On 1 July the House of Lords handed down a single judgment in two housing appeals, which will have significant long-term consequences with a number of questions left unanswered.

Birmingham City Council v Ali and others and Moran v Manchester City Council [2009] UKHL 36, have left a number of authorities open to challenge, while the prospect of further litigation arising from arguments using the latest definitions of ‘accommodation’ and ‘homelessness’ must surely be on the cards. In the Birmingham case, six families, each with at least six children, were living in accommodation which had become seriously over-crowded. The council accepted that they were unintentionally homeless and in priority need. Nevertheless, the families were left in that accommodation for many months, and in some cases years, before permanent accommodation was found for them. The practice appears to have been to place a person on the waiting list under part VI (permanent allocation of housing) as a means of discharging the ‘main duty’. The council also sought to defend its allocation policy, which distinguished between the homeless at home and the homeless in temporary accommodation.

In the Manchester case, a mother left the family home with her two young children because of her partner’s violence and went to a women’s refuge. The refuge offered relatively modern, self-contained accommodation with extensive facilities and specialist support. A few weeks later she was evicted from the refuge because of her behaviour towards the staff. The city council gave her temporary accommodation but soon decided that, although she was homeless and in priority need, she had become homeless intentionally.

Despite being a carefully considered decision, there remains some scope for further interpretation. For example, among the main points were that it is ‘reasonable to continue to occupy’ accommodation for the purposes of sections 175(3) and 191(1) and that this should be determined by looking to the future as well as to the present. However, it is all very well saying that section 175(3) is a question of the future as well as the present, but it begs the question: how long? Is it six months? A year? Indefinitely?

A distinction has been made between accommodation which it may be unreasonable to occupy for a long period of time and accommodation which may be reasonable to occupy for a short period, while accommodation secured under sections 188 and 193 must be suitable but must be judged by reference (at least in part) to the likely period of occupation. There are ‘degrees of suitability’ and what is suitable in the short term may not be suitable in the medium or longer term (paragraph 47). It is arguable that Harouki v Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea [2007] EWCA Civ 1000 will not survive this decision.

In the Birmingham case, it was unlawful for a council to give priority to those placed in temporary accommodation (band A) over those who had been left in their current accommodation, even though it was not reasonable for them to continue to occupy the same (band B).

Referring to the Moran case specifically, the decision states that a woman who has lost her home because of domestic violence remains homeless, even though she has a roof over her head in the refuge. The court was ‘inclined to accept’ that on this issue of whether a refuge was ‘accommodation’, the decision in Sidhu cannot survive the decisions of the House of Lords in Puhlhofer and Awua (paragraph 56). This has left open the question of whether a prison cell or a room in a hospital is ‘accommodation’.

The important principle established in the Manchester case was that ‘in most cases a woman who has left her home because of domestic (or other) violence within it remains homeless even if she has found a temporary haven in a women’s refuge���. Looking at the facts in Moran, it is hard to see how it is ever reasonable for a woman fleeing violence to continue to occupy a refuge.

Adam Fullwood, barrister, Kings Chambers and Helen Jackson, solicitor, Shelter (both in Manchester)