Judgment has been handed down today in the case of SH, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026].
The Claimants argued that the hotel rooms in which the Defendant had accommodated them and their families in discharge of her duties under sections 95-96 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (IAA 199) were dwellings for the purpose of Part X of the Housing Act 1985 and that the Defendant was in breach of the overcrowding provisions in that part, or alternatively that the Defendant’s guidance/policy documents relating to the assessment of overcrowding in hotel accommodation were unlawful.
The judge found that hotel rooms used to provide interim accommodation pursuant to duties under the IAA 1999 was not a dwelling as such accommodation is inherently temporary; the scheme under section 95 imposes its own standard and it cannot have been Parliament’s intention to impose an additional standard; the prolonged nature of some stays in interim accommodation cannot convert the arrangement into settled occupation; and that there were public policy reasons for finding that such a duty was not imposed. The Judge found it unnecessary to determine the alternative argument advanced by SH that the hotel in which she was accommodated was an unlicensed HMO as that would not be conclusive of whether the accommodation was inadequate or of whether any other duty was breached.
The Claimants’ challenge to the Defendant’s approach to assessing overcrowding, as set out in her guidance documents, was also dismissed; the Judge found that the Defendant was trying to create equivalence with the Housing Act standards not to replicate them and that the adaptions the Defendant had made to those standards so that they could be applied in a hotel setting were not irrational.
In respect of the Claimants’ respective hotel rooms, the Judge did find that through the passage of time, in combination with other factors, they had become inadequate for the Claimants and their families.
Judgment can be viewed here.
Karen Reid was led by Carine Patry KC of Landmark Chambers.
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Involving Karen Reid
