Cifci v London Borough of Sutton: Refusal of Suitable Move-On Accommodation as Effective Cause of Intentional Homelessness Despite Landlord’s Notice

1. Introduction

This commentary examines the Court of Appeal’s decision in Cifci v London Borough of Sutton [2025] EWCA Civ 1480, a significant authority on intentional homelessness under Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996, and in particular on:

the causal test in section 191(1) (“in consequence of which he ceases to occupy accommodation …”), and
the interplay between a landlord’s notice to quit, an applicant’s refusal of suitable alternative accommodation, and the provision of short-term, discretionary accommodation.

The appeal concerned whether Sutton was entitled to determine that the appellant, Mr Muzzafer Cifci, had made himself intentionally homeless and therefore that the council’s main housing duty under section 193(2) did not arise.

The case refines and extends earlier authorities such as R v Brent LBC ex p Awua, Godson v Enfield LBC, Haile v Waltham Forest LBC, and Din v Wandsworth LBC on:

what counts as the effective cause of homelessness,
how far hypothetical future events (such as a possible future eviction) can be taken into account, and
the status of temporary accommodation that is under a landlord’s notice but has not yet been recovered through court proceedings.

The Court of Appeal (Newey LJ giving the leading judgment, with which Falk LJ and Cobb LJ agreed) dismissed the appeal and upheld the review decision that Mr Cifci was intentionally homeless.

2. Factual Background and Procedural History

2.1 Accommodation history

Until September 2018, Mr Cifci lived with his wife and children in privately rented accommodation. When required by his landlord to leave, he applied to the London Borough of Bromley, which accepted a housing duty and provided temporary accommodation at 22 Church Road, Croydon.
On 8 November 2021, the managing agent (Crest Manor Ltd) wrote to say that the landlord intended to take back 22 Church Road and gave notice to vacate by 15 January 2022. Bromley wrote shortly afterwards indicating that little could be done about the landlord’s notice, but that an alternative offer of accommodation would be made before the notice period expired.
On the morning of Friday 14 January 2022, Bromley emailed an offer of alternative temporary accommodation at 357 Brighton Road, Croydon. The offer letter:
- recorded that Bromley owed the main housing duty under section 193(2), and
- warned explicitly that refusal would discharge that duty and no further offers would be made.
After viewing 357 Brighton Road, Mr Cifci was unhappy with it. At 2.50 pm on 14 January, Bromley advised him in clear terms to accept the property and, if dissatisfied, to seek a suitability review under section 202, warning that refusal would place him in a “tricky situation” because the duty would be discharged.
On Monday 17 January 2022, Bromley extended the deadline to 2 pm that day. Mr Cifci confirmed that he did not wish to move to 357 Brighton Road. At 3.44 pm, Bromley withdrew the offer, stated that no further offers would be made as part of the main duty, and said his current accommodation “may now be cancelled”.
Later that afternoon, Bromley sent a letter confirming that its duty under section 193(2) had come to an end under section 193(5) because of his refusal of suitable accommodation. The letter stated:
- ordinarily they would give 28 days to vacate current accommodation after a refusal;
- but in his case this was “not possible” as the “lease end deadline to vacate the property has already passed”;
- he should “immediately vacate” 22 Church Road and make his own arrangements; but
- if he could not, the council would explore interim options for up to 28 days.
On 18 January 2022, Mr Cifci replied that his family could not vacate immediately as they had nowhere to go, and he requested more suitable housing.
On 19 January 2022, Bromley offered short-term temporary accommodation at 226A High Street, Sutton, expressly on a time-limited, discretionary basis: the placement would end on 14 February 2022 and no further offers would be made. Mr Cifci accepted and moved there that day. Bromley had Crest Manor cancel 22 Church Road on 26 January.
On 14 and 15 February 2022, Bromley confirmed that the 226A High Street placement would not be extended beyond 14 February.
On 13 April 2022, Mr Cifci applied to the London Borough of Sutton for assistance.

2.2 Decisions of Sutton and the County Court

In October 2022, Sutton accepted that:

Mr Cifci was homeless,
eligible for assistance, and
had a priority need.

