We have other helpful guides about homelessness:
If you are about to be made homeless or if you are already homeless you are likely to be feeling stressed and anxious. If you are not getting the help you feel you need then you are likely to be feeling frustrated or angry too. Try not to panic or give up. You might feel that you don’t know where to start. The sooner you get some information on what you might be able to do, the better. You can start by reading this guide. Perhaps a support worker, friend or relative can read through it with you and help you take the next steps.
This guide is for you if you want to challenge a decision made by the council about your homelessness application (some times this is called a homeless application). We have written this guide to help you do this. This may feel really daunting. Try not to worry, we will guide you through the process step by step.
This guide is also for people supporting others in this situation, for example, housing support workers and advice workers as well as relatives and friends.
This guide is not for you if:
Do you support homeless people and those threatened with homelessness?
Support your clients with housing is a guide for support workers and volunteers. It aims to equip them with the knowledge and skills to better help those they support to make a housing application to the council, get a fair Personal Housing Plan, secure emergency accomodation for tonight, challenge a decision by the council, and get legal advice. It is full of helpful tips.
This guide explains:
We try to explain any legal language as we go along but there is also a section to help you at the end of the guide, called What does it mean? which explains some important legal or technical terms.
Please tell us about your problem. Knowing more about our users and what you found useful helps us get funding to keep our website going. It is OK to skip questions – but please press ‘submit’ at the end as otherwise we don’t get your response.
When the council makes a decision about your homelessness application there is often a duty on the council to put this in writing. This is known as a written decision letter. Sometimes you might hear it called a notification or a section 184 letter.
The letter must be in plain language. It must tell you what you can do to challenge the decision, if you want to, and when you need to do it by. The letter must list the reasons for the council’s decision clearly and fully.
If you are given a decision over the phone or in person but you are not given that same decision in a letter you need to ask for it. This is proof of the council's position on your housing problem. If you don't agree with the decision you need this written proof to see if you can challenge it. You should phone the council now and ask for your decision letter to be sent to you or an address of a trusted friend or family member. Or you could have it emailed to you or a trusted friend. Or you could go and collect it in person.
You might find that the council housing officer doesn’t give you a decision letter and you might have to ask again and again for it. You might also find that if you pester enough the housing officer may change his or her decision on the thing you are asking for.
The times when the council must give you a written decision letter are:
Sometimes the decision letter covers one or more of these in one letter. For example, you might get a decision about the Prevention duty with your housing assessment and Personalised Housing plan all in one letter.
Help with your housing The council has to help you with your housing problem when you go to them for help. But only if you meet the legal conditions for help - this is often called ‘being eligible’ for help. You are only eligible for this help if you have the legal right to stay in the UK. For more on this see the section called 'The eligibility assessment' in A survival guide to what to do if you are threatened with homelessness Prevention duty The council has to help you avoid becoming homeless. The council has to help you for 56 days (8 weeks) if the council is sure that you are eligible for help with housing and if you are threatened with homelessness. For more on this see the section called ‘The Prevention duty’ in our guide A survival guide to what to do if you are threatened with homelessness. Relief duty The council has to help you find somewhere to live. The council has to help you for 56 days (8 weeks) if the council is sure that you are entitled to housing assistance and you are homeless. For more on this see the section called ‘Stage 3 - the help the council has to give you (the Relief duty)’ in A survival guide to what to do if you are homeless. Local connection You have a local connection with a place if you normally live there, work there or have family ties there. Also there are other special circumstances that can give you a local connection. For more on this see the section called ‘Local connection’ in A survival guide to what to do if you are homeless Personalised Housing Plan The council must work with you to do a written plan of what the council and you will do to try and sort out your housing problem. For more on this see the section ‘Your Personal Housing Plan’ in A survival guide to what to do if you are homeless. Deliberately and unreasonably failed to co-operate This is when you fail to carry out one of your steps in your Personalised Housing Plan. For more on this see the section called ‘What ‘deliberate and unreasonable refusal to cooperate’ means' in A survival guide to what to do if you are homeless |
When you get a decision letter from the council you only have 21 days (3 weeks) to ask the council to review the decision. You should try and find a legal aid solicitor who does housing law or a housing adviser now.When you get a decision letter about any of the decisions listed in the last section you need to get some legal advice. A solicitor can see if you are entitled to free advice. If you are, the solicitor can write a letter to the council asking for the council to review the decision. The letter can say how the council’s decision is wrong (if it is). The council might quickly change its decision when it gets a letter from a solicitor saying its decision is wrong.
If you can’t find a solicitor, you may be able to find a housing adviser who can help with this problem.
