Regina v London Borough of Harrow Ex parte Fahia

The House of Lords held that, under Part III of the Housing Act 1985, a local authority which receives a further application for accommodation from a person previously found to be intentionally homeless cannot avoid the mandatory duty to make enquiries under section 62 merely by conducting non-statutory or 'threshold' inquiries. The statutory duty to inquire arises where (a) a person applies and (b) the authority have reason to believe that he may be homeless or threatened with homelessness (section 62(1)). Sections 63, 64 and 65 determine the interim duties and the duties after decision. The court declined, by consent, to decide whether obtaining 'settled accommodation' is the sole means of breaking the causal link between an earlier intentional homelessness and later homelessness.

This case concerned a woman (Mrs Fahia) evicted from assured shorthold accommodation in March 1994 who was found by the local authority to be homeless, in priority need and intentionally homeless. The authority provided temporary accommodation under section 63 and later continued payments by way of housing benefit while she remained in a guest house. In 1995 the authority refused to treat a new application as one attracting full statutory enquiries and interim duties, on the ground that there had been no intervening 'settled accommodation' to break the causal link from the 1994 intentional homelessness.

The issues before the House were (i) whether lack of intervening settled accommodation necessarily meant that later homelessness was necessarily intentional and (ii) whether a local authority may decline to perform the full statutory inquiries under section 62 on a later application from the same person, relying instead on non-statutory enquiries or a threshold test.

The local authority conceded before the House that the causal link might be broken by means other than obtaining settled accommodation and the House accordingly declined to decide that question. On the second issue the House held that the language of section 62 is clear: where a person applies and the authority have reason to believe that he may be homeless or threatened with homelessness, the duty to make statutory enquiries arises and interim accommodation obligations under section 63 may follow. Exceptions are limited to the special cases identified in authority (for example, lack of capacity to apply or where the later application is identical with a previously concluded application). The court found that the applicant's year-long occupation of the guest house as licensee paying rent was a relevant change of circumstances and that the authority had no entitlement to adopt only non-statutory inquiries. The appeal was dismissed.

Appeal dismissed. The House held that section 62(1) of the Housing Act 1985 imposes a mandatory duty to make inquiries where a person applies and the authority have reason to believe he may be homeless or threatened with homelessness; a local authority cannot avoid that duty on a later application simply by relying on non-statutory or threshold inquiries. The court declined to rule on whether 'settled accommodation' is the sole means of breaking the causal link between an earlier intentional homelessness and subsequent homelessness.

First instance: Deputy Judge of the Queen's Bench Division (Mr Roger Toulson Q.C.) – addressed the 1994 determination and the 1995 decision. Court of Appeal (Leggatt, Roch and Aldous LJJ) – addressed the issues (reported in the judgment as 29 H.L.R. 94 and 974 respectively). Permission to appeal to the House of Lords was granted; the House delivered judgment [1998] UKHL 29.