At the relevant time the claimant was a single mother living in London with her two daughters. She applied to her local housing authority for accommodation under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996. Accepting that it owed her the main housing duty under section 193(2) of the Act, the authority provided her with temporary accommodation in east London. Subsequently, by an offer letter headed “Offer of Accommodation to end Main Duty under Section 193(2) of the Housing Act 1996”, it made a private rented sector offer of accommodation in Derby. The claimant refused that offer on the basis that the accommodation was unsuitable, but she did not seek a review of the suitability of the accommodation within the 21-day statutory time limit. The authority sent no further letter stating that a decision had been made that the main housing duty had ended. However, it subsequently sent a letter advising the claimant that she was being asked to leave her temporary accommodation. The claimant’s solicitors asked the authority, inter alia, to accept a review of the suitability of the accommodation out of time but the authority refused the review request. The claimant sought judicial review contending, inter alia, that (i) the requirements under section 193(7AA) for ending the main housing duty upon the claimant’s refusal of an offer of accommodation were not met as a matter of law, since the authority had failed to notify the claimant of the matters set out in section 193(7AB), specifically the requirement to set out the effect under section 195A of a further application to a local housing authority within two years of acceptance of the offer; and, moreover (ii) the authority had not in fact made a decision that the duty had ended. The authority did not dispute the failure to comply with the notification requirements but asserted that the judicial review claim was out of time because, for that purpose, time began to run from the date of any decision that the duty ceased to be owed or, alternatively, from the date of the claimant’s refusal of the offer of accommodation which caused the duty to end automatically without the need for anything more from the authority.
On the claim for judicial review—
Held claim allowed. The scheme of the Housing Act 1996 was that once a local housing authority accepted the main duty under section 193, that duty only ceased to be owed or came to an “end” in certain prescribed ways set out in that section. Those carefully articulated pathways to ending the main duty could not be ignored or trivialised and, in order to end the duty, the statutory requirements had to be complied with. Where an offer of accommodation not valid, because it was not in accordance with the statutory requirements, the main housing duty did not come to an end under section 193(7AA) by reason of that offer and thus continued. Moreover, for there to be a valid ending of the main duty pursuant to section 193(7AA) there had to be a decision by the authority that the main duty ceased to be owed, albeit there was no requirement to notify the housing applicant of that decision. For that purpose, the authority had to reach an evaluative conclusion on whether the main duty that it owed to an individual had ended by one of the prescribed statutory routes, which decision could be subject to review and, indeed, further legal challenge if it was legally erroneous. The authority could not proceed to act as if the main duty were ended without making a decision that it had in fact come to an end and, in the absence of any decision or action by the authority following offer, the duty would not end automatically. On the facts of the present case, there had been no decision of the requisite kind. In particular, the terms of the offer letter itself, including its heading, could not be regarded as such a decision because, read in context, that letter indicated an offer made with a view to ending the main duty, as distinct from actually ending it. Such a “prospective intention” that the duty would end on the occurrence of certain future events was not the same as a decision that the duty had ceased to be owed, for which purpose there needed to be an assessment of whether the conditions set out in the statute for discharge of duty had in fact been satisfied, whereas at the date of the offer letter the authority could not have known whether future events would meet the statutory ending conditions. Further and in any event, since the offer letter was not legally valid, because it did not inform the claimant of the matters in section 193(7AB), it did nothing objectively that succeeded in ending the main duty that the authority owed to the claimant. Similarly, the terms of the authority’s letter refusing a review, being primarily about whether there had been a valid request for review and refusing temporary accommodation pending review, did not purport to be a decision ending the main duty under section 193(2). The original offer being legally defective, and in the absence of any decision by the authority about whether the main housing duty had come to an end, the effect in law was that the duty continued to be owed to the claimant (paras 45, 4, 49, 51, 55, 63, 65, 68–71, 73–76, 81–85).
Per curiam. Issuing a decision letter stating that the main housing duty has come to an end and explaining the basis for that decision makes evident good administrative sense and does not create an onerous burden on a local housing authority, instead doing the opposite by providing structure, transparency and order. Nevertheless, the critical thing is for the authority to reflect on the actions of the housing applicant and to decide, in light of their election, whether the conditions stipulated in the statutory ending pathway chosen by the authority have been met and the main duty under section 192(2) has therefore come to an end (para 91).
Adrian Marshall Williams (instructed by Edwards Duthie Shamash Solicitors) for the claimant.
Michael Mullin (instructed by Director of Legal Services, London Borough of Waltham Forest) for the local housing authority.