Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council v Khan

A housing authority does not ordinarily have to give reasons in a final offer explaining why accommodation is suitable and reasonable to accept, even where the applicant has expressed a wish not to live in that area. The offer itself implies that the authority has considered those questions. An applicant who believes the offer has been made in error should raise the matter with the authority before refusing it, particularly where warned of the consequences and of the right to seek a review.

Standard-form final offers do not remove the authority’s duty to give individual attention to the applicant’s stated needs and preferences.

The Council accepted that Ms Khan, who had children and had left an abusive husband, was owed the main housing duty. It made her a final offer of accommodation in Chelmsley Wood. She refused it because she feared violence from her husband’s alleged associates in that area and wished to remain closer to family support.

The Council rejected the factual basis for that fear, concluded that the accommodation was suitable and reasonable to accept, and decided that its duty had ended. On a review under the Housing Act 1996, that decision was upheld. The Birmingham County Court allowed Ms Khan’s subsequent statutory appeal, holding that the Council should have established what she knew of its enquiries before treating her refusal as unreasonable. The Council appealed on that narrow question.

1. Appeal allowed unanimously. Beatson LJ, with whom Rafferty LJ and Sir Robin Jacob agreed, held that the Recorder had erred in law.

2. The statutory question was whether it was reasonable for this applicant to accept suitable accommodation, not whether it had been reasonable for the authority to make the offer. In applying that objective inquiry, the authority must consider the applicant’s personal characteristics, needs, hopes and fears. However, the applicant’s lack of knowledge that the authority had rejected the factual basis of a stated fear did not create a separate condition which had to be met before a refusal could be held unreasonable.

3. Akhtar v Birmingham City Council [2011] EWCA Civ 383 established that a final-offer letter need not give reasons for the authority’s conclusion that the accommodation is suitable and reasonable to accept. If Ms Khan thought that the offer of accommodation in Chelmsley Wood was a mistake, she should have sought clarification before refusing it. The final-offer letter prominently warned her of the consequence of refusal, advised her to ask an officer if unsure, and made clear that she could accept the offer and seek a review.

4. The possibility, recognised in Ahmed v Leicester City Council [2007] EWCA Civ 843, that fairness may in some review cases require dialogue did not justify imposing a general pre-refusal duty to explain the outcome of enquiries. The Recorder’s approach was substantially inconsistent with Akhtar.

5. The practical utility of standard-form offers could not excuse a failure to consider an applicant’s individual position. The authority must take account of stated needs and preferences, although it may be unable to meet them because of housing scarcity or because their factual premise is rejected. No such failure was alleged here.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — allowed the Council’s appeal in [2014] EWCA Civ 41.
• Birmingham County Court — Ms Recorder Mountfield QC allowed Ms Khan’s appeal under section 204 of the Housing Act 1996 and quashed the Council’s review decision by an order dated 5 December 2012.