Bukartyk, R (on the application of) v Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council

For a second homelessness application to be treated as no application, the authority must be satisfied, from the application and accompanying material, that it reveals no new facts, or only facts already known and taken into account, or facts that are fanciful or trivial. Where apparently new facts are neither trivial nor fanciful, the authority must treat the application as valid and proceed to its statutory inquiries. It must not decide the applicant’s priority need at the threshold stage. The authority must assess the evidence as a whole and must not select only material favourable to rejecting the application.

The claimant had previously applied for homelessness assistance. The council accepted that she was homeless and eligible, but decided on review that she was not in priority need because she had supplied no supporting medical evidence and had declined a mental-health assessment.

After becoming homeless, she made a further approach supported by a prescription and medical letters describing mental-health conditions and treatment. The council refused to accept a fresh application, considering that the material disclosed no relevant new facts or only trivial facts, and refused interim accommodation. The claimant sought judicial review, arguing that the council had applied the wrong threshold and had acted irrationally.

1. Claim allowed. The council’s decision of 9 October 2019 was unlawful. It was quashed, and the council was directed to treat the claimant’s second approach as an effective homelessness application.
2. The governing approach was stated by the Court of Appeal in Rikha Begum v Tower Hamlets LBC [2005] 1 WLR 2103. The authority must compare the circumstances known when the earlier application was decided or reviewed with the facts disclosed by the later application and associated documents.
3. A later application may be rejected as no application where it reveals no new facts, or facts already known to and taken into account by the authority, or facts that are fanciful or trivial. If the later material appears to reveal facts that are neither trivial nor fanciful, the authority must treat it as a valid application. It must not investigate the accuracy or sufficiency of those facts before deciding whether the threshold is met.
4. The council had adopted a different approach. It focused on whether the medical material would change the earlier conclusion that the claimant was not in priority need, rather than deciding whether the material disclosed new facts or facts that were trivial or fanciful. Priority need was an issue for the subsequent inquiries under section 184 of the Housing Act 1996, not for the threshold decision.
5. The prescription and medical letters plainly disclosed potentially new medical facts. The council’s reliance on the usual dosage of sertraline and selected favourable passages from the letters could not rationally establish that there were no new facts or that the facts were trivial. The evidence had to be assessed conscientiously as a whole.
6. The court rejected the suggestion that knowledge held by one council officer could generally be imputed to the decision-maker. The earlier review decision had expressly proceeded on the basis that there was no supporting medical evidence and no medical issue.
7. The claimant’s statutory appeal under section 204 did not provide an alternative remedy because the county court would be confined to the material before the council when the review decision was made. The later YMCA licence did not make the claim academic, although it was relevant to relief and to the council’s future inquiries under Part VII, including whether it was reasonable for the claimant to continue to occupy that accommodation under section 175(3).
8. The court declined to order interim accommodation under section 188(1). The council was required to make the statutory inquiries, taking account of all current circumstances and the additional medical evidence.