R v Wandsworth London Borough Council and Another, ex parte Wingrove ; R v Same, ex parte Mansoor
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE MASTER OF THE ROLLS,LORD JUSTICE EVANS,LORD JUSTICE WARD |
| Judgment Date | 21 May 1996 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1996] EWCA Civ J0521-12 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Docket Number | QBCOF 95/0501/D |
| Date | 21 May 1996 |
[1996] EWCA Civ J0521-12
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
(SIR LOUIS-BLOM COOPER QC)
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London WC2
The Master of the Rolls
(Sir Thomas Bingham)
Lord Justice Evans
Lord Justice Ward
QBCOF 95/0501/D
QBCOF 95/0502/D
MR D WATKINSON (Instructed by the Wandsworth Law Centre, London SW11) appeared on behalf of the Appellant/Mansoor.
MR R LATHAM (Instructed by the Wandsworth Law Centre, London, SW11) appeared on behalf of the Appellant/Wingrove.
MR P GROUND QC and MR G STEPHENSON (Instructed by the London Borough of Wandsworth Legal Department) appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
MISS A ROBINSON (Instructed by the Treasury Solicitor, London, SW1H 9JS) appeared on behalf of the Secretary of State.
Common to these two appeals is an issue of law which may be simply stated: may a local authority discharge its duty under section 65(2) of the Housing Act 1985 (as amended) to a person unintentionally homeless and in priority need by securing the offer of an assured shorthold tenancy of suitable premises?
At different times these appellants, Mr Wingrove and Mr Mansoor, applied to the London Borough of Wandsworth ("the local authority") for accommodation on the ground that they were homeless. The local authority made inquiries in accordance with section 62 of the 1985 Act. Since it had reason to believe that Mr Wingrove and Mr Mansoor might be homeless and have a priority need it secured that accommodation was made available for their occupation in accordance with section 63 of the Act pending a decision as a result of its inquiries. In each case the local authority was satisfied that the applicant was homeless and that he had a priority need and was not satisfied that he had become homeless intentionally, and accordingly it became obliged by section 65(2) of the Act to secure that accommodation became available for his occupation.
In due course both Mr Wingrove and Mr Mansoor were, at the instance of the local authority, offered assured shorthold tenancies of premises suitable, so far as size and location were concerned, for occupation by them and their respective families. Mr Wingrove refused the offer. Mr Mansoor accepted. But both sought judicial review of the relevant decisions of the local authority, contending that the assured shorthold tenancies respectively offered lacked the degree of permanence or the quality of indefinite duration which section 65(2) required.
In a long and careful judgment (also covering other applications raising the same challenge) Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC, sitting as a deputy judge of the Queen's Bench Division, rejected the applications of Mr Wingrove and Mr Mansoor. He held that an assured shorthold tenancy combined with a reasonable prospect of renewal of the tenancy could be (and in each of these cases was) a discharge of the local authority's duty under section 65(2). The appellants criticise that conclusion, repeating their contentions already mentioned. But since the deputy judge gave judgment, the House of Lords has given a decision which, if the local authority and the Secretary of State are right, has an important bearing on the issue. I refer to the decision in R v Brent London Borough Council ex parte Awua [1996] 1 AC 55.
The facts relating to Mr Wingrove's application were summarised by the deputy judge and his summary has not been the subject of any criticism.
On 11 November 1992 Mr Wingrove, who is now aged 45 and unemployed, was notified by the local authority that it had decided that he was unintentionally homeless and in priority need. Mr Wingrove was at that time on income support and in receipt of housing benefit. He was living in temporary accommodation made available for him by the local authority. With him lived his son, who had been born on 31 July 1975 and was then aged 17 and in full-time education.
On 6 October 1994 Mr Wingrove was offered accommodation in Croydon, outside the local authority's area. The property offered was a two-bedroomed maisonette on two floors owned by a Mr and Mrs Mohsen Mdaoukhi. The offer was of an assured shorthold tenancy of twelve months at a rent of £190 per week. The landlord was offering to insert into the tenancy agreement a provision that at the expiry of the fixed term the tenancy should be renewable thereafter. Mr Wingrove made arrangements to meet the owners of the property and to view it. After an abortive attempt to gain entry when the keys were unavailable, Mr Wingrove had a conversation with Mrs Mdaoukhi in which he sought reassurance about the renewability of the tenancy at the end of the twelve month period. In the course of conversation Mrs Mdaoukhi told Mr Wingrove that her husband fully intended renewing the lease after a year, but went on to qualify this statement by observing that they did not know what could happen in a year's time.
