On 27 April 2017 the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 received the Royal Assent.

It makes changes to the current homelessness legislation contained in Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 (“the 1996 Act”), and to the Homelessness (Suitability of Accommodation) (England) Order 2012. It places duties on local housing authorities to intervene at earlier stages to prevent homelessness and to take reasonable steps to help those who become homeless to secure accommodation. It requires local housing authorities to provide some new homelessness services to all people in their area and expands the categories of people who they have to help to find accommodation.

The Act introduces requirements for local housing authorities to carry out homelessness prevention work with all those who are eligible for help and threatened with homelessness. The Act changes the point at which a person is classed as being threatened with homelessness. The Act requires local housing authorities to carry out an assessment of the applicant’s needs, and set out the steps to be taken by both the local housing authority and the applicant in a written personalised plan. New duties are placed on local housing authorities to take steps to prevent and relieve homelessness by helping any eligible homeless applicant to retain or secure accommodation. A new duty is introduced which will be owed in cases where an applicant has deliberately and unreasonably refused to co-operate with local housing authorities. The Act specifies that specified public authorities refer those who are either homeless or at risk of being homeless to local housing authority housing teams. Provision is also made for certain care leavers, to make it easier for them to show they have a local connection with both the area of the local authority responsible for them and the area in which they lived while in care if that was different.

Part 3 of the Housing Act 2004 (“the Act”) provides for the selective licensing by local housing authorities of private sector housing in an area which may be as large as the whole of the local housing authority’s district. In general, where an area has been designated as subject to selective licensing no house in that area which has not been licensed may lawfully be occupied under a tenancy or licence. The issue in the appeals to the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) in Waltham Forest LBC v Khan (2017) UKUT 153 (LC) was whether a local housing authority which has designated an area as subject to selective licensing may have regard to the planning status of a house when considering an application for a Part 3 licence. Each appeal concerned converted flats created without the benefit of planning permission by the respondent, Mr Khan, who subsequently applied to the local housing authority for a Part 3 licence for those flats. In each case the London Borough of Waltham Forest granted a licence for a period of 1 year only with the intention that during that period the planning status of the flats should be regularised. In each case on appeal to the First-tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) (“the FTT”) the period of the licence was increased to 5 years on the grounds that the respondents’ compliance with planning requirements was irrelevant to the question of licensing. The local housing authority appealed against the FTT’s decisions. The appeals were allowed.  It was legitimate to have regard to planning status. Read more »

In R (XC) v Southwark LBC [2017] EWHC 736 (Admin) Garnham J held that the housing allocation scheme operated by the Council under Part VI of the Housing Act 1996 as amended is lawful.  The relative priorities included priority for working households who are making a contribution to the local economy.  The scheme is indirectly discriminatory, but the critical question is whether the discrimination is justified as being proportionate to achieving a legitimate objective.  The scheme has the legitimate aim it set out: the creation of sustainable and balanced communities and encouraging residents to make a contribution to the local community.  The priority “stars” have a rational connection to that objective.  The real question was whether the scheme is the least intrusive measure which could be used without unacceptably compromising the objective.  Garnham J concluded that, looking at the scheme as a whole, it was.  It involved discrimination in order to achieve the stated aims, which are authorised by primary legislation and follow statutory guidance.  Garnham J said, at paragraph 90: “Those who fall outside the groups given preference are, inevitably, exposed to a detriment.  But that is integral to any reasonable preference scheme”.  Nonetheless, two things must be shown: that the measure adopted is the least intrusive which could be used without unacceptably compromising the objective; and that a fair balance has been struck between securing the objective and its effect on the rights of the class of which the claimant is a member.  Garnham J said, at paragraph 97: “Here the Council has devised a scheme which seeks to address the needs of all the classes of applicant in its area.  It has made provision for those with priority need, for the homeless and the vulnerable, and for those who need to move on medical or welfare or hardship grounds. It is entitled, consistent with the Secretary of State’s Guidance, to favour those in work and those who volunteer”. Read more »

In Sheffield City Council v Oliver (2007) EWCA Civ 225 the local authority was unsuccessful in its appeal from an Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) decision concerning the funding of major refurbishment works to several blocks of flats of which it is the freeholder.  Most of the flats were let as social housing.  Some, including the respondent’s, were let on long leases. A service charge provision required the respondent to pay a reasonable part of the costs incurred by the local authority in repairing and improving the structure and exterior of her block. The cost of the refurbishment project was more than £11 million.  The local authority had received government funding of almost £3 million from a community energy programme.  However, only part of the estate, which included the block in which the respondent’s flat was situated, fell within the qualifying area. The local authority claimed some £4,400 of community funding for work done specifically to her property. However it decided to recoup the costs of the works from her through the service charge without deducting the sum received in funding.  It considered that the funding should be treated as a contribution to the project as a whole and allocated equally among all long leaseholders, not just among those who were strictly eligible.  The Upper Tribunal held that the service charge provision in the respondent’s lease did not permit that course; that each leaseholder had only to contribute to the cost of works on his own block, not to the estate as a whole, and that the respondent should be credited with the amount of funding attributable to her property. It concluded that the cost of the government-funded work had not been “incurred” by the local authority within the meaning of the lease.  The issue was whether, on a proper construction of the lease, the local authority had to give credit for the third-party funding. Read more »

In Nottingham City Council v Parr (2017) EWCA Civ 188 the Court of Appeal held that it was not unlawful to impose a licence condition restricting the occupation of a house in multiple occupation to full-time students. Although the licensing regime concerned the physical characteristics of the relevant property, the personal characteristics and activities of potential occupiers will often be relevant and require investigation in contexts connected both with HMOs and with housing standards generally.

