HOUSING LAW IS HARD LAW:
THIS CASEBOOK EASES THE PAIN

This is the ultimate comprehensive statement on what is happening with housing law precedent today. Madge & Sephton acknowledge that housing law is hard law but their work is an exceptionally easy read with nicely navigable themes to ease the pain (a bit).

It is at least an affordable housing law casebook dealing with real property, real issues, real confrontations of the most personal kind, and real housing details with excellent one line summaries now introduced at the beginning of each authority. This is a common law book of housing which is well structured in twenty one (lettered) chapters plus a very detailed index and exceptional CD ROM. The individual cases are intelligently and carefully set out with useful summaries and further references throughout.

Madge & Sephton do rely on a team of helpers to get the information to us as the end users, whether we are lawyers or advisers. They pull together the details concisely and with much thought as to what we need as users in the system. The matter-of-fact explanation of essential case facts remains its key value to the housing practitioner and the information is easy to find for the inexperienced.

At the fourth edition launch, it was rightly said that if you deal with housing matters and do not have a copy of this book, it will seriously damage your health!

How right because the authors cover wide ground with decisions in all the courts, relying on case details to be sent it for inclusion especially where the decisions are borderline and therefore terribly important for the advocate. It is a hard task but they bridge that gap between the practical guide, and the detailed leading authority in such as way as to make housing law easier and more accessible for all.

The authors write that their aim is to “note all the cases that housing practitioners will ever need”. They do just that, and that’s why the book is heavy at over one thousand pages! They include just about everything in one place which gives us, as advisors, useful examples of the ways in which the law is interpreted and disputes resolved in practice. The CD is of great help, too, and I see its use expanding greatly as new editions of this work are prepared as housing remains a critical issue for all.

Our common law is about decisions made by judges, and is now heavily influenced, directed and steered by legislation in all its forms whether we like it or not, and whether the end result is ‘fair’ or ‘just’. Madge & Sephton have maintained that great common law tradition of judge-made law with all their casebook statements, and interpretations, giving an incisive approach to case-law detail which sets itself at the very top of the housing law book ladder for all to see and use. ( )