Documents

A letter for notifying a homeless applicant that the accommodation duty under section 193C(4) of the Housing Act 1996 has ended because:

• the applicant has accepted an offer of an assured tenancy.

When the s.193C accommodation duty is owed

The duty to secure accommodation under s.193C(4) is owed where an applicant who has a priority need and is unintentionally homeless is no longer owed the s.189B relief duty*, following service of a section 193B notice, due to their deliberate and unreasonable refusal to take a mandatory step in their housing plan.

Discharge ground

The s.193C(4) duty ends if the applicant "accepts an assured tenancy from a private landlord" (s.193C(5)(c)).

Notification of discharge

It should be noted that there is no freestanding and explicit requirement under section 193C to notify this decision (to end the duty) to the applicant. Strictly speaking, the accommodation duty ends when the applicant accepts the assured tenancy (since subsection (5) states that the authority "cease to be subject to the duty" if one of the listed events occurs).

Type of tenancy

The statutory definition refers to "an assured tenancy", which presumably includes an assured shorthold tenancy, whether fixed term or periodic.

If the applicant refuses the offer of tenancy

If the council wishes to end the duty by relying on an offer of an assured shorthold but the applicant is unwilling to accept the tenancy, the requirements set out in the alternative discharge ground at s.193C(6) will need to be met.

Effectively, this means that, in addition:

• the tenancy must be approved by the authority and offered under arrangements the authority has made with the landlord, for the purpose of ending the s.193C(4) accommodation duty
• the tenancy must have a fixed term of at least six months (s.193C(7)), and
• the applicant cannot be subject to obligations in relation to their existing accommodation which cannot be brought to an end before they are required to take up the offer (s.193C(10)).

*The s.193C(4) duty to secure temporary accommodation is also owed if the prevention duty ends because notification is given under section 193B if, when the prevention duty ends, the applicant:

• is eligible for assistance
• is homeless
• has a priority need, and
• became homeless unintentionally (s.193B(1) and s.193C(1) to (3)).