Potential new legal development. Can CRT enforce cc'ing rules?

[Mike Todd]

Note that, in common with many charities, RSPCA does have a number of trading companies, each of which is a registered company and its accounts are available from Companies House. They will be expected to operate within the usual rules applying to companies law, the principal one of which is to trade legally, ie not trading when knowingly insolvent or about to be. That is, they have to maintain the same balance between income and expenditure.

The distinction between CaRT and RSPCA is wholly false.

[Arthur Marshall]

Troll gone...

[MtB]

On 10/03/2017 at 16:55, Pluto said:

As one of CRT's charitable aims is to maintain the heritage of our waterway system, and as, historically, boats would move regularly, surely requiring boats to move on after 14 days is actually maintaining the heritage of waterways, and thus addressing part of CRT's charitable aims.

 

Yes. I was thinking of posting commenting that CRT have an obligation to protect the waterways from the considerable impact of wannabe CMers (liveaboard or otherwise) whose goal is to move as little as possible, or not at all if allowed to get away with it.

But it's probably best I don't say any of that as my views on the subject seems to wind people up. So I won't.

Oh bugger....

 

 

.

Edited March 10, 2017 by Mike the Boilerman

[BruceinSanity]

13 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

Note that, in common with many charities, RSPCA does have a number of trading companies, each of which is a registered company and its accounts are available from Companies House. They will be expected to operate within the usual rules applying to companies law, the principal one of which is to trade legally, ie not trading when knowingly insolvent or about to be. That is, they have to maintain the same balance between income and expenditure.

The distinction between CaRT and RSPCA is wholly false.

Greenie for that. Similarly, charities law requires the trustees to manage the charity with due diligence and seek to ensure its financial stability. They are personally liable for the consequences of negligent or reckless governance. The function of the Charities Commission is to enforce that.

[Tuscan]

Which must make CRTs financial negotiations about the takeover of the EA a bit worrying.

[Allan(nb Albert)]

Is Defra negotiating with C&RT? I thought that C&RT/EA are having some difficulty in arranging a meeting with the minister.

 

[Mike Todd]

1 hour ago, Tuscan said:

Which must make CRTs financial negotiations about the takeover of the EA a bit worrying.

Clearly what is at the heart of any negotiation is to achieve a financially neutral outcome - with each side trying to pull the wool over the other to gain some advantage. If everyone is on the ball, then a largely neutral result is the best that can be hoped for. However, much will depend on predictions of future costs (the past is only important insofar as liabilities are transferred - even these can be complex such as in the case of pensions). 

[Sir Nibble]

On 3/10/2017 at 19:12, Arthur Marshall said:

Troll gone...

Not a troll I think but someone with huge compassion and dedication to liberty not matched by an understanding of the basic facts of legal process,like the role of judges. Nor indeed the numbers poised to "adopt" their own length of towpath if the courts ever enabled it.

As an a side, I don't know if it's the same guy but there was a disabled chap more or less living on what was a 24 hour mooring in brassknocker basin.

[SimonRNABO]

Re the 'CRT is not a Housing Authority' arguement - my personal point of view is that they irrevocably opened that Pandora's box a couple of decades ago...  http://liveaboard-forum.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/is-canal-and-river-trust-housing.html

[MtB]

On 13/03/2017 at 22:39, SimonRNABO said:

Re the 'CRT is not a Housing Authority' arguement - my personal point of view is that they irrevocably opened that Pandora's box a couple of decades ago...  http://liveaboard-forum.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/is-canal-and-river-trust-housing.html

 

What an interesting bit of history. I vaguely seem to remember it being the case way back in the mists of time that using one's boat as a dwelling was a contravention of one's licence. Never realised it was Sally Ash who deleted that condition!

From your link:

"The start of the 'trouble' was one of Sally Ash's first decisions when she was put in charge of boating, to remove the general Licence requirement not to use your boat as a dwelling. That in effect gave blanket permission to alllicence holders to live on their boats; Unsurprisingly many have taken up the offer. "

And 

"Indeed the British Waterways Byelaws (which are still supposedly in force) say that that 'No vessel on any canal shall without the permission of the Board be used as a club shop store dwelling or houseboat.' (Clause 30 in BWB General Canal Byelaws 1965). The understanding was that if you did not have a residential mooring etc but were living on your boat, you were not legal.

