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Civil way: 31 January 2025

31 January 2025 / Stephen Gold
Issue: 8102 / Categories: Features , Procedure & practice , Civil way
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Tenant fees and s 21; illegal but okay; decree absolute online searches; debt relief challenge ruling.

TENANT FEES TRAP AVOIDED

While in breach of the Tenant Fees Act 2019 (TFA 2019), a landlord may be paralysed from serving a s 21, Housing Act 1988 notice (they haven’t gone yet, folks) and any possession claim made on the strength of such a notice will be kicked out. But is there the same paralysis as a result of a payment required and made under an earlier tenancy for the premises between the same parties which was entered into before TFA 2019 came into force on 1 June 2019, but which would have been prohibited under TFA 2019? That was the issue in Switaj v McClenaghan

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Muckle LLP—Ella Johnson

Muckle LLP—Ella Johnson

Real estate dispute resolution team welcomes newly qualified solicitor

Morr & Co—Dennis Phillips

Morr & Co—Dennis Phillips

International private client team appoints expert in Spanish law

NLJ Career Profile: Stefan Borson, McCarthy Denning

NLJ Career Profile: Stefan Borson, McCarthy Denning

Stefan Borson, football finance expert head of sport at McCarthy Denning, discusses returning to the law digging into the stories behind the scenes

NEWS
Paper cyber-incident plans are useless once ransomware strikes, argues Jack Morris of Epiq in NLJ this week
In this week's NLJ, Robert Hargreaves and Lily Johnston of York St John University examine the Employment Rights Bill 2024–25, which abolishes the two-year qualifying period for unfair-dismissal claims
Writing in NLJ this week, Manvir Kaur Grewal of Corker Binning analyses the collapse of R v Óg Ó hAnnaidh, where a terrorism charge failed because prosecutors lacked statutory consent. The case, she argues, highlights how procedural safeguards—time limits, consent requirements and institutional checks—define lawful state power
Michael Zander KC, emeritus professor at LSE, revisits his long-forgotten Crown Court Study (1993), which surveyed 22,000 participants across 3,000 cases, in the first of a two-part series for NLJ
Getty Images v Stability AI Ltd [2025] EWHC 2863 (Ch) was a landmark test of how UK law applies to AI training—but does it leave key questions unanswered, asks Emma Kennaugh-Gallagher of Mewburn Ellis in NLJ this week
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