The Housing (Amendment) Act (NI) 2010 introduced a statutory right to appeal a negative homelessness decision at the County Court.

If you receive a negative homelessness decision, you cannot go immediately to the County Court for an appeal.  You must first request that the decision be reviewed by the Housing Executive.  If, after the review process has been completed, you are still dissatisfied by the outcome you can appeal to the County Court on a point of law.  The County Court will only hear your case if you can show that the Housing Executive failed to correctly follow the law when carrying out the review.  If you wish to appeal the outcome of the review you must seek legal assistance.

The court cannot look at the merits of the decision or the reasons for your homelessness application.  It can only consider whether the Housing Executive has carried out a full and proper enquiry into your case, using the evidence which you provided.  You cannot introduce any new evidence at this stage.

There are 3 decisions which the County Court can make after considering an appeal.  The court can:

• Confirm the Housing Executive’s decision.
• Quash the Housing Executive’s decision or
• Vary the Housing Executive’s decision.

If the court decides to confirm the Housing Executive’s decision, and you are still dissatisfied with the outcome you may wish to consider making an appeal to the Court of Appeal.  Alternatively, you may wish to make a new homeless application.

If the court decides to quash the Housing Executive’s decision, your case will return to the Housing Executive for further consideration.  In this case, your case will undergo a fresh review process and you will be entitled to submit new evidence to support your homelessness application.

If is very unlikely that the court will vary the Housing Executive’s decision.  This will only happen if the court is satisfied that there is only one likely outcome to a fresh review process.

If you decide that you wish to make an appeal to the County Court you will need to seek legal advice.  You will have to engage a solicitor to represent you in the court and apply for legal aid. You should do this as early as possible as there are strict time limits for lodging an appeal.