The unsettling of settled law on 'settled accommodation': The house of lords and the homelessness legislation old and new

Abstract

The Housing Act 1996 Part VII makes significant changes to homelessness law in England and Wales. In Scotland, however, the law remains the same. Prior to the 1996 Act the decision in R. v. London Borough of Brent ex p. Awua, seemed to have achieved more than the Government sought for England and Wales. This article seeks to examine how that occurred through the dismantling of the concept of 'settled accommodation', a concept which did not appear in Part HI of the Housing Act 1985, but which developed through case-law. The article examines that development and the application of the concept to several areas of homelessness law, and then analyses the effect of the Awua decision on this jurisprudence. The potential impact on the 1996 Act and the state of the possibly divergent law in England and Wales and Scotland are addressed.

Key Words:

• homelessness
• intentionality