Court of Appeal clarifies test for local connection for homeless applicants
The Court of Appeal has clarified the test for local connection applying to homeless applicants under the Housing Act (“HA”) 1996, in a judgment handed down today (Hussaini v London Borough of Islington [2025] EWCA Civ 22).
Mr Hussaini applied to the London Borough of Islington for homelessness assistance, arguing that he had a local connection with Islington because of “special circumstances” within the meaning of section 199(1)(d) HA 1996, on the basis of his involvement with a refugee support organisation in the borough, the Baobab Centre.
Islington accepted that he was homeless and eligible for assistance, but sought to refer his application to the London Borough of Haringey on the basis that he did not have a local connection with Islington. In its decision on review it decided that, although it did not dispute the importance of his continued attendance at the Baobab Centre, he did not need to live within the borough in order to do so.
On Mr Hussaini’s appeal to the County Court HHJ Saunders held that although Islington’s decision “appears to be based on ‘need’”, this was not a misdirection in law.
On appeal against that decision, the Court of Appeal accepted Mr Hussaini’s argument that Islington was not entitled to apply a test of needing to live within the borough. As Lord Justice Newey explained at paragraph 39:
While … the question whether an applicant needs to live in the district can be relevant to whether a “local connection” exists, I agree with Mr Clarke that a local housing authority is not entitled to impose a threshold requirement to that effect. As Lord Brightman said in Betts, the “fundamental question is the existence of a ‘local connection’”. The legislation nowhere states that such a connection cannot exist, whether as regards “special circumstances” or otherwise, without a need to live in the district, and there is no warrant for inferring such a condition. Nor does paragraph 10.11 of the Code suggest otherwise: it speaks of “special circumstances” including “the need to be near … services which are available only in a particular district” (emphasis added), implying that it can be enough to be near rather than within the district. In fact, it is easy to conceive of a situation in which “special circumstances” might create a “local connection” without an applicant having to live in the district: say, because a parent was over a prolonged period coming into Camden every day in order to spend it with a very sick child in Great Ormond Street Hospital. Mohamed (CA) and Mohamed (HL) show that it is a misdirection to require an applicant to have “an essential compassionate, social or support need” to live in a district. Likewise, in my view, an authority is not entitled to proceed on the basis that there cannot be “special circumstances” giving rise to a “local connection” unless the applicant has a need to live in the district.
However, applying a “benevolent” approach to the review decision (Holmes-Moorhouse v Richmond-Upon-Thames LBC [2009] UKHL 7), the Court found that the review officer had not in fact applied a test to this effect.
Mr Hussaini was represented by Daniel Clarke, instructed by James Harrison of Edwards Duthie Shamash.