Repeat homelessness applications

In September 2000, Mrs Begum was asked to leave her parents’ home, which had become overcrowded.

Tower Hamlets accepted her homelessness application and provided a temporary flat. Later it offered a permanent home that Begum rejected as unsuitable. The council’s offer was upheld as “suitable” on review and appeal. It withdrew the temporary accommodation, because its duty had been performed, and in 2002 Mrs Begum returned to her parents’ home.

By then she had had a second child and the problems later became even worse when two of her brothers moved in. In February 2004 she applied to the council again. It decided that there had been no “material change in circumstances” since last time and refused to accept the new application.

The Court of Appeal decided that the council had been wrong. It had to accept and consider a second application if it was not “identical” with the earlier one. Any new facts raised in the second approach (provided not trivial or fanciful) required that it be treated as a fresh application. The brothers amounted to a “new” fact and so the council had to investigate again and provide temporary housing until the application was determined.