But Sutton decided that he had become intentionally homeless because of his refusal of the accommodation at 357 Brighton Road and his consequent leaving of 22 Church Road. It therefore concluded that the main duty under section 193(2) did not arise.

On review under section 202, a review officer upheld that decision in a detailed Review Decision dated 18 April 2024, identifying the deliberate act as “ceasing to occupy 22 Church Road” and tying that to the refusal of 357 Brighton Road.

An appeal under section 204 to the County Court was dismissed by HHJ Holmes on 2 December 2024. The judge upheld the review officer’s reasoning.

2.3 The appeal to the Court of Appeal

Before the Court of Appeal, Mr Cifci relied on two grounds:

Ground 1 – Causation: Sutton (and the judge) erred in determining that the refusal of 357 Brighton Road caused him to cease occupying accommodation available for his occupation, for the purposes of section 191(1).
Ground 2 – Availability and reasonableness: Sutton (and the judge) erred in determining that 22 Church Road was:
- accommodation available for his occupation; and
- reasonable for him to continue to occupy,

3. Statutory Framework

3.1 The main housing duty – section 193 Housing Act 1996

Section 193(2) imposes the familiar main housing duty. Where an authority is satisfied that an applicant:

is homeless,
eligible for assistance,
has a priority need, and
has not become homeless intentionally (section 193(1)),

the authority “shall secure that accommodation is available for occupation by the applicant”.

Section 193(5) specifies one way in which that duty can cease:

if the applicant, after being informed of the consequences and of the right to review,
refuses an offer of suitable accommodation which is neither a Part 6 allocation nor a private rented sector offer, and
the authority notifies the applicant that it regards itself as ceasing to be subject to the duty.

This is exactly what Bromley did when Mr Cifci refused 357 Brighton Road.

3.2 Intentional homelessness – section 191

Section 191(1) defines when someone is intentionally homeless:

A person becomes homeless intentionally if he deliberately does or fails to do anything in consequence of which he ceases to occupy accommodation which is available for his occupation and which it would have been reasonable for him to continue to occupy.

This definition builds in three crucial elements:

a deliberate act or omission;
a causal link (“in consequence of which”) between that act/omission and the person ceasing to occupy accommodation; and
that accommodation must have been both:
- “available” for occupation, and
- “reasonable” for the person to continue to occupy.

3.3 Causation and the two-stage test – Haile

Linked to section 191 is section 193(1)’s reference to whether the applicant “became homeless intentionally”. As Lord Reed explained in Haile v Waltham Forest LBC [2015] UKSC 34, [2015] AC 1471 at [25], these provisions require a two-stage inquiry:

First, applying section 191(1), ask whether the applicant deliberately did or failed to do something in consequence of which he ceased to occupy accommodation that was available and reasonable to occupy.
Second, if that is answered “yes”, consider under section 193(1) whether the applicant’s current homelessness was caused by that intentional conduct (i.e. whether the chain of causation has remained unbroken or has been cut by a later independent event).

In this appeal, as Newey LJ emphasised, only the first stage was disputed: whether ceasing to occupy 22 Church Road was “in consequence of” the deliberate refusal of 357 Brighton Road.

4. Summary of the Court of Appeal’s Decision

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that Sutton’s review officer was entitled to conclude that:

The effective cause of Mr Cifci ceasing to occupy 22 Church Road was his deliberate refusal of the offer of accommodation at 357 Brighton Road followed by his insistence on remaining at 22 Church Road until offered 226A High Street.
The landlord’s notice in relation to 22 Church Road was not the “substantive cause” of his homelessness, because:
- no possession proceedings were brought,
- no court order was obtained, and
- he in fact remained at 22 Church Road until he moved into 226A High Street.
On a proper application of section 191(1), 22 Church Road was accommodation that remained:
- available for his occupation at the relevant time (there being no court order and protection under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977); and
- reasonable for him to continue to occupy up to the point at which he could have moved to 357 Brighton Road.
The chain of causation between his refusal of 357 Brighton Road and his current homelessness was unbroken.

