Abdulrahman, R (on the application of) v The London Borough of Hillingdon

When a person makes a further homelessness application, the local housing authority may refuse to treat it as an application under Part VII only where it is based on exactly the same facts as the earlier application. The authority must assess the facts disclosed in the later application, including whether any asserted new facts are fanciful or trivial. A material change need not be one that is likely to alter the eventual homelessness decision. A change in the identity of the applicant, household composition or number of dependent children may be relevant. Where genuinely new and relevant facts are identified, the authority must treat the application as valid and make the statutory inquiries.

The claimant had previously made a joint homelessness application with her husband. The local authority decided that they were homeless, eligible and in priority need, but intentionally homeless. Following the end of temporary accommodation, the claimant applied alone under section 183 of the Housing Act 1996.

The authority refused to accept the later application, stating that it was based on the same facts and that the reason for homelessness remained unchanged. The claimant challenged that decision on the grounds that the authority had applied the wrong test or had acted irrationally. The central issue was whether the later application was based on exactly the same facts as the earlier one.

1. Application allowed; decision quashed. The authority’s decision to decline to treat the April 2016 application as an application under sections 183 and 184 of the Housing Act 1996 was quashed.

2. The correct test, derived from R v Harrow LBC, ex parte Fahia [1998] 1 WLR 1396 and Rikha Begum v Tower Hamlets LBC [2005] 1 WLR 2013, was whether the later application was based on exactly the same facts as the earlier application. There is no additional threshold requirement that the applicant show a material change likely to produce a different outcome.

3. The decision and reasons letters had to be read together and as a whole. Although the authority referred to an intervening change of circumstances and causation, those references did not show that it had applied the wrong legal test. Ground 1 therefore failed.

4. The claimant had identified two genuinely new and relevant facts: the application was now made by her alone after the end of her relationship with her husband, and fewer people, including three fewer dependent children, required accommodation. The fact that she had left temporary accommodation was not relied upon as a new fact in the application.

5. Under Rikha Begum v Tower Hamlets LBC [2005] 1 WLR 2013, an authority may reject a purported later application without further inquiry if the alleged facts are not new, or are fanciful or trivial. Here the authority did not find that the changes were fanciful or trivial. It was irrational to conclude that the later application was based on exactly the same facts. The authority was therefore required to treat it as an application under sections 183 and 184.

6. Because the later application was not based on exactly the same facts, the authority’s duties to make inquiries under section 184 and, where applicable, to provide interim accommodation under section 188 were engaged.

First-instance judicial review. The judgment records no prior appellate decision in this litigation.