When a homeless person applies to a local housing authority (‘LHA’) for accommodation one thing the LHA needs to decide is whether the applicant has become homeless intentionally. That may be the case if the applicant was evicted from their ‘last settled accommodation’ for non-payment of rent which was ‘affordable’ for them. Affordability depends on whether the applicant would have been able both to pay the rent and meet their ‘reasonable living expenses’. In this case the LHA decided that both could have been done. The question raised by this appeal is whether that affordability decision was unlawful because it was based on an irrational approach to the assessment of the applicant’s reasonable living expenses.
Judges:
Lord Justice Peter Jackson
Lady Justice Asplin
And
Lord Justice Warby
Citations:
[2022] EWCA Civ 888
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Housing
Updated: 17 July 2022; Ref: scu.678751