The Court re‑affirmed that:

multiple operative causes can coexist; it is sufficient if one operative cause is a deliberate act of the applicant; and
review decisions must be read benevolently, focusing on substance rather than technical drafting, provided the reasoning is comprehensible and engages with the correct legal tests.

Lady Justice Falk added a short concurring judgment emphasising that accepting the appellant’s argument would seriously undermine the operation of section 193(5), enabling applicants to circumvent a lawful discharge of duty by making a further homelessness application whenever temporary accommodation had to be vacated for landlord-related or other external reasons.

5. Detailed Analysis of the Court’s Reasoning

5.1 Ground 1 – Did the refusal of 357 Brighton Road cause cessation of occupation of 22 Church Road?

5.1.1 The appellant’s argument

Mr Cifci’s counsel, Mr Jamie Burton KC, argued that:

As a matter of common sense, he left 22 Church Road because of the landlord’s notice requiring him to vacate, and Bromley’s repeated insistence that he had to leave because the “lease end deadline” had passed.
22 Church Road had ceased to be “available” for his occupation whatever he did about 357 Brighton Road; the landlord’s intention to recover possession was independent of his refusal.
The review officer mistakenly asked, “Why is he homeless now?” rather than the question demanded by section 191(1), namely: “Did he deliberately do something in consequence of which he ceased to occupy accommodation?”
His refusal of 357 Brighton Road might explain why Bromley ceased to owe him the main duty, but it did not cause him to cease occupying 22 Church Road. That, he submitted, happened because of the landlord’s notice and Bromley’s instructions to leave.

5.1.2 Newey LJ’s approach to causation

Newey LJ accepted that the correct focus under section 191(1) is on causation of the cessation of occupation. However, he framed the inquiry differently from the appellant.

He noted that:

It was common ground that:
- Mr Cifci had become homeless (that was accepted by Sutton),
- he would not have become homeless “but for” his refusal of 357 Brighton Road, and
- the refusal was deliberate.
There was no suggestion of any break in the chain of causation (no novus actus in Haile terms) between his departure from 22 Church Road and his current homelessness.

Thus, the crucial first-stage question became (para 36): “Whether Mr Cifci’s ceasing to occupy 22 Church Road was in consequence of his refusal of the 357 Brighton Road offer (or, more precisely, whether the review officer’s conclusion to that effect can be impugned).”

5.1.3 Distinguishing eviction cases from the present facts

Where a council actively evicts an applicant from temporary accommodation, the natural question is: “Why did the council choose to evict?” – as in Godson and Awua. The answer in those cases was: “Because the applicant refused a suitable offer of accommodation”. That made the refusal the effective cause of homelessness.

In Cifci, however, there was no eviction:

the landlord gave notice to Bromley and to Mr Cifci,
but no possession proceedings were issued, and
no court order was obtained.

Crucially, Mr Cifci did not leave 22 Church Road immediately on being told to do so. He explicitly said on 18 January that he could not vacate because he had nowhere to go. He only left after Bromley offered him 226A High Street, and he accepted and moved there.

Newey LJ therefore reframed the causal inquiry (para 40):

“the appropriate question to ask can be said to be ‘why did Bromley offer Mr Cifci the accommodation at 226A High Street?’, not ‘why did Bromley ask Mr Cifci to leave 22 Church Road?’”

The answer was clear:

“because Mr Cifci refused the tenancy at 357 Brighton Road but nevertheless declined to vacate 22 Church Road.”

In other words:

It was the combination of:
- his deliberate refusal of 357 Brighton Road, and
- his refusal to leave 22 Church Road when the main duty had been discharged,
that led Bromley, as a matter of discretion, to provide 226A High Street.
His physical departure from 22 Church Road was in consequence of his acceptance of 226A High Street, which itself occurred only because of his prior refusal of 357 Brighton Road.

That chain of reasoning made the refusal of 357 Brighton Road an operative cause of his ceasing to occupy 22 Church Road.

