London boroughs win out-of-borough housing claim at CoA

Two London boroughs have won in the Court of Appeal over challenges to their policies on out-of-borough accommodation placements for homeless people.

In the Court Of Appeal, Lewison LJ said councils were not obliged to “scour every estate agent’s window” when seeking accommodation to offer. He upheld an earlier decision in favour of Westminster City Council and overturned a finding against the London Borough of Brent.

Both cases concerned the lawfulness of the decisions and processes used by the councils to make accommodation offers outside their areas. HHJ Saggerson had upheld Westminster’s case when Amounah Adam challenged it in the High Court, but allowed a claim by Abdelrahim Alibkhiet against Brent.

In the Westminster case, the council’s policy was to place applicants in three bands with those in the third normally offered accommodation outside London.  Ms Adam was offered a home in Worcester Park, on the south-west fringe of the capital and not near to Westminster.

Lewison LJ upheld HHJ Saggerson’s ruling that Westminster was able to make the offer and need not have waited until a home in or nearer the borough became available.

The judge said: “If a housing authority decides to discharge its full housing duty by making a private rented sector offer, I do not consider that it must wait in the Micawberish hope that ‘something will turn up’.

“It follows, in my judgment, that Westminster discharged its duty by inquiring what suitable accommodation was available at the time at which it made its offer.”

Mr Alibkhiet is an Eritrean who in 2014 gained leave to remain in the UK and was later joined by his wife and daughter. He was offered a flat in Smethwick, due to the lack of affordable housing in London, but objected that this would be far from his support networks.

It emerged that a flat was though available in nearby Acton and HHJ Saggerson upheld his appeal against Brent’s decision on “a total absence [of] explanation as to why on the date of the offer the Acton property … was not a property that was offered to this family”.

Lewison LJ said: “In my judgment, although the decision letter could have been better expressed, that was enough to amount to a lawful decision, made in accordance with the policy. Brent therefore succeeds on its ground of appeal.”
Mr Alibkhiet was, in any event, not entitled to the Acton property as “he did not fall into any group entitled to priority for a placement within Greater London”.

He then turned to the decision to offer accommodation in Smethwick. The judge said that once London and the south east were eliminated for reasons of housing pressure, the West Midlands appeared the next available pool of supply.

The judge said: “It is, I suppose, theoretically possible that Brent might have been able to find somewhere in East Anglia or the East Midlands that was closer to Brent than Birmingham as the crow flies; but that places an onerous burden on a housing authority…Brent was not required to scour every estate agent's window between Brent and Birmingham.”