Crawley Borough Council v B
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 22 February 2000 |
| Date | 22 February 2000 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
COURT OF APPEAL
Before Sir Richard Scott, Vice-Chancellor, Lord Justice Chadwick and Lord Justice Buxton
Housing - homelessness - housing authority can revisit its decision
A decision under the Housing Act 1996 as to whether an applicant was in priority need of housing or whether she was intentionally homeless were questions of public law.
Accordingly, once a decision had been taken and notified to the applicant, the housing authority were permitted to revisit their conclusion.
Where the applicant appealed the authority's decision to the county court, the question for the court was whether the whole circumstances of the case were such as to justify any, and if so what, relief in public law. A new ground for refusing the applicant accommodation should only be ignored if it could be faulted on public law grounds.
The Court of Appeal so stated allowing an appeal by Crawley Borough Council against an order of Judge Anthony sitting at Horsham County Court by which he held that Crawley were under a duty to house Ms B under section 193(2) of the 1996 Act.
The court requested that Ms B be not identified "in order to protect the legitimate interests of the children indirectly involved".
Mr Andrew Arden, QC and Mr William Okoya for Crawley; Mr Anthony Mann, QC and Mr Adrian Jack for Ms B.
LORD JUSTICE BUXTON said Ms B, who was threatened with homelessness, applied for assistance to Crawley Borough Council under section 183 of the 1996 Act.
On August 17, 1998 the council notified her pursuant to section 184(3) that as she had no dependent children living with her she was not in priority need of housing, accordingly the council had no duty to find her accommodation.
On January 14, 1999, the council issued a further section 184 letter accepting that Ms B had a priority need for accommodation but that they were still under no duty to provide her with accommodation because she was intentionally homeless.
On Ms B's appeal to the county court pursuant to section 204, the court accepted her contention that the decision of August 17 had been unreasonable and that once the decision had been taken, it was not open to the authority to seek to reinforce it on grounds not originally considered by them or notified to her.
Crawley appealed that judgment on the basis that the 1996 Act permitted "slicing", namely the consideration of the issues of priority need and intentionality sequentially...
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