Haile v London Borough of Waltham Forest

For intentional homelessness, there are two distinct causal questions. Under section 191(1) of the Housing Act 1996, the applicant’s deliberate conduct must have caused the loss of accommodation which it was reasonable to continue to occupy. Under section 193(1), that conduct must also have caused the applicant’s current homelessness.

A later actual and involuntary event can interrupt the causal connection. This occurs where the applicant would have become homeless even without the earlier deliberate conduct, or where an independent proximate event makes that conduct no more than background. The inquiry serves the statutory aim of preventing queue-jumping, not of permanently penalising a person for a past intentional loss of accommodation.

The appellant surrendered her tenancy of a hostel room while pregnant. The accommodation was for single persons only. She later gave birth and applied to the respondent authority for housing assistance under Part VII of the Housing Act 1996.

The authority, and then its reviewing officer, found that she was homeless, eligible and in priority need, but intentionally homeless because she had deliberately given up accommodation which it would have been reasonable to occupy until the birth. The Court of Appeal upheld that approach in [2014] EWCA Civ 792.

The central issue was whether the birth of the appellant’s child had broken the causal connection between leaving the hostel and her homelessness when the review was determined.

1. Appeal allowed. Lord Reed, with whom Lord Neuberger, Lady Hale and Lord Clarke agreed, held that the review decision was legally deficient. Lord Carnwath dissented.

2. The court identified two separate causal inquiries. First, under section 191(1) of the Housing Act 1996, did a deliberate act or omission cause the applicant to cease occupying available accommodation which it was reasonable to continue to occupy? Secondly, for sections 190(1) and 193(1), did that conduct cause the homelessness which existed when the authority made its inquiry or review?

3. The second inquiry is necessary to avoid treating any historic instance of intentional homelessness as a permanent disqualification. It accords with the statutory purpose of preventing a person from obtaining an unwarranted priority for housing, rather than imposing a continuing penalty.

4. The court followed the causal analysis in Dyson v Kerrier District Council [1980] 1 WLR 1205 and retained the relevant principles in Din v Wandsworth London Borough Council [1983] 1 AC 657. The time at which the elements of section 191(1) are assessed is when the applicant ceased to occupy the accommodation. Subsequent hypothetical events do not alter that assessment. But actual later events may affect whether that intentional conduct caused the current homelessness for section 193(1).

5. A causal connection is interrupted where the later event means that it cannot reasonably be said that, but for the earlier deliberate conduct, the applicant would not have become homeless. Where the earlier conduct remains a but-for cause, the authority must consider whether an independent and unconnected proximate event was the effective cause and whether homelessness would probably not otherwise have occurred.

6. Here, the birth of the appellant’s child was an actual event which meant that she could not have remained in the single-person hostel. At the review date, she would have been homeless whether or not she had surrendered the tenancy. She had therefore not obtained priority by queue-jumping, and the authority could not properly be satisfied that her current homelessness was intentional.

• United Kingdom Supreme Court: Allowed the appellant’s appeal and rejected the conclusion that her current homelessness had been caused by her earlier surrender of the hostel tenancy: [2015] UKSC 34.

• Court of Appeal: The approach advanced by the authority was accepted below; that decision was overturned: [2014] EWCA Civ 792.