The applicant was heavily pregnant when she was offered a first floor one bedroomed flat. She rejected it.
Held: When a housing authority reviewed its decision on the applicant’s decision not to accept the accommodation offered, that review had two stages. Was the accommodation offered suitable, and, secondly, was the applicant’s rejection of the offer reasonable. The authority’s appeal was rejected.
Ward LJ described the decision-maker’s task: ‘In judging whether it was unreasonable to refuse such an offer, the decision-maker must have regard to all the personal characteristics of the applicant, her needs, her hopes and her fears and then taking account of those individual aspects, the subjective factors, ask whether it is reasonable, an objective test, for the applicant to accept. The test is whether a right-thinking local housing authority would conclude that it was reasonable that this applicant should have accepted the offer of this accommodation.’
Judges:
Lord Justice Ward, Sir Martin Nourse, The Right Honourable Sir Charles Mantell
Citations:
[2006] EWCA Civ 394, Times 03-May-2006, [2006] HLR 37
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Regina v Brent London Borough Council Ex Parte Awua HL 6-Jul-1995
The term ‘Accommodation’ in the Act was to be read to include short term lettings, and was not to be restricted to secure accommodation, and the loss of such accommodation can be counted as intentional homelessness. If a person who had been provided . .
Cited – London Borough of Tower Hamlets v Deugi CA 7-Mar-2006
The court considered whether a successful appeal against a local authority’s decision on the need for emergency housing should lead to the case being remitted to them for a further review. May LJ defined the question to be: ‘whether there was any . .
Cited – The Mayor and Burgesses of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets v Rahanara Begum CA 11-Feb-2005
The applicant sought housing as a homeless person. Temporary accommodation was provided, and an offer of permanent accommodation was made but rejected. The council then sought possession of the temporary accommodation. The applicant responded that . .
Cited – Wilson-Webb v The Kensington and Chelsea RLBC 16-Jun-1998
(County Court) . .
Cited – Warsame and Warsame v London Borough of Hounslow CA 25-Jun-1999
The appellants refused the authority’s offer of accommodation under Part VI of the 1996 Act, saying it was not suitable. After the authority had informed them that if they did not accept the offer, the authority’s duty to house them would cease, . .
Cited – London Borough of Newham v Khatun, Zeb and Iqbal CA 24-Feb-2004
The council made offers of accommodation which were rejected as inappropriate by the proposed tenants.
Held: The council was given a responsibility to act reasonably. It was for them, not the court to make that assessment subject only to . .
Cited – Crawley Borough Council v Bliss CA 22-Feb-2000
A local authority refused the applicants application for emergency housing as a homeless person. On the review of that decision the authority concluded that she did have priority need, but then decided that the application should be refused because . .
Cited by:
Cited – Ravichandran and Another v London Borough of Lewisham CA 2-Jul-2010
The claimant appealed against an order confirming a review of the decision that the local authority owed no futher duty to her under section 193. She had rejected the house offered as unsuitable for medical reasons.
Held: The tenant’s appeal . .
Cited – Poshteh v Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea SC 10-May-2017
The appellant, applying for housing as a homeless person, had rejected the final property offered on the basis that its resemblance to the conditions of incarceration in Iran, from which she had fled, would continue and indeed the mental . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Housing
Updated: 03 August 2022; Ref: scu.241955