ZK (R on the application of) v London Borough of Havering

Under section 189A of the Housing Act 1996, a local housing authority must make a written assessment identifying an applicant’s key housing needs, including suitable accommodation for the household and support needed to obtain and retain it. The assessment need not list every possible need or appear in one document. However, the total written file must distinguish accepted needs from wishes and enable a reasonable and sensible housing officer to understand the “nuts and bolts” of suitable accommodation. The assessment and personalised housing plan are linked, must be kept under review while duties remain, and must be updated when circumstances change. Documents that merely record an applicant’s wishes do not discharge the statutory duty.

This was a first-instance judicial review concerning a homeless refugee and his family. The claimant challenged the defendant local authority’s continuing failure to provide a lawful housing needs assessment and personalised housing plan under section 189A of the Housing Act 1996. Earlier judicial review proceedings had been withdrawn after undertakings to reassess his needs and review his accommodation. During these proceedings the family moved to new accommodation, but no lawful assessment or plan had been provided. The central issue was whether the defendant’s collection of PHPs, a support plan, and a housing review report discharged its ongoing statutory duties.

The claim succeeded. The defendant had acted and continued to act unlawfully by failing to provide a lawful housing needs assessment and personalised housing plan. A declaration and mandatory order were appropriate, but the third PHP was not quashed because the assessment and plan were living documents.

1. Section 189A of the Housing Act 1996 is prescriptive. The assessment must address the circumstances causing homelessness, the applicant’s housing needs, including suitable accommodation for the household, and the support needed to have and retain suitable accommodation. It need not list every possible need, but it must identify the key needs providing the “nuts and bolts” of a suitable housing offer. This approach was supported by R (S) v Waltham Forest LBC [2016] EWHC 1240 (Admin) and XY v London Borough of Haringey [2019] EWHC 2276 (Admin).
2. The HNA and PHP are intrinsically linked. They need not be contained in one indexed document, nor produced as two separate documents. The court must assess the totality of the written housing file, provided the assessment and plan are communicated to the applicant in writing.
3. A holistic and practical approach is required. The court should consider substance rather than form and should not subject housing officers’ documents to forensic or nit-picking analysis. It is not for the court to reassess housing needs or go behind the authority’s judgment unless the assessment is obviously inadequate and therefore Wednesbury unreasonable. The approach in Homes-Moorhouse v Richmond upon Thames LBC [2009] 1 W.L.R. 413 was applied.
4. There is an important distinction between needs and wishes. The documents repeatedly recorded what the claimant had advised or wished for, but did not clearly identify the core housing needs accepted by the defendant. The Williams report addressed aspects of the previous accommodation but was not an overall assessment and was not provided to the claimant. The file therefore failed to identify the key and continuing needs of the claimant and his family.
5. The duty to keep the assessment and PHP under review continued while the defendant owed any relevant duty. The substantial change in the family’s accommodation also meant that a current lawful PHP was required. The court did not need to determine the separate irrationality ground or the suitability of the current accommodation.

The defendant was required to make a lawful HNA and PHP compliant with section 189A. The third PHP was not quashed.

This was a first-instance judicial review. The judgment records earlier withdrawn judicial review proceedings, but no appellate history.