A wheelchair-bound grandmother has triumphed at the High Court following a legal struggle with Ealing Council over her housing needs.
Basra Boreh had been in a deadlock with the council since March last year over its duty to put her in appropriate housing after she became homeless.
The 66-year-old suffers from several ailments, including miliary tuberculosis, arthritis, gastritis, diabetes, osteoporosis and possibly heart disease.
Confined to a wheelchair, she is unable to stand unaided for more than two minutes, cannot use stairs and requires help from her daughter, Hayat Ahmed, and other family with bathing and all domestic tasks, the Civil Appeal Court heard.
She became homeless after her landlord repossessed her former home and, when she applied for re-housing, the council offered her a new home in Tensing Road, Southall.
But when her daughter went to inspect the property in March last year she found it had no ramp leading up to the front door - which has a large step in front of it - and was not suitable for her mother's needs.
Officials said it met the Housing Act duty it owed Mrs Boreh by making her one "reasonable" offer of accommodation. Ealing claimed that as the offer had been rejected it owed "no continuing duty to re-house" her.
That decision sparked a legal row, with Mrs Boreh's lawyers challenging the council's stance before an internal review panel, then before a County Court judge and finally before three top judges at the Appeal Court.
And Mrs Boreh emerged victorious when Lord Justice Rimer, sitting with Lord Justice Wall and Lord Justice Toulson, upheld her appeal and ruled that Ealing had not "discharged" the duty it owes to find her a suitable home.
The judge said Ealing had failed to give Mrs Boreh any firm assurance that a ramp would be fitted up to the front door of the Tensing Road house and, therefore, no reasonable offer of accommodation had been made to her.
Expressing "some impatience" that the case had to come so far before being finally resolved today, Lord Justice Wall said the issue over the ramp "could and should have been capable of resolution on the ground".
The judge added: "The message of this case is that however pressed local authority housing officers may be they must address their minds to the real issues in any given case. Where simple alterations are required to render a property suitable, those issues must be addressed with clarity and certainty in the decision letters they write."
