Taheri, R (on the application of) v City of Westminster

A homelessness authority must give a reasonable period of notice when ending interim accommodation. The period must be assessed in the real circumstances, including the applicant’s disabilities, communication difficulties and the actual time available to secure alternative accommodation. A notice may be Wednesbury unreasonable where it nominally allows seven days but, because of the dates and intervening weekend, gives only three working days. The authority may nevertheless decide that accommodation should not continue pending review of the underlying homelessness decision, where that decision is open to it on the circumstances.

The claimant and her husband, refugees from Iraq, were living in interim accommodation after applying to the defendant authority as homeless. The authority decided under section 184 of the Housing Act 1996 that the claimant was not in priority need and owed no further duty. It gave notice that the interim accommodation would end on 9 July 2003.

The claimant sought review of that decision and requested accommodation pending the review. The issues were whether the notice period was unlawful and whether the authority was required to provide accommodation pending review.

1. The refusal to provide accommodation pending review was lawful. The authority was entitled to conclude that accommodation should not be provided while the earlier decision was being reviewed.
2. The decision giving seven days’ notice to leave the interim accommodation was Wednesbury unreasonable. In practical terms, the claimant and her husband had only three working days to find alternative accommodation, and faced substantial disabilities and difficulties, including the claimant’s inability to speak English.
3. An authority acting reasonably would have allowed a longer period. The court therefore allowed judicial review of the notice decision and ordered the authority to continue providing temporary accommodation for a further 14 days from the date of judgment.
4. No order for costs was made, but the claimant was permitted to have her publicly funded costs assessed, subject to filing the required certificate.