Judge rejects challenge over failure of council to allocate claimant into Band 1 of housing allocation scheme amid complaints over ASB by neighbours

An applicant has lost an attempt to require the London Borough of Lewisham to rehouse him and his family because of anti-social behaviour by neighbours.

Timothy Corner KC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge, found in his judgment applicant MV had not established that Lewisham and its housing manager Pinnacle Group should have placed him in ‘Band 1’, the highest priority group for rehousing.

MV owns a leasehold flat in a building where Lewisham is the freeholder. He made a variety of complaints about criminal conduct, violence and persistent anti-social behaviour by occupants of another flat.

Mr Corner said Lewisham’s policy was that emergency accommodation in Band 1 would be offered where someone’s life was in serious danger, or they would suffer from severe physical or mental illness.

Lewisham placed MV in Band 3, which covered  for older persons welfare housing.

Mr Corner said MV’s principal complaint was that neither Lewisham nor Pinnacle had taken action to control the tenants and his second that MV and his family should be provided with emergency accommodation.

MV said Lewisham and Pinnacle had “acted illegally, unfairly, irrationally and unfairly, have created the source of the danger have ignored the law and so on”.

Two letters had been cited by MV on his claim form, one referred to the dispute with neighbours, and the other to contact with the police and proposals for mediation.

“Neither of these letters [are] suitable for a challenge in the judicial review: they do not, on their face, decide anything,” Mr Corner said.

"Nor do the letters really go to the heart of the claimant's complaints about the conduct of their neighbours.

“Judicial review is not the appropriate legal forum in which to resolve such disputes. The claimant has other, more suitable legal remedies for such complaints.”

MV could have brought private law proceedings or acted under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

Mr Corner said: “It is those proceedings, not judicial review, which are appropriate to resolve those sorts of disputes between neighbours. It is in such proceedings which a court can resolve factual disputes about what happened, hear from witnesses and make appropriate orders for injunctions or damages.”

Lewisham admitted though it had applied an obsolete housing policy to the case and so withdrew the decision to place MV in Band 3 and invited him to submit a fresh application to the housing register.

Mr Corner said: “I am not satisfied that the only course which the defendant could reasonably take would be to place the claimant in Band 1 and rehouse him. In other words, I am not satisfied that a failure by the defendant to place the claimant in Band 1 and rehouse him would be so unreasonable that no reasonable authority in the place of the defendant could take that course.”

MV had suffered distress because of their neighbours' behaviour but “the evidence is not such that the defendant, taking account of its statutory duties and powers as well as the 2022 policy, is bound to rehouse the claimant.

“In considering whether to place the claimant in Band 1, it seems to me that the Housing Panel would have to take into account the housing stock available and balance the claimant's case against other competing cases.”

This meant a mandatory order requiring Lewisham to rehouse MV would be inappropriate, and in any event premature since Lewisham had invited MV to reapply.

Mr Corner said he saw no grounds for MV to receive compensation and no breach of his Article 8 rights had been established.