cost effective to take the case to the House of Lords. But he claimed the council had also proved it was now a fine example of how to turn round poor services.

The Association of London Government said the case added significance to the ruling by the House of Lords last month that a short-life housing association resident was a tenant rather than a licensee (Housing Today, issue 140).

Together, they threw up fundamental issues which could jeopardise the work councils had already done on cutting voids and squatting.

ALG housing policy officer Duncan Bowie said: "I think these rulings may well backfire. These kinds of legal actions are not necessarily assisting local authorities most effectively with historic management problems."

But a Shelter spokeswoman said the latest ruling was an isolated case.

Source

Housing Today