You should phone the council now and ask for your decision letter to be sent to you or an address of a trusted friend or family member. Or you could have it emailed to you or a trusted friend. Or you could go and collect it in person.

You might find that the council housing officer doesn’t give you a decision letter and you might have to ask again and again for it. You might also find that if you pester enough the housing officer may change his or her decision on the thing you are asking for.

The times when the council must give you a written decision letter are:

• when the council decides if you are eligible for help with housing (this is about your immigration status),
• when the council decides if you are threatened with homelessness, and are owed the ‘Prevention duty’ or not,
• when the council decides if you are homeless according to the law, and are owed the ‘Relief duty’ or not,
• when the council decides what reasonable steps will be in your Personalised Housing Plan,
• when the council decides that you have deliberately and unreasonably failed to co-operate (and they also have to give you a written warning of this),
• when the council decides to send you on to a different council for help,
• when the council decides if you are in priority need or not,
• when the council decides to end any of its duties to you, and,
• when the council decides that accommodation they are providing you with is reasonably suitable for your needs.

Sometimes the decision letter covers one or more of these in one letter. For example, you might get a decision about the Prevention duty with your housing assessment and Personalised Housing plan all in one letter.

Help with your housing

The council has to help you with your housing problem when you go to them for help. But only if you meet the legal conditions for help - this is often called ‘being eligible’ for help. You are only eligible for this help if you have the legal right to stay in the UK.  For more on this see the section called 'The eligibility assessment' in What to do if you are threatened with homelessness.

Prevention duty

The council has to help you avoid becoming homeless. The council has to help you for 56 days (8 weeks) if the council is sure that you are eligible for help with housing and if you are threatened with homelessness. For more on this see the section called ‘The Prevention duty’ in our guide What to do if you are threatened with homelessness.

Relief duty

The council has to help you find somewhere to live.  The council has to help you for 56 days (8 weeks) if the council is sure that you are entitled to housing assistance and you are homeless. For more on this see the section called ‘Stage 3 - the help the council has to give you (the Relief duty)’ in What to do if you are homeless.

Local connection

You have a local connection with a place if you normally live there, work there or have family ties there. Also there are other special circumstances that can give you a local connection. For more on this see the section called ‘Local connection’ in What to do if you are homeless.

Personalised Housing Plan

The council must work with you to do a written plan of what the council and you will do to try and sort out your housing problem. For more on this see the section ‘Your Personal Housing Plan’ in What to do if you are homeless.

Deliberately and unreasonably failed to co-operate

This is when you fail to carry out one of your steps in your Personalised Housing Plan. For more on this see the section called ‘What ‘deliberate and unreasonable refusal to cooperate’ means' in What to do if you are homeless

When you get a decision letter about any of the decisions listed in the last section you need to get some legal advice. A solicitor can see if you are entitled to free advice. If you are, the solicitor can write a letter to the council asking for the council to review the decision. The letter can say how the council’s decision is wrong (if it is). The council might quickly change its decision when it gets a letter from a solicitor saying its decision is wrong.

If you can’t find a solicitor, you may be able to find a housing adviser who can help with this problem.

If you can’t find a solicitor or a housing adviser, you need to ask for a review yourself. It is best to do this in writing and keep a copy, or do it by email. That way, you will have a record of your request. You cannot challenge the council’s decision without first asking for a review so you must make sure you do this before the three week deadline is up.

You will have a chance to send more information about your case to the Council after you request a review, so even if you cannot get advice straightaway, make sure you ask for the review in time and get help as soon as you can afterwards.

If you have a dispute with the council about any of the things covered in this guide, a very useful resource is the government’s Code of Guidance on Homelessness. It is long and detailed, but if you know what the issue is, thanks to this guide, you can find the right bit. The housing officers know they are supposed to follow the guidance so it can also be useful to quote paragraph numbers from it.

If the council doesn’t change its decision right away, a different, more senior, housing officer will look at the decision and give you a written notice of the review within a set time. How long you have to wait for the review to happen depends on what decision is being reviewed. It is usually 8 weeks, but it may be as little as 3 weeks or as much as 12. It will say in the letter you get how long you have to wait.

What to do if there is no right to a review

There are some very important decisions that the council makes during the process of dealing with your homelessness application where there is no right of written notification and no right of review. These are:

• The decision whether or not to accept an application as homeless or threatened with homelessness at all (sometimes called ‘gatekeeping’),
• The decision that you may be eligible, homeless and in priority need, so that you are entitled to be given somewhere to stay immediately,
• The decision that the place you are given to stay as a result is reasonably suitable for your needs.

