Rogerson v Wigan MBC

Accommodation is provided in a hostel for the purposes of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977 where residents are required, or may be required, to share living facilities with strangers. Actual sharing is unnecessary. Accommodation arranged temporarily under the homelessness legislation may nevertheless become the occupier’s dwelling if, by the time notice is given, the residence is no longer reasonably referable to a brief and transient arrangement. The character of the occupation must be assessed at that time, rather than determined solely by its original purpose. The appeal failed because the accommodation was an excluded licence in a hostel, although the judge below had been wrong to treat its original temporary purpose as conclusive on the dwelling issue.

The claimant and his partner occupied a unit provided by the defendant local authority under its homelessness duties. The unit formed part of a block of flats used as a homeless persons unit. The claimant occupied under a licence which allowed the authority to move him and to require him to share the unit with strangers.

The authority served notice to quit and evicted the occupants without obtaining a court order. The County Court dismissed the claim, holding that the accommodation was in a hostel and, alternatively, was not occupied as a dwelling under a licence. The appeal concerned whether the premises were in a hostel within section 3A(8) of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, and whether the accommodation had become the claimant’s dwelling by the date of the notice.

1. The appeal was dismissed. The County Court judge was entitled to conclude that the accommodation was provided in a hostel, so the licence was excluded from the protection of the Protection from Eviction Act 1977.
2. For a building to be a hostel under section 622 of the Housing Act 1985, it must provide residential accommodation otherwise than in separate and self-contained accommodation, together with board or adequate facilities for preparing food. The relevant concept of separate accommodation is not merely physical. Accommodation is not separate where the occupier is compelled to share living facilities with a person whom he has not chosen.
3. The possibility of enforced sharing is sufficient. It is immaterial that the claimant was not actually required to share while he was resident. The reasoning in Brennan v Lambeth Borough Council supported that conclusion, and the limited extent of sharing did not materially distinguish the case.
4. The alternative issue was also considered. Mohammed v Manek and the Royal Borough of Chelsea remained binding and was not impliedly overruled by Uratemp Ventures Ltd v Collins or Mohamed v Hammersmith and Fulham LBC. Temporary accommodation provided pending a decision on housing duty will ordinarily not be a dwelling where the occupation is genuinely brief and transient.
5. That principle is not determined conclusively by the original purpose of the accommodation. If the authority permits occupation to continue for a period no longer reasonably referable to the temporary purpose, the accommodation may become the licensee’s dwelling. The question must be assessed when the notice to quit is given. On the facts, the accommodation had by then become the claimant’s dwelling, but that conclusion did not affect the result because the hostel exclusion applied.

The appeal was from an order of His Honour Judge McMillan sitting in the Wigan County Court on 18 December 2003, which dismissed the claimant’s claim. The High Court dismissed the appeal.