Temporary accommodation

You may hear us refer to both interim accommodation and temporary accommodation. Although you may sometimes remain in the same accommodation throughout your homelessness application, interim accommodation and temporary accommodation are legally different. They are provided at different stages of the homelessness process and come with different legal duties, rights and review arrangements.

Understanding the difference

If we have reason to believe that you may be homeless, eligible for assistance and may have priority need, but we are still assessing your circumstances and gathering evidence, we may offer you interim accommodation under Section 188(1) of the Housing Act 1996.

During this period, we will continue our enquiries and work with you to gather any information needed to make a formal decision on your homelessness application

If you accept an offer of interim accommodation and move in, we will continue our investigations to determine whether you are homeless, eligible for assistance, have priority need, are not homeless intentionally and have a local connection. This is known as a S184 decision under the Housing Act 1996.

Depending on the outcome of that decision:

• If we determine you are owed a longer-term housing duty, your interim accommodation placement may become a temporary accommodation placement - depending on your needs and circumstances you may stay where you are, or we may work to move you to somewhere more appropriate for your needs, based on availability of other temporary homes.
• If we determine you are not homeless, are not eligible for assistance, or do not have a priority need, your interim accommodation placement will end and you will need to make your own accommodation arrangements.
• If we determine that you are intentionally homeless but have a priority need, we may continue to provide accommodation for a reasonable period while you make alternative arrangements (usually between 14 and 28 days depending on your circumstances).

Refusing an offer of interim accommodation

You do not have a statutory right to request a review of an offer of interim accommodation.

If you refuse interim accommodation, you will normally need to make your own accommodation arrangements while we continue to assess your homelessness application and determine what duty may be owed to you.

If we later determine that you are owed a longer-term housing duty (known as 'main' duty), we may make a further accommodation offer at that stage - this will often rely on you providing us with more supporting information and the decision will not be made until your 56 days in the 'relief' duty stage has ended.

Refusing an offer of temporary accommodation

If you believe an offer of temporary accommodation is unsuitable, you have the right to request a review of the offer.

We will take the following factors into account when considering a review:

• You have physical access requirements and the accommodation we have offered cannot support your needs (e.g. wheelchair access).
• You need to access specialist facilities (such as medical support) and the accommodation is too far away.
• The accommodation would place you in financial hardship - for example you will not be able to reach your place of work using public transport.
• A member of your household need access to specialist schooling or are going through exam periods (e.g. GCSE or A level) and a change or break to their schooling due to the travel distance from the accommodation will cause hardship.

We are very unlikely to take into consideration your desire to be close to family or friends, unless they are supporting you on a regular basis within your accommodation on medical/clinical grounds - you will need to provide evidence of this.

If you would like to request a review of a temporary accommodation offer, please write to housing.options@lichfielddc.gov.uk within 21 days of the offer being made to you stating why the offer is not suitable and providing any necessary evidence. The review will be carried out by a senior housing officer not involved in your case. 

If your review is unsuccessful, our legal duty to secure further temporary accommodation can be brought to an end under S193 of the Housing Act 1996, and you will then have to make your own temporary accommodation arrangements until such time as a longer-term home becomes available, either through the housing register (if you are eligible) or other suitable avenues, such as private rented.