5.1.4 Multiple operative causes and the landlord’s notice

The Court recognised that:

The landlord’s notice could also be seen as a cause of events; it led Bromley to seek alternative accommodation in the first place.
However, following Chishimba v Kensington & Chelsea RBC [2013] EWCA Civ 786, if there is more than one operative or effective cause, it is enough that one of them is the applicant’s deliberate act (para 25, 41).

Thus, the existence of a landlord’s notice did not neutralise the effect of the applicant’s refusal. There can be more than one operative cause; the statute only requires that the applicant “deliberately does or fails to do anything” in consequence of which he ceases to occupy. It does not require that his act be the sole cause.

Newey LJ concluded (para 44) that the review officer was entitled to find that:

Mr Cifci ceased to occupy 22 Church Road in consequence of deliberate conduct on his part (the refusal and its consequences), and
Ground 1 therefore failed.

5.1.5 Falk LJ’s additional reasoning

Lady Justice Falk’s concurring judgment is particularly important in terms of policy and future cases. She emphasised (paras 51–53) that:

It is not enough simply to assert that the landlord’s notice was the cause of leaving 22 Church Road; the court must look at the actual circumstances of when and why he left.
In fact, he only left when 226A High Street was made available, and he left in order to move there.
That arrangement (226A High Street) came about only because:
- he had refused 357 Brighton Road (after being fully warned), and
- he remained with nowhere else to go after the main duty was discharged.
If the appellant’s argument were accepted, it would logically follow that any time temporary accommodation had to be vacated because of an external factor (landlord’s notice, repairs, redevelopment), an applicant could:
- refuse a suitable offer,
- bring about a discharge under section 193(5), and then
- evade the consequences by making a fresh homelessness application arguing that the “real” cause of leaving the property was the external factor.

Falk LJ found that result unacceptable and inconsistent with the statutory scheme, which allows councils to lawfully discharge their duty where a suitable offer is refused. The Court therefore reaffirmed that the refusal of a suitable offer can indeed be treated as the effective cause of both ceasing to occupy previous accommodation and of current homelessness, even where a landlord’s notice exists in the background.

5.2 Ground 2 – Availability and reasonableness of 22 Church Road

Ground 2 challenged the review officer’s conclusions that 22 Church Road was:

accommodation that was available for occupation by Mr Cifci; and
that it would have been reasonable for him to continue to occupy it (within section 191(1)).

Once Ground 1 failed, Ground 2 faced a major obstacle arising from Denton v Southwark LBC [2007] EWCA Civ 623:

When deciding whether it was reasonable to continue to occupy accommodation, the authority must ignore the applicant’s own deliberate acts that led to leaving that accommodation.
So in assessing reasonableness, the refusal of 357 Brighton Road has to be disregarded.

Thus, the relevant question was:

Was it reasonable for Mr Cifci to continue to occupy 22 Church Road up to the time by which he could have moved to 357 Brighton Road, assuming he had accepted that offer?

Newey LJ held (para 47) that the answer was “clearly yes”:

22 Church Road had not been recovered by court order; under section 175(1)(c) and the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, he retained a right to remain until a possession order was made.
The accommodation was suitable for his short-term continued occupation until he moved to the alternative offered property.
The landlord’s notice, by itself, did not render the property unreasonable to occupy in the relevant period (a point consistent with Kyle v Coventry CC).

Accordingly, the Court found no error in the review officer’s conclusions on availability and reasonableness, and Ground 2 was dismissed.

5.3 The approach to review decisions

The Court restated the principles governing the interpretation of review decisions, drawing on:

Holmes-Moorhouse v Richmond LBC [2009] UKHL 7; and
Nzolameso v Westminster CC [2015] UKSC 22.

Key points are:

A benevolent approach should be taken to review decisions: the court should not adopt a hyper-technical or nit-picking stance.
The decision must still show that the officer has:
- addressed the correct legal questions, and
- given proper consideration to relevant statutory criteria and the Code of Guidance.

