Tenancy — Tenant unlawfully evicted — Whether tenant qualifying as priority need as a result of “emergency such as flood, fire or other disaster” — Housing Act 1985 section 59(1) — Whether “emergency” confined to natural disaster or including unlawful eviction — Application for judicial review of housing authority’s decision that illegal eviction not constituting “disaster” — High Court granting application
B was the tenant of a first-floor room at 39 Ralph Road, Ashley Down, Horfield, Bristol. The written agreement purported to be for an assured shorthold tenancy at a monthly rent of £195.53. During the currency of the term, B travelled urgently to the US to visit a sick relative. He asked one of the other residents to tell the landlord of his departure and of his return within a few days. He left all his belongings in his room including some valuables. He returned after three weeks to find the doorframe and the locks to his room had been changed. He was told that the landlord had broken into his room four days after his departure and had removed and stored his belongings in the garage. He then discovered that the landlord was in arrears with his mortgage and that all the residents were liable to eviction.
His solicitors wrote to the housing authority applying for housing stating that he was unintentionally homeless since his eviction was unlawful. They also asserted that he was homeless as a result of an emergency. Under section 59(1)(d) of the Housing Act 1985, a person has priority need for accommodation who “is homeless … as a result of an emergency such as flood, fire or other disaster”. The authority did not dispute that B was unintentionally homeless or that he had been unlawfully evicted; however, they stated that his homelessness did not constitute a disaster within the meaning of the section. B applied for judicial review.
Held Judicial review was granted.
1. Instinctively the answer to the question whether an unlawful eviction was capable of resulting from an emergency such as flood or fire was “no”, because the legislature appeared to contemplate only an elemental disaster.
2. However, had its intention been to restrict that class of homeless persons to the results of natural disaster, there would have been little, if any, point in prefacing the list of disasters with the word “emergency”. Every natural disaster was an emergency, but that did not mean that every emergency arose from a natural disaster.
3. An element of suddenness was not essential for the existence of an emergency: see, inter alia, The Larchbank [1943] AC 299.
4. Every case of unintentional homelessness was a disaster in ordinary parlance. But that was not the contemplation of the use of the word in section 59(1)(d). Parliament had in mind disasters of a natural kind as prime examples of a limited class of disasters, but did not preclude socially or humanly-induced emergencies.
5. There was a preponderance of material that favoured a more expansive interpretation of the section than suggested by a superficial reading. Not every unlawful eviction would automatically qualify for priority need: each case would need to be considered on its own facts. The instant decision meant merely that a local authority must entertain an application from an unlawfully evicted person rendered unintentionally homeless thereby on the basis of the statutory construction of the section. Leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal was granted.
Jan Luba (instructed by Bobbetts MacKan, of Bristol) appeared for the applicant; Robert Levy (instructed by the solicitor to Bristol City Council) appeared for the respondent housing authority.
