Homeless person - assured shorthold tenancy 'settled accommodation' so as to displace finding of intentional homelessness - intentional homelessness question of fact

Knight v Vale Royal Borough Council: CA (Lord Justice Pill, Lord Justice Laws and Sir Martin Nourse): 31 July 2003

The claimant left accommodation which she had held, with her former partner, under a joint tenancy, moving to women's refuges and other accommodation.

She applied unsuccessfully to the local housing authority for accommodation: she was found to have made herself 'intentionally homeless' within section 191 of the Housing Act 1996.

A further application failed on the same foundation, although it was determined a short time before expiry of an assured shorthold tenancy which the claimant had acquired since first refusal.

Following an unsuccessful appeal to the county court, the claimant appealed on the ground that the acquisition of an assured shorthold tenancy should have been found to constitute the achieving of 'settled accommodation', sufficient to displace the earlier finding of intentional homelessness.

David Watkinson and Alex Durance (instructed by Shelter Legal Services, Chester) for the appellant; Andrew Clark (instructed by the Head of Legal Services, Vale Royal Borough Council) for the respondent.

Held, dismissing the appeal, that occupation by a tenant of accommodation let on a six-month assured shorthold tenancy was capable of constituting settled accommodation for the purposes of breaking a chain of causation from past intentional homelessness, but the question remained one of fact and degree to be determined by a local authority in the circumstances of each case, although the existence of an assured shorthold tenancy would normally be a significant pointer to the accommodation being settled.