Griffin, R (on the application of) v London Borough of Southwark

A local housing authority must consider a further homelessness application under section 184 of the Housing Act 1996 unless it is based on exactly the same facts as the earlier application. A different factor is sufficient to require consideration. The authority need not conduct a full reconsideration where the later application merely repeats the earlier case. The comparison is made between the applicant’s circumstances when the earlier application was finally determined and those existing when the later application was made. On the facts, the claimant’s separation from her former partner had already occurred when the first application was determined. The later application therefore rested on identical facts, and the authority was entitled to refuse to reconsider it.

The claimant made a homelessness application with her partner in 2002. The defendant accepted the full housing duty and offered accommodation, which the claimant refused. The defendant treated its duty as discharged. After losing her temporary accommodation, the claimant made a fresh application in 2004. Although the defendant accepted that she was homeless, eligible, in priority need and not intentionally homeless, it declined to make a substantive decision because the earlier duty had been discharged and there had been no relevant change in circumstances.

The claimant sought judicial review, arguing that the 2004 application was not based on identical facts because she was applying alone. The central issue was whether the approach in R v London Borough of Southwark ex parte Campisi or that in R v London Borough of Harrow ex parte Fahia governed successive homelessness applications.

1. The claim was dismissed. Southwark was entitled to refuse to reconsider the 2004 application because it was based on the same facts as the 2002 application.

2. The court preferred R v London Borough of Harrow ex parte Fahia [1998] 1 WLR 1396, as a House of Lords decision which had later precedence over the Court of Appeal decision in R v London Borough of Southwark ex parte Campisi (1998) 31 HLR 560. Under Fahia, a local authority must consider a further section 184 application unless it is based on exactly the same facts as the earlier application. The applicant need only identify a different factor in the later application.

3. The comparison had to be made with the claimant’s position when the 2002 application was determined. By December 2002, before the offer of permanent accommodation, the claimant’s relationship with Mr Gibson had broken down and they were no longer living together. Her applying alone in 2004 was therefore not a new factor.

4. The claimant’s suggested additional differences, including the absence of family support and alleged influence by Mr Gibson, were unsupported or not pursued. Southwark had applied the correct public-law principles and reached a conclusion open to it on the evidence.

5. The court held that the result would have been the same under the more demanding Campisi approach, which required new material giving reason to believe that the earlier homelessness decision ought to be reversed.