In Cifci, the review officer’s language was not perfect. At one point he identified the “deliberate act” as “ceasing to occupy 22 Church Road” – which can look circular. However, reading the decision as a whole and applying a benevolent lens, the Court found that the officer:

clearly understood that the refusal of 357 Brighton Road was the operative deliberate act, and
expressly treated the landlord’s notice as non-causative because it had not been acted upon by a court order.

The Court therefore upheld the review decision as lawful and adequately reasoned.

6. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

6.1 Haile v Waltham Forest LBC – two-stage inquiry and novus actus

Haile established:

the two-stage inquiry: first, whether there was deliberate conduct in consequence of which the applicant ceased to occupy suitable available accommodation (section 191(1)); second, whether that past conduct caused the current homelessness (section 193(1));
that the chain of causation may be broken by a subsequent, independent event (a novus actus interveniens).

In Cifci, the Court confirmed:

that it was the first stage which was live in this appeal;
that no later independent, causative event (akin to the birth of the child in Haile) had occurred to break the link between the refusal and his current homelessness.

6.2 Din v Wandsworth LBC – hypothetical future eviction

In Din [1983] 1 AC 657, tenants had left their accommodation before the landlord actually evicted them. They argued that they would have been evicted anyway and thus were not intentionally homeless.

The House of Lords rejected this, holding that:

what matters is the actual cause of homelessness, not hypothetical future events;
the fact that the landlord might have evicted them later does not negate that their deliberate decision to leave was the real cause of their homelessness.

Newey LJ relies on Din (as reaffirmed in Haile) to underline a similar point:

The question is why Mr Cifci actually ceased to occupy 22 Church Road, not what might hypothetically have happened had the landlord pursued possession.
Because no possession proceedings were issued and no eviction took place, it is wrong to treat the landlord’s hypothetical future eviction as the cause of homelessness; one must focus on the facts as they unfolded.

6.3 R v Brent LBC ex p Awua – refusal of alternative accommodation and earlier temporary accommodation

In Awua [1996] 1 AC 55, the applicant:

was in temporary accommodation (Flat B, Clarendon Road) under a main duty owed by Tower Hamlets;
refused a tenancy offered by Peabody at Jellicoe House;
thereby caused the council to discharge its duty and obtain possession of the temporary accommodation; and
was later found intentionally homeless by another authority.

The House of Lords held that:

she had deliberately refused suitable alternative accommodation; and
she ceased to occupy the temporary accommodation in consequence of that refusal (even though, had she accepted Jellicoe House, she would also have had to leave Clarendon Road).

Awua was applied in Godson and is again relied upon in Cifci as a close analogue: the refusal of a lawful, suitable offer which discharges the main duty can be treated as the causal reason why the applicant loses his current temporary accommodation and becomes homeless.

6.4 Godson v Enfield LBC – refusal as effective cause

In Godson [2019] EWCA Civ 486:

Enfield owed the main duty and had placed the applicant in temporary accommodation at 21c Bury Street.
They offered a tenancy at 28B Church Street, which he refused.
The council discharged its duty and later evicted him from Bury Street.

The Court of Appeal (Lewison LJ, with Newey LJ agreeing) held that:

The immediate cause of homelessness might be the council’s decision to evict, but it is legitimate to go a step further and ask: “What caused the council to take that step?” – the answer being the refusal.
The refusal was therefore the effective cause of homelessness.

In Cifci, the Court extends this reasoning to a scenario without eviction. Instead of asking “why did the council evict?”, the court asks: “Why did the council offer the final temporary (discretionary) accommodation to which the applicant moved when leaving the original property?”

The answer again lies in the deliberate refusal of a suitable offer under the main duty. Thus, Godson provides the analytical template for unpicking causation in Cifci.

6.5 Chishimba – more than one operative cause

Chishimba v Kensington & Chelsea RBC [2013] EWCA Civ 786 emphasised that:

the test is the “real or effective cause” of the homelessness, assessed in a practical, non-technical way; and
if there is more than one operative cause, it is enough if one is a deliberate act or omission of the applicant (para 25 of Cifci citing para 8 of Chishimba).

That allows the landlord’s notice to be recognised as part of the factual matrix without depriving the applicant’s refusal of its legal significance.

