Caroline Bird, a Chartered Legal Executive from our Housing team, has been successful in forcing the Home Office to provide suitable accommodation to one of our clients who had severe and enduring mental health conditions that impacted on his ability to manage his everyday life, and which were being made worse by the inadequate accommodation provided to him by the Home Office.

Our client was an asylum seeker who was being housed by the Home Office under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. The accommodation provided by the Home Office was highly unsuitable as it was shared accommodation and far away from his support network. The client made several requests to the Home Office over more than two years to be moved and these requests were accompanied by supporting evidence from medical professionals. Despite these requests, the Home Office failed to provide our client with adequate housing.

We were then instructed and sent pre-action correspondence to the Home Office reminding them of their duty to provide adequate housing to asylum seekers under the 1999 Act. We obtained and updated expert reports to support the case, but the Home Office failed to take those properly into account. Instead, the Home Office issued a decision to move our client to accommodation that would be highly unsuitable for him.

Faced with the risk of our client being moved to unsuitable housing, we issued a judicial review to challenge that decision and the Home Office’s breach of duty in the High Court. Within the claim we sought interim relief, to stop the Home Office from taking any further steps to disperse or evict our client from his current accommodation until further order or the determination of his claim. The High Court granted the requested relief and then also gave us permission to proceed with the judicial review.

Following the Court’s decision, the Home Office agreed they would withdraw their previous decision and make a new offer of accommodation to our client. The Home Office’s new decision was that our client was to be accommodated in self-contained accommodation in the area where his support network is.

After three years in unsuitable accommodation, our client was then accommodated happily in suitable self-contained accommodation close to his support network.

How we can help

If you or someone you know is facing a similar situation, then please do not hesitate to contact our Housing team on enquiries@tvedwards.com or 020 3440 8000 to see if we could help.

Disclaimer: The information on the TV Edwards website is for general information only and reflects the position at the date of publication.