Regulations bringing the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 into force

This means that homeless applications to English councils made on or after 3rd April must be administered under the amended rules.

The commencement regulations can be found here.

If you want to check how Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 is being amended you can refer to my guide. For an summary of the new rules see here.

The regulations also enable the Government to make separate regulations (on or after 12th February) concerning:

• the procedure for internal reviews (under HA 1996, s.202) requested on or after 3rd April
• the procedure to be followed in connection with notices where the applicant has deliberately and unreasonably failed to co-operate, and
• specifying which public authorities will be subject to the s.213B duty to offer a referral to a local housing authority, where the public authority believes someone may be homeless or threatened with homelessness.

Let's hope that the Code of Guidance is issued well in advance of April (no summary of the consultation responses has yet been issued).