Sat 6 Mar 2004
7,000 eviction cases hang on result of lawyer's argument
JAMES DOHERTY
THOUSANDS of court cases may be thrown out if a Glasgow lawyer wins his fight against Britain’s biggest landlord.
Mike Dailly, a housing lawyer at the Govan Law Centre, is set to fight cases on behalf of tenants facing eviction for rent arrears.
Mr Dailly claims that an agreement signed between Glasgow City Council and the Glasgow Housing Association (GHA), which transferred £4 million of debt to the new landlord, contains a clause preventing the GHA from seeking evictions for historic council rent arrears.
If Mr Dailly wins his legal fight, up to 7,000 cases may have to be reviewed or dropped by the GHA, which has confirmed its intention to target aggressively tenants who persistently fail to pay their rent.
Current rent arrears are put at about £12 million, and the landlord is increasing its legal team to cope with the court actions.
In December, the GHA agreed to rescind an eviction order it won against Theresa Gibson, a Parkhead tenant.
Mr Dailly was due to give his legal arguments at the Court of Session in Edinburgh on behalf of Ms Gibson, before the GHA relented, allowing her to remain in her home.
As a result of the case, the council and GHA exchanged a legal contract - the minute of assignation - on 19 December, which gave the GHA the right to pursue the council rent arrears.
However, a clause in the contract, seen by The Scotsman, obliged the GHA "to use all reasonable endeavours including recourse to debt-recovery action, but not eviction action".
Mr Dailly said he would now argue the legality of the eviction actions at Glasgow Sheriff Court in the coming weeks.
He said: "My understanding of the position is that the GHA had no entitlement to go into all of these 7,000 cases because the council had not transferred that right to them.
"From before 19 December, the GHA had no business doing anything with these cases. But as we know, they’ve been evicting folk since before 19 December.
"I would say that looks like unlawful evictions."
The GHA has evicted 103 tenants since it took over the 80,000 homes in March of last year.
Despite a blaze of publicity, warning that it would heavily target anti-social neighbours, only one tenant has been evicted under the policy, with the remainder evicted for rent arrears.
A spokesman for the GHA defended the landlord’s actions, saying: "This is a matter for the courts to decide. However, the GHA will continue to aggressively pursue a policy of maximising our rental income while providing best value for our tenants.
"We will not tolerate tenants who can pay but won’t. However, we will do our best to help anybody in genuine difficulties."