If you can’t find a solicitor or a housing adviser, you need to ask for a review yourself. It is best to do this in writing and keep a copy, or do it by email. That way, you will have a record of your request. You cannot challenge the council’s decision without first asking for a review so you must make sure you do this before the three week deadline is up.
You will have a chance to send more information about your case to the Council after you request a review, so even if you cannot get advice straightaway, make sure you ask for the review in time and get help as soon as you can afterwards.
If you have a dispute with the council about any of the things covered in this guide, a very useful resource is the government’s Code of Guidance on Homelessness. It is long and detailed, but if you know what the issue is, thanks to this guide, you can find the right bit. The housing officers know they are supposed to follow the guidance so it can also be useful to quote paragraph numbers from it.
If the council doesn’t change its decision right away, a different, more senior, housing officer will look at the decision and give you a written notice of the review within a set time. How long you have to wait for the review to happen depends on what decision is being reviewed. It is usually 8 weeks, but it may be as little as 3 weeks or as much as 12. It will say in the letter you get how long you have to wait.
There are some very important decisions that the council makes during the process of dealing with your homelessness application where there is no right of written notification and no right of review. These are:
In all these cases you should argue, and ask for the decision in writing anyway. You can still use the council’s complaint system, and a letter from a housing adviser may help. Otherwise, you need to seek advice from a housing solicitor immediately, as the only legal remedy is an application to the High Court for what is known as judicial review on the basis that the council has made a mistake in law, and you really need a solicitor to do that. For more help go to the section called Getting legal advice.If you ask the council to review a decision they have made about your homelessness and the review goes against you, you have only 3 more weeks to appeal to the county court. It is not easy to appeal to the county court without legal advice and help. To help you decide whether to appeal or not you need to try and get some legal advice as quickly as possible.You cannot just appeal because you don’t like the decision. Instead, you need to show errors of law were made by the housing officer. This is a difficult thing to do without proper legal advice from a solicitor or housing adviser. You can find a housing law solicitor or housing adviser on the GOV.UK website. Ultimately, you will really need a solicitor for this, but a housing adviser may be able to help you lodge the appeal within the time limit.
You may be able to get legal aid to appeal the review decision of the council. It takes time to find a solicitor and to apply for legal aid and prepare an appeal so you need to act quickly if you decide you want to try and appeal.
As soon as you get your decision notice or letter and decide you want to appeal you need to take the next steps:
Step 1 - find a solicitor or housing adviser who does housing law and make an appointment. You may need to travel to see a solicitor who does legal aid work - you will need to decide if this is practical or even possible. For some people it won’t be possible because of the costs or distance or both.
Step 2 - when you have made an appointment, before the meeting, make sure you know exactly what the solicitor or housing adviser needs you to take with you to the meeting and make sure you have it ready. The solicitor will need:
Step 3 - make sure you get to the appointment in good time with all the documents the solicitor or housing adviser needs. This is the only way you are likely to have a useful meeting. Take a friend or family member for support if you can.
Step 4 - if the solicitor or housing adviser can help you with your case and advises you to appeal then you need to make sure you get to any other appointments the solicitor asks you to go to. And make sure the solicitor has your up to date mobile number and an address that you can get post from.
ExampleJoanna asked for a review of her council’s decision not to help her with housing. She was refused help because the council decided she wasn’t really homeless. The council decided she and her young daughter could go and live with family in Poland. Joanna got some advice from a housing law solicitor who helped her to challenge that review decision by appealing to the county court. They collected evidence about the accommodation in Poland and her family there and evidence about her recent life in the UK. They were able to say that the accommodation in Poland wasn’t ‘reasonably available’ to her because if she joined the family there the accommodation would be very overcrowded. Also her relationship with her old family was not strong but she had strong ties in the UK. Joanna was successful in her appeal. |
What evidence you will need to get the right decision will depend on what decision is being made or what decision you want to fight. Below are some of the different situations you might find yourself in and the types of evidence you will need.
If the council tells you that you are not eligible for help with housing, take a look at the section called 'The Eligibility assessment' in A survival guide to what to do if you are threatened with homelessness for more help.
The council can decide you can’t get help because it doesn’t seem that you are likely to be homeless in the next 56 days. If this happens to you, you need to show the council why you think you will be homeless soon. This might mean asking the housing officer to speak to a family member who is telling you to leave or getting a letter from that family member or it might mean giving the housing officer your section 21 eviction notice from your landlord, or asking for a copy if you have lost it. The council can decide you can’t get help to end your homelessness because the housing officer doesn’t think you are homeless according to the law. You will need to get evidence together to show that you are. This might mean asking the housing officer to speak to the family member who has made you leave.