Mr Wingrove was concerned about his future housing and told the local authority that he rejected the offer on the ground that it was in the private sector and "the only way to guarantee that I will not become homeless is to have a Council property in the Borough of Wandsworth". On 22 December 1994 Mr Mdaoukhi wrote to the local authority asserting that he would renew the assured shorthold tenancy agreement if Mr Wingrove kept to the terms and conditions indicated in it.
It was the policy of the local authority to make only one offer of accommodation, and by this time the deadline for accepting or rejecting the local authority's offer had passed. On 10 November 1994, the date upon which the deadline expired, Mr Wingrove had applied for leave to move for judicial renew. Leave to move was granted by May J on 17 November 1994, by which date (as the deputy judge held) Mr Wingrove was "probably no longer…in priority need, since his son would have attained the age of 18".
Having concluded that an assured shorthold tenancy for twelve months with a reasonable prospect of renewal thereafter could qualify as a discharge of the local authority's housing duty under section 65(2), the deputy judge rejected Mr Wingrove's application.
II
The facts relating to Mr Mansoor were again very helpfully summarised by the deputy judge.
Mr Mansoor is a citizen of Pakistan. Having (as he claims) been the subject of religious persecution in Pakistan, Mr Mansoor and his family went to Nigeria in 1985 and he worked there in a senior capacity until December 1992. His contract of employment then came to an end and his Nigerian visa expired. On 18 December 1992 Mr Mansoor, with his wife and five children (four daughters now aged 18,16,14 and 11 and one son now aged 15) came to this country. The family spent the weekend with Mr Mansoor's sister, and on Monday 21 December 1992 he applied to the local authority for accommodation for his homeless family. The family were placed in temporary accommodation in Tooting. On 16 February 1993 the local authority acknowledged its statutory duty to secure that accommodation was made available for him and his family under section 65(2) of the Act.
On 26 January 1994, after withdrawal of an earlier offer, the local authority wrote to Mr Mansoor offering accommodation at 94 Pretoria Road, London SW16. The accommodation offered was a four-bedroomed house with a garden in the Streatham area. The assured shorthold tenancy agreement offered was for a term of eighteen months from 24 January 1994 at a weekly rent of £250, and included a term that "Provided that both landlord and tenant are agreed the tenancy will be renewed at the date of expiry of this tenancy". The family moved into the house on 8 February 1994. Before this the landlord had given an undertaking that "A clause will be inserted into the tenancy agreement to the effect that the tenancy will be for a minimum of eighteen months and will be renewable thereafter".
Mr Mansoor's application for judicial review was directed towards a letter written by the local authority on 22 July 1994, after Mr Mansoor and his family had moved into these premises. The letter was written in response to a letter written by the Wandsworth Law Centre on behalf of Mr Mansoor and replied in some detail to various points made by the law centre. Part of the local authority's letter was concerned with the educational arrangements for Mr Mansoor's children, a question which was once but is no longer an issue in these proceedings. Relevantly for present purposes, the local authority contended that it had discharged its duty under section 65(2) of the Act by offering to Mr Mansoor an assured shorthold tenancy where it was satisfied that a landlord would renew the tenancy at the end of the minimum period specified in the tenancy agreement for a reasonable duration. As in the case of Mr Wingrove, the deputy judge accepted the local authority's contention and he accordingly made no order on Mr Mansoor's application.
III
The duties imposed on local authorities by the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 and Part III of the Housing Act 1985 depend on the interaction of various factors, none of them esoteric or complex. The first such factor is homelessness (with which, for obvious reasons, the threat of homelessness is closely assimilated). A person is homeless if he has no reasonable accommodation (1977, section 1 ; 1985, section 58 as amended). A person is threatened with homelessness if he is likely to become homeless within 28 days (1977, section 1(3)...
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