Allocations and residence orders

Mrs Bibi and her husband were joint tenants of a three-bedroom council house. Their marriage broke down and they divorced.

The husband applied for rehousing on the basis that he had “sole care” of their two young children. Camden council granted him a three-bedroom home. He accepted and served notice to quit to terminate the joint tenancy. Mrs Bibi was faced with possession proceedings to which she had no defence

.A family court then made a joint residence order saying the children would spend equal time with father and mother, alternating between parental homes at the end of each week.

Mrs Bibi asked for a three-bedroom home but Camden said it would only offer her a one-bedroom unit. She applied for a judicial review.

The judge quashed Camden’s decision. Although it was not bound to offer a three-bedroom home because of the residence order and/or because it had made such an allocation to the ex-husband, it was obliged to apply its own allocation scheme.

This stated the size of home offered would depend on who was in the applicant’s “family” or “household”.

In deciding that question, the council was entitled to have regard to the residence order, the fact that the unit would be under-occupied in alternate weeks and the fact there was a housing shortage in the borough.

However, Camden had gone wrong in failing to address the “household” or “family” issue in its decision letter. The matter would need to be reconsidered.