If you can’t go back to your home because of domestic abuse it will help your case if you can tell someone independent (not just a friend or family member) about what has happened. This person might be a domestic abuse support worker, a health visitor, the police or a solicitor who does family law. The person you tell can then give the council a record of what you have said to them. The council can’t say you have to have evidence of the abuse other than your word but it will help your case if you do.
If you are still in your home but it is in too poor a state of repair or has been badly damaged take photos to show the housing officer or ask the housing officer to visit. It might also help to report the disrepair to the council’s Environmental Health department, or ask the housing officer how to do this – they may inspect and if they do they will write to you. The letter will be useful evidence for your case.
What counts as domestic abuse
Domestic abuse in relationships is very common. Behaviour is abusive if it includes any of the following -
The abusive person must be (or have been) in an intimate personal relationship with you or be a relative. Abuse directed towards your child or someone else you care about also counts as abuse towards you.
If you can prove to the council that you are in priority need then the council will have a duty to actually house you. So, it is very important to get any evidence you can to try and convince the housing officer that you are in priority need.
If you are one of the people on the list who is automatically in priority need this is not so tricky. See Stage 1 in A survival guide to what to do if you are homeless for a list. For example if you are pregnant you just need a letter from your midwife or GP. If you have young children you just need their birth certificates and a child benefit entitlement letter.
If you don’t fall into any of the categories listed in Stage 1 in A survival guide to what to do if you are homeless but you are vulnerable for other reasons you will need to get good evidence to help you convince the housing officer you are in priority need. If you have a support worker or a social worker they may be able to help you with this.
If you are vulnerable, for example, because you have physical or mental health problems or disabilities your GP may be able to help. Or, if you can find a solicitor who does housing law or housing adviser they may be able to help you get legal aid to get medical evidence. See the section called More help and advice for how to find a solicitor or housing adviser.
If you are reading this guide because you are helping someone else with their housing problem, we have another guide to help you. You can find helpful information on vulnerability letters by going to Law for Life teaching resources. Then scroll down to the section called How to support homeless people and those threatened with homelessness.
The council may say that you have made yourself intentionally homeless and so it no longer has to help you. If the council decides this, it means you are not entitled to housing even if you can show you are in priority need, except for temporary housing while you find yourself housing. So, it is really important to fight this decision. The council may say you are intentionally homeless if you have been evicted for rent arrears or if you are homeless after being in prison. There is nowhere in the law where it actually says that these situations mean you have made yourself intentionally homeless. So you can fight them. For example, if you cannot afford your rent due to genuine financial difficulties the council cannot say that you have made yourself homeless intentionally. You will need evidence of your income and outgoings to show that you couldn’t afford it.
To fight the council on the decision you are intentionally homeless you need to:
See the section called ‘How to avoid being classed as intentionally homeless’ in A survival guide to what to do if you are homeless for more help on this.
The council might say you are not entitled to any help if you are not from the local area because you can’t show you have a 'local connection'. For details on what this is and how it affects you, see the section called ‘Local connection’ in A survival guide to what to do if you are homeless.
If you are threatened with homelessness it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a local connection so don’t let them turn you away. You are still entitled to help for 56 days (8 weeks) to avoid becoming homeless.
If you are homeless and you are also possibly in priority need, any council you go to has to help by giving you emergency or temporary accommodation. At this point the council can also refer you to another council if it thinks you don’t have a local connection to where you are. The council will probably try to turn you away if you don’t have a local connection even though it shouldn’t. It makes sense to apply to an area where you have a local connection, unless you have a very good reason for not wanting to.
Remember, even if you have no local connection to an area, the council cannot send you back to where you were before if you, or anyone who may reasonably be expected to live with you, will be at risk of domestic abuse or other violence in the other council’s area. To show you have a local connection you need evidence. Some examples are:
Be aware that the council can end its duties to you if you turn down accommodation. This means that if you turn down housing, the council will not help you again or offer you somewhere else. So, usually it is sensible to accept any housing that the council offers you and then try challenge how suitable it is later. You should try and find a legal aid solicitor that does housing law or a housing adviser to get help. Make sure you don’t just refuse accommodation without some legal advice first.
If you don’t want to live in the accommodation offered to you by the council you need to explain that it doesn’t meet your needs. This means that you need evidence to back up what you do need.
Examples of evidence about what you need could come from different places. For example:
If you do decide to challenge the council about a decision or review notice it has made, you should try to get legal advice. Not all solicitors offer legal aid. It is important to go to a solicitor or housing adviser who can offer you legal aid if you are entitled to it. You can find a solicitor or housing adviser who does legal aid on the GOV.UK website. You can get an idea (but not a final answer) of whether or not you are likely to be entitled to legal aid on the same site.