6.6 Denton and Kyle – reasonableness of continuing to occupy

Denton v Southwark LBC [2007] EWCA Civ 623 established the rule that when considering whether it would have been reasonable for the applicant to continue to occupy accommodation under section 191(1), the authority must ignore the applicant’s deliberate act which led to the loss of that accommodation.

Kyle v Coventry CC [2023] EWCA Civ 1360 reiterated that accommodation need not be indefinitely available for it to be reasonable to continue to occupy it; short-term occupation pending alternative provision may still be reasonable.

These authorities underpin the Court’s conclusion that 22 Church Road remained reasonable for occupation until a move to 357 Brighton Road could have been achieved.

6.7 Holmes-Moorhouse and Nzolameso – reading review decisions

Holmes-Moorhouse v Richmond LBC [2009] 1 WLR 413 and Nzolameso v Westminster CC [2015] PTSR 549 together frame the approach to homelessness review decisions:

apply a benevolent interpretation, avoiding pedantic fault-finding;
but insist that the officer has grappled with the necessary statutory questions and guidance.

This approach enabled the Court in Cifci to uphold the Review Decision despite its imperfect drafting.

7. Complex Concepts Simplified

7.1 “Intentionally homeless” in plain language

A person is treated as intentionally homeless if:

they chose (or intentionally failed) to do something; and
as a result, they stopped living in a place which:
- they could have stayed in (legally and practically), and
- would have been reasonable for them to remain living in.

It’s not about moral judgment; as Lord Lowry said in Din, the term is really just a “label” for this statutory test.

7.2 “Available for occupation”

Accommodation is “available for occupation” if:

the person has a right to live there (for example, because the landlord cannot lawfully evict them without a court order), and
there is no legal or practical barrier that makes it impossible to stay there in the short term.

The fact that a landlord has served a notice to quit does not necessarily mean the property ceases to be “available” if:

no possession proceedings have been issued, and
the occupant is protected by the Protection from Eviction Act 1977, which generally requires a court order before eviction.

7.3 “Reasonable to continue to occupy”

This is an objective question. The authority must ask:

Would it have been reasonable, in all the circumstances, for the applicant to stay in this accommodation at the relevant time?

Key points:

The accommodation does not have to be suitable forever; it may be reasonable to stay there for a short period while waiting for another property.
The authority must ignore the applicant’s own deliberate acts which led to leaving the property (e.g. ignoring the fact that the applicant refused a suitable offer when assessing reasonableness of remaining in the current property).

7.4 The two-stage causation test

Think of two questions:

Past conduct question (section 191(1)):
Did the applicant deliberately do (or fail to do) something which caused them to stop living in a place they could reasonably have stayed in?
Current homelessness question (section 193(1)):
Is the applicant homeless today because of that earlier deliberate act, or has something else happened afterwards that would have made them homeless anyway (and so breaks the link)?

A “novus actus interveniens” (new intervening act) is such a later event that independently brings about homelessness, breaking the causal chain.

7.5 The significance of section 193(5) refusals

When an applicant:

is warned of the consequences,
is offered “suitable” accommodation, and
refuses it,

the authority can lawfully treat its main duty as having come to an end.

Cifci underlines that:

Such a refusal can later be treated as the effective cause of intentional homelessness; and
The applicant cannot defeat the consequences of that refusal simply by pointing to a background landlord’s notice to quit.

7.6 “Benevolent” reading of review decisions

Courts will not disallow a review decision just because:

it is not drafted like a judgment, or
some phrases could be more precise.

What matters is the substance: did the officer:

ask the right questions under the statute, and
answer them with intelligible, lawful reasoning?

8. Impact of the Judgment

8.1 Doctrinal impact

Doctrinally, Cifci:

Reinforces and refines the causation approach in intentional homelessness cases, especially where:
- the applicant was in temporary accommodation under the main duty,
- a suitable move-on offer was refused (leading to discharge under section 193(5)), and
- there is an intervening period of discretionary or “grace” accommodation.
Confirms that the presence of a landlord’s notice to quit does not preclude a finding that:
- the accommodation remained “available” and “reasonable” to occupy in the short term, and
- the effective cause of ceasing to occupy can still be the refusal of a suitable offer.
Extends the logic of Godson and Awua to cases where:
- there is no eviction by the authority, but
- the applicant leaves one property for another short-term property provided only because of his earlier refusal.
Strengthens the principle from Chishimba that the applicant’s deliberate act need only be one of the operative causes.

