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In a judgment handed down on 25 November 2024 the High Court has determined that the London Borough of Havering unlawfully excluded EM, a victim of serious domestic abuse, from its register for social housing.
LB Havering argued that EM did not qualify for inclusion on its housing register because she did not meet its residence requirement (which required applicants to have lived in its area for 6 years) and that she did not come within any of the exceptions to its residence requirement, each of which was said by Havering to be subject to an overarching requirement that the applicant be resident in Havering.
The Court determined that the council’s interpretation of its housing allocation scheme was wrong and that, correctly interpreted, EM qualified for multiple exceptions to the residence requirement, and that these exceptions were not subject to any qualifier in relation to location.
The judgment is available here.
Clíodhna Kelleher (instructed by Bea Patrick at Hopkin Murray Beskine solicitors) acted for EM.