Supreme Court to rule next week on temporary accommodation, notices to quit

A seven-justice panel of the Supreme Court will next week (12 November) hand down judgment in two major housing cases.

The first case, R (on the application of ZH and CN) v London Borough of Newham and London Borough of Lewisham, UKSC 2013/0194 relates to whether temporary accommodation provided under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996 to an applicant for assistance on the basis of homelessness, pursuant to a local authority’s interim duty to house such an applicant while the authority makes further enquiries, constitutes a "premises occupied as a dwelling under a licence" for the purposes of s. 3(2B) Protection from Eviction Act 1977.

The Supreme Court also considered whether Article 8 of the European Court of Human Rights requires that a public authority must obtain a court order before it can evict an individual from his/her home.

The first of the two cases saw CN and family occupy temporary accommodation provided by the London Borough of Lewisham pursuant to its interim duty.

Lewisham later notified CN’s family that it had concluded that the family were ineligible for assistance and required them to leave the temporary accommodation.

The family applied for a number of further reviews and assessments, extending the process. On 4 May 2012 CN applied for judicial review of Lewisham’s decision.

ZH and family were meanwhile provided with temporary accommodation by the London Borough of Newham in 2012, pursuant to its interim duty.

Newham notified the family on 19 February 2013 that it had concluded that they were ineligible for assistance and required them to leave their temporary accommodation by 18 March 2013, later extended to 21 March 2013.

On 18 March 2013 ZH applied for judicial review of Newham’s decision. ZH’s claim was transferred to the Court of Appeal to be heard with CN’s claim.

Both CN and ZH’s claims were dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

The second case, Sims v Dacorum Borough Council UKSC 2013/0264, considers whether the rule in Monk that a notice to quit given by one of a number of joint periodic tenants is effective to terminate the tenancy, is compatible with Article 8 and Article 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights.

The background to the case was that Michael Sims and his wife were joint periodic secure tenants of a three-bedroom house owned by Dacorum Borough Council.

On the break-up of their marriage, Mrs Sims left the property and gave notice to quit to the council which had the effect of terminating the tenancy (as per the rule in Hammersmith & Fulham LBC v Monk [1992] 1 AC 478.)

The council obtained a possession order against Mr Sims. He appealed, arguing that the rule in Hammersmith & Fulham v Monk was incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (and Article 1 of the First Protocol to the ECHR.

The Court of Appeal was bound by the House of Lords’ decision in Monk and dismissed the appeal. It also refused permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. Mr Sims then appealed to the Supreme Court directly.

Both cases were heard over four days in June by a panel comprising Lord Neuberger, Lady Hale, Lord Clarke, Lord Wilson, Lord Carnwath, Lord Toulson and Lord Hodge.