Watson v London Borough of Wandsworth

On an appeal under section 204 of the Housing Act 1996, the court must respect the local authority’s fact-finding role and intervene only for legal error or obvious perversity. A reviewing authority may distinguish a general risk in a wide locality from a probable risk at the precise property offered. Genuine fears and past violence do not make a decision perverse where the evidence does not connect the alleged perpetrators with that location. Mental illness or vulnerability, supported by appropriate medical evidence, must be considered when assessing suitability and reasonableness, but it is not decisive. The appeal was allowed.

A housing authority accepted a duty to accommodate a vulnerable homeless applicant and made one permanent accommodation offer in Norley Vale. She declined it, alleging that gang members who had attacked or threatened her lived in the wider Roehampton area. The authority’s review under section 202 of the Housing Act 1996 concluded that there was no probable risk at Norley Vale. On an appeal under section 204, the County Court Recorder held that the decision was perverse and misconstrued the facts.

The Court of Appeal considered whether the Recorder had applied the correct threshold, whether the evidence justified intervention, and whether a recent European Court of Human Rights decision concerning Article 8 assisted the applicant. It also addressed the significance of mental vulnerability in assessing accommodation suitability.

1. Appeal allowed unanimously. The Recorder correctly identified the court’s role on an appeal under section 204 of the Housing Act 1996, but she had not correctly applied the relevant threshold.
2. The local authority was the primary fact-finder. Where the alleged error is a misconstruction of ascertained facts, intervention requires obvious perversity. The appellate court must not substitute its own view on the merits. This approach was stated in Williams v London Borough of Wandsworth [2006] EWCA Civ Division 535.
3. The Recorder failed to engage with the central reasoning of the review decision. The authority accepted the applicant’s fears and the existence of the alleged gang, but concluded that there was no probable risk at the particular Norley Vale property. The attack had occurred elsewhere, and there was no evidence that the alleged perpetrators or gang members lived near Norley Vale. That conclusion was reasonably open to the reviewing officer and was not perverse.
4. Evidence unavailable when the review decision was made could not establish perversity in that decision. The applicant’s mental health and vulnerability had not been supported by medical evidence or advanced as a ground in the section 204 appeal, so they could not affect the disposal of the appeal.
5. Etherton LJ added general guidance that, where fears are genuinely held because of mental illness or other mental vulnerability and are supported by appropriate medical evidence, the condition must be considered under section 193(7 F) of the Housing Act 1996 when assessing whether accommodation is suitable and reasonable for the particular applicant to accept. It is not a trump card, and the assessment remains fact-sensitive.
6. The Strasbourg decision in K v The United Kingdom, application number 37341/06, was distinguished. Article 8 was engaged in possession proceedings because the applicants were being dispossessed from their homes, whereas the offered accommodation here had never been the applicant’s home. The procedural safeguards were also materially different.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Allowed the appeal unanimously from the County Court Recorder’s order dated 9 October 2009.
2. Wandsworth County Court: The Recorder allowed an appeal under section 204 of the Housing Act 1996 against the housing authority’s review decision under section 202.