In Turley v Wandsworth LBC [2017] EWCA Civ 189 the Court of Appeal held that a condition in the Housing Act 1985 s.87(b) which required, up until 1 April 2012, that the long-term partner of a secure tenant had to have resided with the secure tenant throughout the 12-month period prior to the secure tenant’s death in order to succeed them, was not manifestly without reasonable foundation.  Even if the situations of common law spouses and married or civil partnership spouses were analogous for the purpose of ECHR art. 14, the difference in treatment between them was justified and proportionate.

As regards justification, local authority secure tenancies are a valuable and limited resource. Although it has long been policy to grant a limited right of succession to family members for whom the property had also been their home, regard has also to be had to the interests of those on the waiting list and of local authorities in making best use of housing stock. It had therefore been policy to require a degree of permanence in the relevant relationship. That requirement was inherently satisfied in the case of spouses who had entered into a legal marriage or civil partnership. However, there was no such formal commitment in the case of a common law spouse or other family member of the kind defined in s.113. As part of that balance of interests, it was legitimate to seek to limit rights of succession to family members whose relationship was of a permanent character. It was also legitimate, subject to the issue of proportionality, to treat that requirement as sufficiently satisfied in the case of legal spouses, but not by other relationships which did not involve the same formal commitment. Read more »

The substantial issue on the appeal in Dove v Havering LBC [2017] EWCA Civ 156 related to whether the “tenant condition”, pursuant to Section 81 of the Housing Act 1985, was satisfied, in order for the tenancy to be a secure tenancy. The tenancy in this case was a joint tenancy. The first limb of the condition was satisfied because both tenants were individuals. The issue was whether at least one of them occupied the dwelling-house as her only or principal home at the time when the notice to quit would otherwise have taken effect.  Lewison LJ said:-

“17.    There is now a considerable body of learning on what amounts to occupation of a dwelling as an only or principal home. There are two parts to the question: (a) does the person in question occupy the dwelling as a home and (b) if so, does he or she occupy it as his or her only or principal home? Read more »

The purpose of introductory tenancies is to provide what the Housing Act 1996 refers to as a trial period in which the landlord may determine the tenancy without having to establish the grounds for possession required in the case of a secure tenancy. This gives a social landlord an opportunity to form a view about the suitability of the tenant against a background of historic anti-social behaviour without becoming subject to the restrictions imposed in respect of a secure tenancy. The trial period is normally one year but can be extended for a further six months: see ss.125 and 125A.

Although the statutory grounds for possession do not have to be satisfied, the tenant is given a measure of protection by s.128 of the Act which provides that:

“(1) The court shall not entertain proceedings for the possession of a dwelling-house let under an introductory tenancy unless the landlord has served on the tenant a notice of proceedings complying with this section. Read more »

In York City Council v Trinity One (Leeds) Ltd [2017] EWHC 318 (Ch) the claimant LPA sought payment from the respondent property developer pursuant to a s106 agreement to pay a sum of money in lieu of providing affordable housing.  The developer then applied to modify the s106 agreement by removing the affordable housing payment obligation.  The LPA dismissed that application. The dismissal was subject to appeal.  The Judge held that if the appeal was successful that would extinguish the payment liability with retrospective effect.

In R (Osman) v Harrow LBC [2017] EWHC 274 (Admin) the Claimant applied for judicial review of the decision of the Defendant to award the Claimant Band C priority for the purposes of the allocation of housing accommodation. The award was made in accordance with the Defendant’s amended housing scheme (the Amended Scheme) under Part VI of the Housing Act 1996 (the 1996 Act). The Claimant contended that the scheme as amended was unlawful, as is its application to the Claimant, on the grounds that it unlawfully discriminated against those in the private rented sector including the Claimant and her family by denying equivalent priority to those in the public sector contrary to Articles 8 and 14 of the ECHR. Accordingly the Amended Scheme did not secure that a reasonable preference was given to persons occupying overcrowded housing or otherwise living in unsatisfactory housing conditions including the Claimant and her family contrary to Section 166A(3) of the 1996 Act.

The application for judicial review was refused. The Judge concluded that the preference given to the Claimant’s group in the scheme banding was a reasonable preference for the purposes of Section 166A(3) of the 1996 Act, and pursued a legitimate aim and was proportionate for the purposes of the ECHR.