Maya Naidoo

Practice

Maya Naidoo provides advice and representation in all areas of housing law and related community care, including homelessness appeals and judicial reviews, complex anti-social behaviour possession and injunctive proceedings, public law defences, unlawful eviction, harassment, disrepair and other landlord tenant disputes. Maya has a special interest in eligibility and EEA rights to reside and has lectured on this on numerous occasions both at Garden Court and for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. Maya has particular experience in representing vulnerable clients with mental health problems in cases where there are capacity issues.

Maya has previously worked as an immigration and asylum lawyer as well as in family law and her expertise in these areas has frequently assisted clients whose cases involve overlapping issues of housing, family and immigration law.

Background

Maya's South African origins gave rise to an early commitment to human rights. She taught in South Africa in 1995 at a time of critical change and worked as a researcher into South African trade unions and politics. She has worked as an in-house lawyer in an immigration solicitor's office on cases in preparation for the European Court of Human Rights.

As a student she won a number of awards including the Baron Dr Ver Heyden de Lancey Prize (awarded by the Middle Temple for Outstanding results in the Bar exams, 2002); the Cloisters' Prize (for coming first in her year at the College of Law in the Bar exams, 2002); the Graham Turnbull Essay Prize (awarded by the International Human Rights Committee of the Law Society with the essay published in the New Law Journal, 1999); Julia Wood Prize (St Hugh's College Oxford, proxime accesit, 1994). She was a Diplock Scholar at the Middle Temple (1998 and 2001) and received a scholarship to study for her LLM in Bruges.

Notable Cases

Parker v Brent LBC, Central London Civil Justice Centre, 1 August 2008, Legal Action December 2008 (homelessness - eligibility of Polish national based on Article 12 of Regulation 1612/68 and Baumbast - stay granted pending ECJ judgment in Harrow LBC v Ibrahim notwithstanding Respondent's argument the appeal was an abuse of process and should be dismissed for reasons including that the Appellant had not completed 12 months as a registered Accession State national).

Melka v Tower Hamlets LBC, Bow County Court, 7 July 2008, Legal Action December 2008 (homelessness - local connection - there was no rule that interim accommodation out of the borough can never constitute a period of normal residence of the Appellant's own choice for the purposes of the local connection provisions).

Payne v Kingston RLBC, Central London Civil Justice Centre, 3 January 2008, Legal Action March 2008 (homelessness - priority need - failure to give a reasoned assessment of the impact of drug abuse on the appellant's vulnerability).

Publications

Maya has published in The Legal Executive Journal, the New Law Journal, the Times Educational Supplement and in the journal Multicultural Education.

Training

Maya has delivered training for solicitors on human rights and housing, homelessness, eligibility and possession as well as delivering training for the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants on freedom of movement of persons in the EEA.

Professional Associations

• Housing Law Practitioners' Association
• Legal Action Group
• Amnesty International

Profile updated January 2012

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