That did not stop people but it did make us more aware of our position. You were in most cases in direct breach of your licence conditions if you admitted to living on your boat. A consequence of that was that we kept our heads down and took steps not to draw huge attention to ourselves. Issues like overstaying or in any way drawing adverse attention to yourself were almost completely taboo. "

Thanks for posting...

[Mike Todd]

Of course you may be right about opening a Pandora's Box but that decision did not change any law. All it did was to change the default from not having permission to having permission just by reason of having a licence. That decision could be reversed or modified as all that the law says is that the boat may not be used as a dwelling without permission. It does not specify the form or extent of that permission.

In any event, it did nothing to amend the wider context of what you are permitted to do with a boat that is used as a dwelling. (Leaving aside the slight issue of what constitutes a dwelling - is only talks of using a boat as a dwelling, not that, in all other respects, the boat is a dwelling).

Narrowboats have been used as dwellings, in at least some sense, for a long time and were the permanent home for a while for whole families (although for not quite as long as myth suggests!)

[SimonRNABO]

I think Mike is probably right that it does not change the letter of the law. It does however make that 'law' rather difficult to enforce? (Is the correct legal term 'estoppel'?)

I would also like to see the fireworks were CRT to suddenly turn round and decide to try and apply it again! How many thousand people threatened with homelessness would that be?

It would not just be boaters chucking whizz-bangs but many local Councils too, in anticipation of the queues forming outside Housing departments?

[Mike Todd]

1 hour ago, SimonRNABO said:

I think Mike is probably right that it does not change the letter of the law. It does however make that 'law' rather difficult to enforce? (Is the correct legal term 'estoppel'?)

I would also like to see the fireworks were CRT to suddenly turn round and decide to try and apply it again! How many thousand people threatened with homelessness would that be?

It would not just be boaters chucking whizz-bangs but many local Councils too, in anticipation of the queues forming outside Housing departments?

I agree that such a move would be unlikely - it would also potentially affect those who are not full time aboard, depending on how 'dwelling' is interpreted.

However: the effect of the previous decision not to object means that permission is given and paid for, though rolled up into the boat licence. What could happen is that CaRT, as they are allowed, introduce a new subdivision of boats, one that is not a houseboat but a 'moveable dwelling' for which additional requirements and possible fees are payable. That said, from a technical requirement point of view, the BSS is getting close to that for homeowners, albeit not to the level for landlord letting purposes - hence the counsel against Airbnb on boats.

[NigelMoore]

7 hours ago, SimonRNABO said:

I think Mike is probably right that it does not change the letter of the law. It does however make that 'law' rather difficult to enforce? (Is the correct legal term 'estoppel'?)

As CaRT have never yet enforced a byelaw, and have declared that it is pointless to try [because it results only in “derisory” fines even if successful], their only route to preventing live-aboards would be to re-instate it as a licence condition, whereby on their current favoured procedure, they could invoke s.8.

The problem there, is firstly [as Simon suggests] a defence of estoppel could be pleaded, secondly it opens up potential challenge over the legality of attempting to impose more conditions upon the licence issue than is permitted under statute, and thirdly [especially in view of this Appeal judgment], it faces more than a probability that the HRA would be even more directly engaged.

All that for a use of boats that BW and now CaRT has firmly announced is of no interest or concern of theirs at all, anyway. It would not even help them in the nonsensical categorisation of all boats as houseboats when litigation looms; use of a boat as habitation is expressly stated to be irrelevant to the statutory definition.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

11 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

Of course you may be right about opening a Pandora's Box but that decision did not change any law. All it did was to change the default from not having permission to having permission just by reason of having a licence. That decision could be reversed or modified as all that the law says is that the boat may not be used as a dwelling without permission. It does not specify the form or extent of that permission.

In any event, it did nothing to amend the wider context of what you are permitted to do with a boat that is used as a dwelling. (Leaving aside the slight issue of what constitutes a dwelling - is only talks of using a boat as a dwelling, not that, in all other respects, the boat is a dwelling).

Narrowboats have been used as dwellings, in at least some sense, for a long time and were the permanent home for a while for whole families (although for not quite as long as myth suggests!)

I think I'd tend to agree, I'm not sure that I understand the purpose of the relevent section of the 1965 Act highlighted above because, as you say, boats were used as dwellings by working families for a number of years.

