Supreme Court reserves judgment in homelessness case on benefits and rent shortfalls

The Supreme Court has reserved judgment in a case over whether a local authority was entitled to treat the appellant as intentionally homeless on the basis that part of her income from subsistence benefits was available to meet the shortfall between her contractual rent and the housing benefit awarded to her.

Also at issue in Samuels v Birmingham City Council was whether sufficient reasons were given for this decision.

The background to the case was that the appellant, Terryanne Samuels, was the tenant of a house at 18 Dagger Lane from November 2010 to July 2011, when her tenancy was terminated due to rent arrears.

She was in receipt of benefits, including housing benefit, which did not cover her actual rent, but left her with a monthly shortfall.

The appellant, who has four children, made a homelessness application to the respondent housing authority but was judged to have become homeless intentionally, because her house was affordable.

Ms Samuels appealed, claiming that Birmingham had failed to follow the relevant guidance and had not given adequate reasons for the conclusion that there was sufficient flexibility in her income from benefits to fund the weekly shortfall in rent.

She lost in both the County Court and the Court of Appeal.

The case was heard this week (31 January) by a panel understood to have comprised Lady Hale, Lord Carnwath, Lady Black, Lord Lloyd-Jones and Lord Kitchin.

Shelter and Child Poverty Action Group intervened. Before the hearing Child Poverty Action Group’s Head of Strategic Litigation Carla Clarke said: “The question in this case is whether it is right and lawful to force tenants to spend money intended for their most basic daily living needs such as food and heating on rent, because housing benefit has been eviscerated while rents continue to rise. We say it is not. No mother should have to see her children go short of essentials in order to pay the rent.”