Amandeep Bains
Duncan Lewis Solicitors is set to represent a client in a significant judicial review case, challenging a Council’s refusal to consider a fresh homelessness application from our client. The case will be heard in the Court of Appeal in late November 2024, following permission granted on April 25, 2024. Given the potential national impact on homelessness applications, the case could ultimately be considered by the Supreme Court.
Case Summary
The judicial review challenges a Council’s decision to reject a new homelessness application from our client. The claim concerns a short, but important issue: whether an expert report can qualify as a “new fact” that entitles a homeless applicant to make a fresh application for homelessness assistance, and whether a local authority may refuse to accept a fresh homelessness application if it includes new facts that could or should have been introduced earlier. There is currently no authority directly addressing this latter point.
The outcome could significantly impact homeless applicants nationwide, as it may impact how local authorities exercise their homelessness functions and respond to new evidence in homelessness applications.
Case Background
Our Client made her first homelessness application to the Respondent Council in May 2020 and was placed in temporary accommodation under section 188(1) of the Housing Act 1996. Despite being eligible for assistance and in priority need, the Council determined on 18 August 2020, that she was intentionally homeless, denying her permanent housing.
Following this decision, our Client requested a review under section 202 of the Act. The Respondent provided temporary accommodation pending the review under s188 (3). After two reviews and subsequent appeals, a third review by the Council on January 27 2023 upheld the intentional homelessness finding, citing our client’s actions dating back to 2015.
In response, an expert consultant psychiatrist assessed our Client and issued a report on 26 April 2023, concluding that our Client was disabled under the Equality Act 2010 and had been suffering from these issues since late 2015. Despite this new evidence, the Council dismissed the expert report and refused our Client’s second application for homelessness assistance on 4 September 2023.
Our client appealed the third review decision, which was heard and dismissed on 3 August 2023. She then made a second application for homelessness assistance. On this occasion, she provided the expert report which had not been previously considered because it post-dated the third review decision. Despite this new evidence, the Council dismissed the expert report and refused our Client’s second application for homelessness assistance on 4 September 2023.
The Council refused to accept the second application because the Review Officer found no new facts that were not known about at the time of the previous decision; if there were new facts, that they were trivial; and, in any event, it did not change their previous decision.
Legal Proceedings
The refusal to accept the second application was challenged through Judicial Review on 2 October 2023, where the High Court denied permission for the claim. An application for an oral reconsideration was also refused on 21 November 2023.
On 27 November 2023, the decision to refuse permission was appealed to the Court of Appeal on the basis that the court: was wrong to find that the expert report did not constitute a new fact for the purposes of a fresh homelessness application, was wrong to apply a rationality test to assess the Respondent’s decision, and did not address a crucial part of the Client’s Ground 1 argument, namely that the Respondent acted unlawfully by making enquiries into the expert report to determine whether it qualified as a new fact.
Court of Appeal
On 24 April 2024, Lord Justice Newey granted our Client permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal. This appeal will address several legal points:
- Whether an expert report can be a “new fact” which entitles a homeless applicant to make a fresh application for homelessness assistance.
- Whether local authorities can refuse to accept fresh homelessness applications, even the application raises a new fact.
The case also raises questions about a judge’s power to alter their judgment under the slip rule (CPR 40.12).
The hearing was heard at the end of November 2024 and we will have an update for you in due course.
Representation: Housing Solicitors, Amandeep Bains and Daljit Singh Shina, and Director Manjinder Kaur Atwal act for our Client, instructing Toby Vanhegan and Stephanie Lovegrove of 4-5 Grays Inn Square chambers.