| LOCAL GOVERNMENT — Homeless persons — Whether “homeless intentionally” —Women occupying women’s refuge evicted for misconduct — Whether refuge “accommodation” — Whether “reasonable … to continue to occupy” refuge — Whether local authority owing housing duty — Housing Act 1996, ss175(1)(3), 191(1)
Moran v Manchester City Council; Richards v Ipswich Borough Council [2008] EWCA Civ 378; [2008] WLR (D) 112
CA: Sir Anthony Clarke MR, Tuckey and Wilson LJJ: 17 April 2008
A women’s refuge was accommodation which, having regard to various factors, it could be reasonable for women to continue to occupy.
The Court of Appeal so held in a reserved judgment, (i) allowing an appeal by the defendant, Manchester City Council, from the decision of Mr Recorder Rigby in the Manchester County Court on 16 May 2007 that the council should reconsider its decision that the claimant, Sharon Moran, was homeless intentionally; and (ii) dismissing an appeal by claimant Rosemary Richards from the decision of Judge Holt in the Ipswich County Court on 2 April 2007 that the defendant, Ipswich Borough Council, no longer owed her a housing duty under s 193 of the Housing Act 1996 because she had become intentionally homeless.
The claimants had been made homeless unintentionally when they fled from domestic violence at home. They occupied a women’s refuge, but were evicted as a result of their misconduct.
WILSON LJ said that by ss 175 and 191 of the 1996 Act a woman was homeless if she did not have a place which could be described as accommodation or if her accommodation was not such that it would be reasonable for her to continue to occupy. His Lordship rejected the claimants’ submissions that a woman’s refuge could not be described as accommodation for the purposes of the 1996 Act. R v Ealing London Borough Council, Ex p Sidhu (1982) 80 LGR 534, to the contrary effect, was wrong. It was inconsistent with R v Hillingdon London Borough Council, Ex p Puhlhofer [1986] AC 484 and R v Brent London Borough Council, Ex p Awua [1996] 1 AC 55. It was founded in part on a dictum of Lord Lowry in Din v Wandsworth London Borough Council [1983] AC 657 which was doubted in Ex p Awua. His Lordship also rejected the claimants’ submission that it could not be reasonable, for the purposes of the Act, for a woman to continue to occupy a refuge. Where the enquiry was whether it would be, or would have been, reasonable for a woman to continue to occupy a refuge as opposed to other accommodation, particular matters fell to be considered in addition to the general matters to be considered in any enquiry under s 175(3) or s 191(1) of the Act. The general matters included: (a) the size, type and quality of the accommodation made available to the woman, including the extent of her need to share its facilities; (b) the terms of the agreement by which it was made available to her; (c) her ability to afford it; (d) the appropriateness of its location for her and her child (if any); (e) the extent of its facilities for her child; (f) its appropriateness for her and her child in the light of any particular characteristics (including as to health) which each might have; (g) the length of time for which they have already occupied it; (h) the state of their physical and emotional health while in occupation of it; and (i) the length of time for which, unless accepted as homeless, they might expect to continue to occupy it. The particular matters which additionally fell to be considered where the accommodation was a refuge included: (a) the nature of the refuge; (b) the scale of support which the refuge aspired to provide to the woman; (c) in particular, whether reflected in the terms of the licence agreement, in its published material or otherwise, the length of the period for which the refuge expects her to remain in occupation of it; (d) the length of the period for which women generally occupied it; (e) the extent to which, during her occupation, the refuge has been full; (f) any evidence that her occupation may have prevented, and in particular the extent of the risk that any continued occupation on her part might in the future prevent, the refuge from offering accommodation to another victim of domestic violence in an emergency; (g) the extent to which the conditions of the licence agreement by way, for example, of the prohibition of visitors or of dissemination of the address of the refuge, make it reasonable or otherwise for her, in the light of the length of her occupation to date, to continue to occupy it; and (h) the extent of her need, and of her ability to accept, such physical and emotional support as the refuge might offer to her. While the approach of the reviewing officers in the present cases had not run along those lines, they could not reasonably have reached any different conclusion and their determinations were not invalidated.
SIR ANTHONY CLARKE MR and TUCKEY LJ agreed.
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