Try not to leave it to the last minute to get help - a solicitor or housing adviser will need time to help you and try and get you legal aid. They may also have waiting lists for appointments.
If you are able to get legal advice this will help you decide what to do next. If you can’t find a solicitor or housing adviser, there are other places to go to get help with housing problems. For more information about where to go for help take a look at the next section.
Start by contacting Shelter. You can call Shelter's free housing advice helpline on: 0808 800 4444. The line is open from 9am- 5pm Mondays - Fridays. Closed at weekends and on bank holidays.
Calls are free from UK landlines and all major UK mobile operators. They also provide a webchat service.
Shelter also has advice centres across England where you can go to get personal, face-to-face advice from a housing specialist.
To find a lawyer that specialises in housing law try the GOV.UK website. To find out if you are eligible for legal aid use the GOV.UK legal aid checker.
Civil Legal Advice is a service that provides some free legal advice over the phone, funded by the government. You need to be on a low income with either a small amount or no savings to be entitled to this help.
Citizens Advice is the national body for Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB). Scroll down their homepage to search for a CAB near you.
You can also get help from law centres who employ solicitors and other workers who specialise in helping people with housing, employment, immigration, education, community care, and benefit problems. You can search for your nearest law centre by postcode.
LawWorks is a charity that connects people in need of legal advice and assistance with lawyers willing to meet those needs for free. It supports 170 legal advice clinics across England and Wales. Most of these law clinics take place in the evening and provide free initial advice to people about social welfare issues, employment law, housing matters and consumer disputes. You can find a clinic near you using your postcode.
Community organisations – some local community organisations offer housing advice, and sometimes in languages other than English. If there’s a community organisation near where you live, it’s worth asking them if they can help. If you don’t know whether there is one, ask your local council if they know of any.
If you have debt problems the National Debtline offers you free advice over the phone. Helpline: 0808 808 4000 – open Monday – Friday 9am - 8pm, and Saturday 9.30am - 1pm
StepChange also has a helpline: 0800 138 1111 - open Monday – Friday 8am-8pm, and Saturday 9am - 2pm. They also offer a webchat service.
Always dial 999 in an emergency.
For support or to discuss your options you can call the National Domestic Violence Helpline on 0808 2000 247 or in Wales, Live Fear Free on 0808 80 10 800.
Both help lines are for anyone who is experiencing, or has experienced domestic abuse, or for anyone who is worried about domestic abuse happening to a friend, family member or colleague. It is free, confidential and the number will not show up on a BT telephone bill.
If you are a man affected by domestic abuse, or you are worried about someone you know who is suffering abuse, you can contact Men’s advice line who offer confidential advice, support and information - 0808 8010327 Mon–Fri 10am - 5pm.
The National Centre for Domestic Violence provides a free, emergency injunction service to survivors of domestic violence regardless of their financial circumstances, race, gender or sexual orientation. You can contact them on 0800 970 2070. Alternatively, you can text 'NCDV' to 60777 and they will call you back.
Galop runs a national helpline for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people experiencing domestic abuse. You can contact them on 0800 999 5428.
You can find more information and support from:
If you are worried about your own behaviour towards your current or ex-partner, or are you concerned for someone you know who is being abusive, help is available to stop this at Respect Phoneline with non-judgemental advice and access to behaviour change programmes. Call 0808 8024040, Mondays– Fridays 10am-5pm. Closed on bank holidays.
Appeal - an appeal is an application to the county court for the court to decide if the decision made by the council about your homelessness application is wrong according to the law.
Domestic abuse - domestic abuse in relationships is very common. Behaviour is abusive if it includes any of the following -
The abusive person must be (or have been) in an intimate personal relationship with you or be a relative. Abuse directed towards your child or someone else you care about also counts as abuse towards you.
Notification - this is a letter telling you what the council has decided about your particular housing problem.
Review - a review is when you ask the council to look again at the decision the housing officer has made about your homeless application.
Review notice - this is a letter telling you the outcome of the review you have asked for of the council’s decision about your homelessness application.
The information in this guide to England only. The law may be different if you live in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
The law is complicated. We have simplified things in this guide. Please don't rely on this guide as a complete statement of the law. We recommend you ty and get advice from the sources we have suggested.
The cases we refer to are not always real but show a typical situation. We have included them to help you think about how to deal with your own situation.
Advicenow would like to thank David Thomas for his assistance and feedback on this guide and all who took part in the pilot.
This guide was written by Advicenow with funding from the TDS Foundation and updated thanks to support from Trust for London.
We hope you found this guide helpful. Can you support this guide with a donation? To donate just go to our donation page.
We are always trying to improve our service. If you have any comments on what you like or don't like about this guide please go to our feedback page.
