Supreme Court agrees to hear housing case over failure to provide suitable accommodation, mandatory relief and budgetary constraints

The Supreme Court has granted the London Borough of Croydon permission to appeal in a dispute over mandatory relief in cases where councils have failed to provide suitable accommodation for a person owed the main housing duty.

Law firm Browne Jacobson, which is instructed along with Kelvin Rutledge KC of Cornerstone Barristers to act for Croydon in the appeal, noted that in R (Elkundi and others) v Birmingham City Council and R (Imam) v London Borough of Croydon [2022] EWCA Civ 601 the Court of Appeal had held that:

1. Budgetary constraints are not relevant to the question of whether a mandatory order is appropriate once a local housing authority has accepted that a person is owed the main housing duty and their current accommodation is unsuitable. While the limited number of suitable properties available may be relevant in assessing whether a local housing authority has taken all reasonable steps to secure suitable accommodation, constraints on resources are not a reason for non-compliance with a duty imposed by Parliament.
2. Local housing authorities should consider using their Part 6 housing stock to secure suitable accommodation on a non-permanent basis for applicants who are owed Part 7 duties, rather than allocating it on a permanent basis in accordance with their statutory scheme. They must be prepared to explain their decision to a court, and may find it difficult to defend a decision to allocate a property under Part 6 if someone to whom the authority owed a duty under Part 7 could have been granted a non-secure tenancy over the property instead.

The Supreme Court has now granted Croydon permission to appeal outright, Browne Jacobson said.

The law firm added that the appeal is likely to be heard before the end of 2023, with judgment expected to be handed down later this year or early in 2024.