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How should a Local Housing Authority respond to a Homelessness application from a person from whom they had previously received such an application (17 March 2013)

Date: 17/03/2013
Duncan Lewis, Housing Solicitors, How should a Local Housing Authority respond to a Homelessness application from a person from whom they had previously received such an application

Despite a previous application for homelessness assistance, which has led to a discharge of duty, an applicant can nevertheless make a further application if there have been changes in their circumstances since the earlier/first application as known to the local authority. The subsequent application must not be identical to, or be made on exactly the same facts as the first. If the changes are sufficient, it must be considered a valid application under s183 Housing Act 1996. In making a valid application the local authority fall under a duty to investigate the applicant’s homelessness and discharge the appropriate duty towards them.

In R v London Borough of Harrow ex p Fahia [1998] 1 WLR 1396 a homeless applicant and her family were provided with temporary accommodation in a guesthouse. The Council later decided she was intentionally homeless and accommodated her for a further 42 days. She then arranged to stay in the guesthouse with housing benefit paying her rent. About a year later the amount of housing benefit she received was halved and she had to leave. She made a further application to Harrow, which they refused because, in their view, she was still intentionally homeless. The intervening period of accommodation in the guesthouse was deemed unsettled accommodation and as such did not break the causal link with the original reason for homelessness. The House of Lords rejected the council’s argument that an applicant must demonstrate a change in circumstances before a second application must be accepted. While an applicant must have the capacity to make an application and cannot reapply on exactly the same facts, those were very special cases where it was possible to say that there was no application before the authority. In the instant case Ms Fahia was relying on her eviction from the guesthouse, which was a new fact that had to be investigated.

In London Borough of Tower Hamlets v Begum [2005] EWCA Civ 340 the Court of Appeal endorsed the decision in Fahia but added that if the subsequent application purported to reveal new facts, which are, to the authority’s knowledge, and without further investigation, not new, fanciful, or trivial, then the application can be refused. The facts may not be new because they were taken into account when it offered the applicant accommodation to satisfy the earlier application. Pill LJ added that there might be some entitlement to inquire into the contents of the second application with a view to deciding whether a relevant new matter can realistically be asserted to be present. The extent of that entitlement will depend on the facts of the particular case and probably only extends to a confirmation of what the applicant has said in support of the further application.

Most recently in R (on the application of May) v Birmingham City Council [2012] EWHC 1399, Fahia and Begum were followed. It was held that it had been irrational for the local authority to take the view that the applicant’s circumstances upon making her further applications were exactly the same as when she first made an application as a homeless person. She had refused accommodation on the 12th floor of a tower block as being unsuitable but the original decision was upheld on review. The local authority went on to discharge duty. However, she went and stayed with her grandmother whilst awaiting an offer under the Council’s waiting list. The local authority had taken no issue with the applicant’s factual assertion that, after the local authority's decision that it had discharged its duty to her, an agreement had been reached for her to stay at her grandmother’s property pending the outcome of her application for housing on the local authority's ordinary waiting list, which was outside the context of homeless applications. Although the accommodation was temporary, the applicant did have a licence from her grandmother. However, there was an unexpected breakdown in their relationship, which led to her grandmother asking her to leave her home. This led to the further application. However Birmingham Council refused the application on the basis that there had been no relevant change in her circumstances. The breakdown in the relationship between the applicant and grandmother was an important change in the facts. The local authority’s decision was quashed.

IN SUMMARY

  1. It is for an applicant to identify, in the subsequent application, the facts which are said to render that application different from the earlier application

  2. if the subsequent application document purports to reveal new facts, which are, to the authority’s knowledge, and without further investigation, not new or trivial, then the authority should reject it as incompetent;

  3. where the subsequent application document appears to reveal new facts, which were, in light of the information then available to the authority, neither trivial nor fanciful, the authority must treat the subsequent application as a valid application.



Omur Clayton of Duncan Lewis is a Senior Solicitor & Housing Law Specialist.


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