CA-2024-002185 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1049

On 7 August 2023, a claim for judicial review was issued by the appellant. That sought to challenge the respondent’s failure to provide suitable alternative accommodation after it found that her accommodation was unsuitable in October 2022 and the date of the decision was given as 13 October 2022. That was the date of the e-mail sending the request for a transfer.

The appellant sought interim relief, and a mandatory order, on the basis that the respondent was in breach of section 193 of the 1996 Act. The claim form also contended that the respondent was in breach of sections 19 and 149 of the 2010 Act. Mr Richard Clayton KC, sitting as a deputy judge of the High Court, dealt with the application for interim relief at a hearing on 22 August 2023. He granted permission to apply for judicial review, and granted interim relief requiring the respondent to provide suitable accommodation, comprising at least one bedroom and one living room, or otherwise suitable accommodation, by 10 a.m. on 29 August 2023.

On 25 August 2023, the respondent offered, and the appellant, accepted accommodation in East London. It is accepted that that accommodation is suitable. The appellant has lived there since about 25 August 2023 with her son and her second child who was born on 9 September 2023. The judicial review claim was stayed. The claim based on the 1996 Act was, from that date, academic (as the judge found). An appeal against the finding that that aspect of the claim was academic was withdrawn by the appellant at the start of the hearing of the appeal.

The appellant wished, however, to maintain the claim for indirect discrimination. By order dated 19 December 2023, the appellant was granted permission to amend the claim form. The appellant added a claim for damages for indirect discrimination and reformulated the PCP as:

“its system of allocating temporary accommodation to homeless applicants, which includes a ‘transfer list’ through which homeless applicants were provided accommodation which the [respondent] admitted was … unsuitable”

In her written skeleton argument in the High Court, the appellant identified two different PCPs (although she had not sought, and had not been granted permission, as required, to amend her grounds of claim). They were:

“(a)

the practice of operating a database for homeless applicants who seek a transfer (“the transfer list”) and providing to some or all of those applicants unsuitable accommodation while they remain on the list, and

(b)

more broadly, the defendant's “system of allocating temporary accommodation to homeless applicants”.”

The written skeleton argument also included a chart showing figures from which it was said it could be shown or inferred that the PCP put women at a particular disadvantage as compared with men.

The respondent, in its detailed grounds and evidence, said that it had been doing its best to secure alternative accommodation at the material time against the background of a significant housing crisis and a shortage of accommodation available for homeless persons to whom it owed a duty. It provided evidence that it did not operate the transfer list as a waiting list where properties were allocated on the basis of the date of joining the list or the length of time on the list. Rather it said that it used the database to collect relevant data to enable the housing authority to identify the needs of persons in unsuitable accommodation and to assist it to match individuals with suitable accommodation as that accommodation became available.

Shelter intervened and also made submissions on whether the operation of the transfer list put women at a particular disadvantage when compared with men.