Judge rejects housing claim brought by refugee against council and Home Secretary

A Sudanese refugee has failed in a High Court case brought against the London Borough of Haringey over whether he should have been found accommodation and against the Home Office over how it gives notice of the cessation of their asylum support.

The 25-year-old claimant, ZR, entered the UK in August 2022 and applied successfully for asylum.

He challenged Haringey’s failure to provide him with accommodation pending a review of its decision that he was not in priority need pursuant to section 188(3) of the Housing Act 1996, although Mr Justice Sweeting said in his judgment it was accepted that this claim had largely been overtaken by events.

ZR’s second challenge was to the Home Office over how it gives notice to newly recognised refugees of the cessation of their asylum support under s.95 of the Immigration Act 1999 and as a result the need to vacate their asylum support accommodation.

“In short it is said that having previously given 28 days' notice to quit (or close to that), the Home Office is now giving much less notice; often as little as 7 days,”the judge said.

The court heard a Haringey officer visited ZR to assist with accommodation and noted his e-mail address and phone number.

Haringey later asked ZR to provide various documents and compete forms but had no reply.

ZR said in evidence: “I do not know how I would have missed this. I am generally good at checking my emails; I never just ignore them. I remember replying to most of the emails I received from the council so it seems strange that I missed this one."

He became street homeless and did not seek a review of Haringey’s initial view that it did not consider he met the threshold for section 188 accommodation. He then served a pre-action protocol letter on the Home Secretary, which threatened to issue proceedings for judicial review. There was no further communication with Haringey.

Sweeting J said it was not inappropriate, unreasonable, or unjustified - as ZR had argued - for Haringey to try to communicate by email “and it is difficult to think of a method which would have been a better substitute in the circumstances".

The judge said there was no attempt to contact Haringey about an outstanding decision when ZR became homeless.

He said ZR’s solicitors gave the Home Office ”a highly truncated timetable for a response, suggesting that the case…was urgent.

“There was no good reason why [Haringey] could not have been notified of the claimant's intention to apply for urgent interim relief.

"Had that been done the fact that a decision had been made would have become apparent. As it was, the application made to Lang J. was on the false premise that the [Haringey] had not taken a decision and, implicitly, had not considered the medical evidence which had been obtained in July and which was placed before [an officer]. Neither was true.”

Sweeting J said Haringey made a detailed and urgent assessment of ZR's case as soon as he presented himself and the conclusion that he did not have a priority need was not arguably irrational.

He said the decision involved an assessment which a specialist local authority housing officer was well placed to make, and which took into account the material available, including an earlier psychologist's report. The decision not to provide ZR with interim accommodation “involved the exercise of a discretion with which the court should be slow to interfere”.

The judge added: “There is no arguable ground for judicial review which has a realistic prospect of success and it is a sensible use of the court's time and resources to determine that question now. I refuse permission as against [Haringey].”

Sweeting J went on to consider whether he should deal with a claim against the Home Office that was academic as far as ZR was concerned.

He said most individual complaints were “potentially examples of things that have gone wrong with the system for giving notice to refugees, in the context of very large numbers of decisions being reached at greater speed” and not the result of incorrectly applied practice, nor was any systemic cause apparent.

Sweeting J concluded: “In the circumstances I do not conclude that there is an arguable ground for judicial review which has a realistic prospect of success or that the claimant has a sufficient interest in the matter to which the application relates; accordingly I refuse permission.”

Mark Smulian