I cannot quite see how they would even try to define the term 'dwelling'. How long would you need to live on a boat for them to consider that you are 'dwelling' on it? A week? a Month,A year?? if I were asked I'd just say that I'm taking a really long holiday on it. Of course the follow up to that would be are you dwelling on a boat when on holiday? That could put a lot of hire companies out of business!

[Muddy Ditch Rich]

Did the working boatmen still left in 1965, and the few live a board's have specific permission to live aboard post the 1965 bylaw ?

What does this "permission " consist of ? There were no mandatory licences as we know them until 1975 so it can't be the " consent" of a licence.

[NigelMoore]

The Appeal Judgment demands that HRA considerations are to be considered in the County Courts where appropriate. The issue of proportionality is the key in these HRA defences, and the simplest and most direct application of the principles, to whether or not an authority is exercising a proportionate remedy, is to ask what lesser interference with Convention rights could achieve the mandated objectives.

The answer presented by CaRT, as with BW before them, is always that no practical alternative remedy [to using s.8] is available to them; that the specific statutory remedies are ineffective.

I have now, though, finally received most of the information I was seeking from the EA, as to their utilisation of equivalent powers respecting registration of boats on their rivers.

In contradiction to all the [accepted] arguments before the County Courts by BW/CaRT – that s.8 removals are the only practical avenue for enforcement of licence & registration defaults, because prosecutions for the offences resulted in only “derisory” fines – the EA since their 2012 Order have successfully prosecuted hundreds of boats for failure to register, and have exercised their s.8 equivalent less than a dozen times in the same period.

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/statistics_for_successful_boat_r#incoming-945420

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/section_8_boat_removals_since_ju#comment-76655

If the next largest navigation authority in the country can effectively use similar legislation to CaRT’s, in pursuit of the same objectives, with Magistrates Court actions so far outweighing boat removals, then CaRT’s arguments for s.8 removal being their ONLY effective recourse, begin to look like the foolishness they are. If they have gratuitously chosen to pursue the remedy most abusive of the HRA, where more effective and less interfering remedies are available, then the test of proportionality is comprehensively lost.

The Appeal Court judgment should mean that if defending boaters wake up to the real HRA issues, instead of bewailing lack of alternative housing solutions, then useful CCJ’s will result, because the CC judges will now have to consider the broader picture of why CaRT choose to act as they do. If - to keep in topic – s.8 for failing to licence a boat is to be considered a last resort remedy only to be used if and when the specific statutory remedies have failed, then the tactic of using it in cases where licences have been deliberately revoked/refused as a means of thus opening a way to use of s.8, must be considered so much the more perverse.

[Muddy Ditch Rich]

On 3/14/2017 at 00:03, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

What an interesting bit of history. I vaguely seem to remember it being the case way back in the mists of time that using one's boat as a dwelling was a contravention of one's licence. Never realised it was Sally Ash who deleted that condition!

From your link:

"The start of the 'trouble' was one of Sally Ash's first decisions when she was put in charge of boating, to remove the general Licence requirement not to use your boat as a dwelling. That in effect gave blanket permission to alllicence holders to live on their boats; Unsurprisingly many have taken up the offer. "

And 

"Indeed the British Waterways Byelaws (which are still supposedly in force) say that that 'No vessel on any canal shall without the permission of the Board be used as a club shop store dwelling or houseboat.' (Clause 30 in BWB General Canal Byelaws 1965). The understanding was that if you did not have a residential mooring etc but were living on your boat, you were not legal.

That did not stop people but it did make us more aware of our position. You were in most cases in direct breach of your licence conditions if you admitted to living on your boat. A consequence of that was that we kept our heads down and took steps not to draw huge attention to ourselves. Issues like overstaying or in any way drawing adverse attention to yourself were almost completely taboo. "

Thanks for posting...

Bylaws are not licence conditions, no breach of any of the canal bylaws allows CaRT to revoke a licence.

[JKS]

The divide between Rich and poor is shocking in this country. And it’s all about who you no not what skills you have .How else would Boris the clown be running the country , lol .

[Tam & Di]

1 hour ago, JKS said:

The divide between Rich and poor is shocking in this country. And it’s all about who you no not what skills you have .How else would Boris the clown be running the country , lol .

 

Is Boris becoming a continuous cruiser? I must have missed that  🤷‍♂️  😃