On the Beach: Intentional Homelessness and Temporary Accommodation

Public Law and Judicial Review, Local Government, Housing

In Beach v South Hams District Council, the Court of Appeal has once again considered the circumstances in which a person can be considered intentionally homeless from temporary accommodation arranged by the local housing authority.

The Court reaffirmed that decisions about housing the homeless need to be made in the real world, and, in a finding that will be welcome to hard-pressed local authorities, rejected the Appellant’s proposition that hotel accommodation is never “reasonable to continue to occupy”.

Background to the Case

The Appellant, Mr Beach, has six children with his ex-wife, with whom he has a turbulent relationship. He applied as homeless and the local authority accepted that three of the children were reasonably to be expected to reside with him at that time, and the main housing duty was accepted.

The Council arranged temporary accommodation for him, which he declined, instead living with his ex-wife; they made a further offer after he returned after again splitting up with her. He came and went over the next few months until the Police found him living with some of the children in a shipping container, at which time social services decided that the children should reside with their mother.

When Mr Beach again requested temporary accommodation, then, he was alone. The Respondent local authority offered him a hotel room which he could have occupied indefinitely.

Events Leading to the Council’s Decision

He did not initially move into the room and complained that it would not accept dogs (not having previously told the local authority he wanted accommodation that accepted dogs). The local authority terminated the booking although Mr Beach did occupy the room for one night.

The Council decided that enough was enough and discharged duty to Mr Beach, saying that he was intentionally homeless because of his breach of the terms of the accommodation booked for him.

He appealed first to the County Court, unsuccessfully, and then to the Court of Appeal.

He initially argued that no hotel accommodation can be considered “reasonable to continue to occupy”. He abandoned this extreme position in oral submissions. He then argued that this hotel room was not “reasonable to continue to occupy” for him, because of its characteristics. The Court of Appeal gave this argument short shrift.

He also argued that the accommodation was not “available” for him with his children as it was a room for him alone. He argued that as the local authority had accepted that he was in priority need, because his children were reasonably to be expected to reside with him, any accommodation offered must also be available for them, even though they were then residing with their mother.

Court of Appeal Findings

The Court of Appeal in two substantive judgments found that this test, like the tests for suitability and reasonable to continue to occupy, has a temporal aspect. The duty to accommodate someone can be performed in different ways. The local housing authority can look at the circumstances on the day, when deciding what accommodation to offer.

Their findings can be summed up in three sentences from the judgment:

1. [77] the correct analysis is that the duty may continue unaltered, but the manner in which the duty can properly be performed may change as circumstances change.
2. [109] This [section 176] test must I think be applied each time that an offer of accommodation is made to an applicant, and it may produce a different answer at different times.
3. [110] So far as limb (b) is concerned, this would mean asking whether any other person could reasonably be expected to reside with the applicant in temporary accommodation.

These propositions led to the conclusion:

on the facts of the present case, given the advice from Children’s Services that it would be better for the children to reside with their mother for the time being, if one asks whether the children were “persons who might reasonably be expected to reside with” the applicant for the time being, the respondent could quite properly answer that No, even though it was accepted by the respondent that they might reasonably be expected to reside with him in the longer term.

The appeal was dismissed, although the Appellant is seeking permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. Read the full judgment here.

Catherine Rowlands appeared on behalf of the successful local authority.

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