Isse v Mayor and Burgesses of Wandsworth Borough Council
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Sir David Keene |
| Judgment Date | 14 May 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWCA Civ 1049 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 14 May 2013 |
| Docket Number | Case no: B4/2013/0259A |
[2013] EWCA Civ 1049
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM CENTRAL LONDON CIVIL JUSTICE CENTRE
(HER HONOUR JUDGE FABER)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2A 2LL
Sir David Keene
Case no: B4/2013/0259A
Mr Andrew Arden QC and Mr Toby Vanhegan (instructed by Croydon & Sutton Law Centre) appeared on behalf of the Applicant.
The Respondents did not appear and were not represented.
This is a renewed application for permission to appeal from the decision of HHJ Faber, sitting at Central London Civil Justice Centre, permission having been refused on the papers by Sullivan LJ.
By her decision dated 17 January 2013, the judge below dismissed the applicant's appeal against the decision of Wandsworth Borough Council that he was intentionally homeless, that appeal being brought under section 204 of the Housing Act 1996, which provides for a right of appeal to the County Court on a point of law following a review of its decision by the local housing authority.
That means that permission is now, strictly speaking, being sought for a second appeal, and that the provisions of section 55 of the Access to Justice Act 1999 and CPR 52.13 apply (see Azimi v London Borough of Newham [2001] 33 HLR 51). So permission is only to be granted if the appeal would raise an important point of principle or practice, or if there is some other compelling reason for the Court of Appeal to hear the appeal.
Nonetheless, there is some authority to which my attention has been drawn by counsel on behalf of the applicant for applying that test in "a somewhat more relaxed" way, when the first appeal was not from a judicial decision, that is to say a decision taken by a judge, but from the decision of a review officer, as is the case here (see the decision in Elirfy v Westminster City Council [2007] HLR 36).
The legal framework of the relevant part of the Housing Act 1996 is the statutory context for this case. It is well-known. There is a duty imposed by section 193 on a local authority to secure accommodation for a homeless person with a priority need if that person has not become homeless intentionally. The applicant in the present case was held by the respondent local authority to be homeless and in priority need, but it decided that he had made himself homeless intentionally. In such circumstances, of course, the duty on the local authority is a lesser one as set out in section 190.
The applicant sought a review by the Council of that decision, but he was unsuccessful. An appropriate officer of the Council upheld the original decision...
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