What was in issue in the intentional homelessness case of R (IVORY) v WELWYN HATFIELD BC (2025) EWCA Civ 21 was whether the Council was justified in declining to accept an application under Section 183 of the Housing Act 1996 (the 1996 Act). The application was rejected on the ground that it was based on the same facts as a previous application.
Between them, Sections 183 and 184 of the 1996 Act impose on a local housing authority, in apparently unqualified terms, an obligation to make inquiries where it has reason to believe that a person who has applied for assistance “may be homeless or threatened with homelessness”. An authority may, in consequence, have to make the inquiries to which Section 184 refers in relation to successive applications. The fact that the authority has previously rejected an application from the same applicant will not necessarily, or even usually, excuse it from that duty.
On the basis of comparison, Newey LJ said, at para 43:-
“It seems to me that when determining whether a new application can be rejected as based on the same facts as a previous one:
(i) The primary concern is with facts rather than evidence;
(ii) The facts now alleged fall to be compared with the facts as they were found to be on the earlier application;
(iii) Allegations and facts which are trivial or fanciful can, however, be disregarded;
(iv) Where the later application simply repeats an earlier, rejected allegation of fact and is not supported by any new evidence of any significance at all, the fact alleged will be a “new fact but the local housing authority will be entitled to dismiss the allegation as fanciful. To that extent, the question whether there is fresh evidence (and, if so, of what it consists) may be relevant”.
Males LJ, however, said:-
“63. I agree that this claim for judicial review should succeed and that the Council’s decision to reject Ms Ivory’s application should be quashed. I do so, save in one respect, for the reasons given by Lord Justice Newey.
- The point on which I would take a different approach concerns the nature of the comparison to be carried out in order to decide whether a new application must be accepted. Lord Justice Newey says that the relevant comparison is between the facts now alleged and the facts as they were found to be on the earlier application (see [43(ii)] above). In my view the relevant comparisons is between the new application and the earlier application. If the two applications are the same, the later application need not be accepted.”
Phillips LJ said:-
“110. As for the comparison exercise involved in determining whether a further application is a fresh application which must be admitted, I agree with Males LJ that the facts of the further application should be compared with the facts alleged in the previous application as at the date it was determined. Regarding facts as “new” even though they were previously alleged and rejected would, in my judgment, introduce an artificiality in an exercise which should be straightforward to understand and carry out, and would require a further potentially artificial solution by regarding a “new” previously alleged and rejected fact as “fanciful”, even though it may be far from it. I agree with Males LJ, for the reasons he gives, that he authorities do not require us to adopt that approach.
- I would add that, despite the difference in the routes they take, Newey LJ and Males LJ appear to arrive at the same destination. Put simply, they both recognise that a further application must be accepted if either (i) it is based on a factual assertion which has not previously been made and which is not trivial or fanciful; or (ii) it adduces significant fresh evidence in support of a previously made factual assertion, whether or not rejected. That appears to be an appropriately straightforward test for a housing authority to apply.”