The Court of Appeal’s judgment in Heald and others v LB Brent [2009] EWCA Civ 930 is just out concerning the outsourcing of s 202 Housing Act 1996 reviews by Brent to Minos Perdios’ company Housing Reviews Ltd. There have been a number of County Court judgments on this issue which have not necessarily been ad idem (see eg our post on Augustin v Barnet). The argument against contracting out has been twofold: first, councils have no power to contract out their reviews function under Part VII (and, by extension although not relevant in this case, Part VI) because it is not a “function” of the local authority within … Read the full post
Tag Archive for 'homelessness'
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DCLoG have put out supplementary guidance to local authorities on intentional homelessness in the context of applicants who face homelessness following difficulties with mortgage commitments. I suspect if you look hard enough, you’ll find it, but it’s not obvious on the DCLoG website (it wasn’t on the “what’s new” section, even though it came out today). It’s short and the key paras are 3-4 and 10-12. These are generally concerned with establishing that owner-occupiers deal with mortgage difficulties in different ways, and local authorities need to be sensitive to those without just a knee-jerk IH finding. There’s also the Birmingham v Ali decision to tie into/digest.
At para 10, the … Read the full post
Araya, R (on the application of) v Leeds City Council [2009] EWHC 1962 (Admin)
S.188 Housing Act 1996 accommodation, provided pending s.184 decision or s.202 review of a negative s.184 decision, must be ‘suitable’. This means that any accommodation to which a homeless applicant is transferred, must also be suitable. Araya, R (on the application of) v Leeds City Council [2009] EWHC 1962 (Admin) was a judicial review of just such a decision on to give notice on existing accommodation and offer an alternative place, which raises a couple of interesting points.
Ms Araya is a refugee from Eritrea, with two infant children and indefinite leave to remain. She applied … Read the full post
Abdullah v City of Westminster [2007] EWCA Civ 1566 is not a new case. In fact it is two years old, but the transcript of the Court of Appeal judgement has only just come out (and it isn’t on Bailii). So we’ll do a brief note.
The case was a second appeal from a s.204 appeal to a Circuit judge. There has indeed been a previous appeal, in which HHJ Collins had quashed a review decision and required a fresh decision. This appeal was from the second decision.
Mrs Abdullah was a refugee from Yemen. She was accommodated in Barnet but moved to Westminster (with Barnet’s encouragement) as there was … Read the full post
Not for the first time, I (and I suspect others) have been completely wrong-footed by Baroness Hale. It would be fair to say that the House of Lords judgment in the joined appeals in Birmingham v Ali and Moran v Manchester [2009] UKHL 36 has come as something of surprise. Unfortunately, its effects will be felt for a long time and it looks likely to initiate a whole new sub-category of litigation in homeless cases, the ‘are we there yet?’ claim. On the positive side, though, its effects on Women’s Refuges are helpful, largely removing the danger that a refuge place would be classed as accommodation in which it was … Read the full post
A full report on Birmingham v Ali and Moran v Manchester [2009] UKL 36 will follow in due course, but for those of you who simply can’t wait for your fix of House of Lords homelessness judgments, the headline is that both appeals are allowed to limited extents. For clarity, Birmingham v Ali is the Aweys v Birmingham appeal.
Baroness Hale, with whom their Lordships all agreed said that Birmingham can decide that a family is homeless because it is not reasonable to remain in their present accommodation indefinitely and to accommodate them for as long as it is suitable as short term accommodation. However, they can’t leave them there … Read the full post
News reaches us that the House of Lords opinions in the appeal of Aweys v Birmingham are to be handed down on 1 July (Court of Appeal report here). [Update, Moran v Manchester CC (our Court of Appeal report here) will also be handed down on the same day as the two were heard together]
We’ll have the decks cleared for those.
In the meantime, here’s a picture for the interlude. (Note to younger readers. There was a time, not that long ago, when there were only three TV channels and programmes didn’t start till lunchtime – and would sometimes then stop until tea. In the … Read the full post
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