Homeless person - sudden disappearance of caravan unlawfully on council land and occupied as home - homelessness not 'as a result of an emergency'

Higgs v Brighton and Hove City Council: CA (Lords Justice Simon Brown, Waller and Kay): 30 June 2003

The claimant lived in a caravan located without lawful right on council land.

While he was out, the caravan disappeared without trace and there was no evidence as to what became of it.

The council refused the claimant's application to be housed as a person having 'a priority need for accommodation...

as a result of an emergency' within the meaning of section 189(1)(d) of the Housing Act 1996.

The recorder in the county court dismissed the claimant's appeal.

The claimant appealed.

David Watkinson (instructed by Brighton Housing Trust) for the claimant; Clare Roberts (instructed by Legal Services, Brighton & Hove City Council, Brighton) for the council.

Held, dismissing the appeal, that the loss of the claimant's home was an emergency akin to those expressly referred to in section 189(1)(d) of the 1996 Act in that (unlike the situation in R v Bristol City Council, ex parte Bradic [1995] HLR 584) the removal of the caravan was a form of physical interference with the property which had deprived the claimant of his home; but that the effect of section 175(2)(b) of the Act was that the claimant had been homeless even before the caravan had gone missing; and that, since his homelessness was therefore not 'as a result of' the loss of the caravan, the claim under section 189 failed.

(WLR)