8.2 Practical impact for local authorities

For housing authorities, Cifci provides reassurance that:

If they properly warn applicants about the consequences of refusing a suitable offer (as section 193(5) requires), they can:
- lawfully discharge their main housing duty; and
- if the applicant later reapplies, treat that refusal as the effective cause of intentional homelessness.
The benevolent reading of review decisions gives some leeway in drafting, provided officers identify and apply:
- section 191(1)’s test correctly, and
- the causal inquiry required by Haile.
Providing limited, discretionary “grace” accommodation (such as 226A High Street) does not wipe out the effect of a lawful discharge under section 193(5).

Authorities should, however, ensure that:

warnings about the consequences of refusal and rights of review are clear, tailored, and well documented;
records show why discretionary placements are offered (for example, as a short-term humanitarian measure after discharge);
review decisions explicitly address:
- what the deliberate act was,
- why it caused cessation of occupation of earlier accommodation, and
- why the earlier accommodation remained available and reasonable to occupy.

8.3 Impact on applicants and advisers

For applicants and those advising them:

There is a strong emphasis on the importance of:
- accepting offers of accommodation which the authority considers suitable, and
- challenging suitability by way of a section 202 review while in occupation, rather than refusing outright.
Refusal of an offer that discharges the main duty under section 193(5) carries a high risk of a future intentional homelessness finding, even where there are complicating factors such as landlord’s notices.
Advisers will need to:
- scrutinise whether the offered accommodation was indeed “suitable” (factual issues such as overcrowding, location, medical needs), and
- carefully analyse causation where a landlord’s actions or other external factors are involved – but Cifci narrows the scope for arguing that those external factors alone caused the loss of accommodation.

8.4 Preventing circumvention of section 193(5)

As Falk LJ points out, a key policy function of this decision is to prevent applicants from:

refusing a suitable offer and triggering discharge; and then
making a fresh homelessness application to another authority, arguing that the “real” cause of their homelessness was an external event affecting their previous temporary accommodation.

Cifci therefore supports the coherence and enforceability of the statutory mechanism in section 193(5) by:

treating refusals as having durable causal significance, and
limiting the role that hypothetical or unpursued landlord enforcement action can play in breaking causation.

9. Conclusion

Cifci v London Borough of Sutton is an important addition to the intentional homelessness jurisprudence. It does not radically rewrite the law, but it:

crystallises the causal analysis under section 191(1), particularly where:
- a landlord has served notice on temporary accommodation,
- the council has offered a suitable move-on property in discharge of its duty, and
- the applicant has refused that offer but later moved into discretionary short-term accommodation.
confirms that a landlord’s unexercised notice does not by itself break the chain of causation or render accommodation unavailable or unreasonable to occupy up to the point when a suitable alternative could have been taken up.
underscores that:
- it is sufficient that the applicant’s deliberate act be one of several operative causes, and
- actual events (not hypothetical future evictions) govern the analysis.
protects the integrity of the section 193(5) discharge mechanism, preventing applicants from sidestepping it by re-framing the cause of their homelessness as a landlord-related externality.

For practitioners, the central message is clear:

Applicants should, wherever possible, accept offers they are advised are suitable and challenge them through the statutory review route rather than refusing outright.
Local authorities should continue to give clear, documented warnings under section 193(5) and can, if they do so, legitimately treat subsequent homelessness (even after discretionary placements) as intentional where the applicant’s refusal of a suitable offer is an operative cause.

In reinforcing the structured two‑stage causation test from Haile and aligning it with the practical realities of temporary accommodation management, Cifci will be a key reference point in future disputes about intentional homelessness where landlord action, move-on offers, and discretionary accommodation all intersect.