Stewart v London Borough Of Lambeth

For intentional homelessness under section 191(1) of the Housing Act 1996, the authority must apply an objective test. It must ask whether loss of the accommodation would reasonably have been regarded, when the deliberate conduct occurred, as a likely consequence of that conduct.

Deliberate criminal conduct may satisfy that test where it leads through imprisonment and non-payment of rent to eviction. An ineffectual arrangement for another person to pay the rent does not break that causal chain. Imprisonment is not settled accommodation and does not, without more, supersede the original intentional homelessness.

The appellant held a secure tenancy but was imprisoned after deliberately committing a drug-related offence. No rent was paid during his imprisonment, despite an arrangement under which his sister was to maintain the tenancy. The local authority executed an existing possession order and later decided that he had become homeless intentionally.

His appeal against that decision was dismissed by His Honour Judge Cox in Lambeth County Court. The appellant challenged that result on three grounds: the arrangement with his sister broke the causal chain; imprisonment constituted settled accommodation; or imprisonment otherwise superseded the original intentional homelessness. The central issue was whether the authority had lawfully treated the deliberate offence as the cause of the eventual loss of his accommodation.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. Longmore LJ delivered the leading judgment. Jonathan Parker LJ and Peter Gibson LJ agreed, each adding reasons on the causal effect of the arrangement for payment of the rent.

2. Under section 191(1) of the Housing Act 1996, the appropriate causal test is whether the cessation of occupation would reasonably have been regarded, at the time of the deliberate conduct, as a likely consequence of that conduct. The test is objective. Longmore LJ approved, adopted and followed the approach in R v Hounslow London Borough Council, ex parte R [1997] 29 HLR 939.

3. The authority was entitled to identify the knowing commission of the drug offence as the relevant deliberate act. The ensuing imprisonment led to non-payment of rent and eviction. That constituted a direct and natural chain of causation. The statute did not require the authority to investigate every subsequent possibility by which the consequences might have been avoided.

4. The arrangement with the appellant’s sister was wholly ineffectual because no rent was paid. It therefore did not break the causal chain. Different considerations might arise if an initially effective arrangement later failed. Section 191(2) did not assist because the relevant deliberate act was the criminal offence, which could not be characterised as an act done in good faith while unaware of a relevant fact.

5. Imprisonment was the antithesis of settled accommodation and could not remove the appellant’s self-imposed disqualification. Nor did the custodial period otherwise supersede the original cause of homelessness. Release occurred when the authorities permitted it, rather than through a new voluntary decision comparable to leaving the armed forces or a religious order.

6. Policy considerations favouring the rehabilitation and resettlement of offenders could assist in construing legislation but could not disapply the statutory test. The proposed Homelessness (Priority Need for Accommodation) (England) Order 2001 did not govern the appeal. The order as drafted and agreed was made, and permission to appeal to the House of Lords was refused.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): By [2002] EWCA Civ 753, unanimously dismissed the appeal and upheld the determination that the appellant had become homeless intentionally.
2. Lambeth County Court: His Honour Judge Cox dismissed the statutory appeal from the local authority’s review decision on 4 December 2001.
3. Local housing authority: On review, the London Borough of Lambeth maintained its decision that the appellant had become homeless intentionally.