You cannot just appeal because you don’t like the decision. Instead, you need to show errors of law were made by the housing officer. This is a difficult thing to do without proper legal advice from a solicitor or housing adviser. You can find a housing law solicitor or housing adviser on the GOV.UK website. Ultimately, you will really need a solicitor for this, but a housing adviser may be able to help you lodge the appeal within the time limit.

You may be able to get legal aid to appeal the review decision of the council. It takes time to find a solicitor and to apply for legal aid and prepare an appeal so you need to act quickly if you decide you want to try and appeal.

As soon as you get your decision notice or letter and decide you want to appeal you need to take the next steps:

Step 1 - find a solicitor or housing adviser who does housing law and make an appointment. You may need to travel to see a solicitor who does legal aid work - you will need to decide if this is practical or even possible. For some people it won’t be possible because of the costs or distance or both.

Step 2 - when you have made an appointment, before the meeting, make sure you know exactly what the solicitor or housing adviser needs you to take with you to the meeting and make sure you have it ready. The solicitor will need:

• proof of ID,
• proof of address or a care of address if possible, 
• information about your income and any capital you have. This might be a benefits letter or payslip and bank statements, and, 
• all the paperwork you have from your landlord and the council, especially the review notice. 

Step 3 - make sure you get to the appointment in good time with all the documents the solicitor or housing adviser needs. This is the only way you are likely to have a useful meeting. Take a friend or family member for support if you can.

Step 4 - if the solicitor or housing adviser can help you with your case and advises you to appeal then you need to make sure you get to any other appointments the solicitor asks you to go to. And make sure the solicitor has your up to date mobile number and an address that you can get post from. 

Priority need

If you can prove to the council that you are in priority need then the council will have a duty to actually house you. So, it is very important to get any evidence you can to try and convince the housing officer that you are in priority need.

If you are one of the people on the list who is automatically in priority need this is not so tricky.  See Stage 1 in  What to do if you are homeless for a list. For example if you are pregnant you just need a letter from your midwife or GP. If you have young children you just need their birth certificates and a child benefit entitlement letter.

If you don’t fall into any of the categories listed in Stage 1 in What to do if you are homeless but you are vulnerable for other reasons you will need to get good evidence to help you convince the housing officer you are in priority need.  If you have a support worker or a social worker they may be able to help you with this.

If you are vulnerable, for example, because you have physical or mental health problems or disabilities your GP may be able to help. Or, if you can find a solicitor who does housing law or housing adviser they may be able to help you get legal aid to get medical evidence. See the section called More help and advice for how to find a solicitor or housing adviser.

If you are reading this guide because you are helping someone else with their housing problem, we have another guide to help you. You can find helpful information on vulnerability letters by going to Law for Life teaching resources. Then scroll down to the section called How to support homeless people and those threatened with homelessness.

Intentionally homeless

The council may say that you have made yourself intentionally homeless and so it no longer has to help you. If the council decides this, it means you are not entitled to housing even if you can show you are in priority need, except for temporary housing while you find yourself housing.  So, it is really important to fight this decision. The council may say you are intentionally homeless if you have been evicted for rent arrears or if you are homeless after being in prison. 
There is nowhere in the law where it actually says that these situations mean you have made yourself intentionally homeless. So you can fight them. For example, if you cannot afford your rent due to genuine financial difficulties the council cannot say that you have made yourself homeless intentionally. You will need evidence of your income and outgoings to show that you couldn’t afford it.

To fight the council on the decision you are intentionally homeless you need to:

• Ask the housing officer to write down their decision in a decision letter.
• Ask the council to review. 

See the section called ‘How to avoid being classed as intentionally homeless’ in What to do if you are homeless for more help on this.

Local connection

The council might say you are not entitled to any help if you are not from the local area because you can’t show you have a 'local connection'. For details on what this is and how it affects you, see the section called ‘Local connection’ in What to do if you are homeless.

If you are threatened with homelessness it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a local connection so don’t let them turn you away.  You are still entitled to help for 56 days (8 weeks) to avoid becoming homeless.

If you are homeless and you are also possibly in priority need, any council you go to has to help by giving you emergency or temporary accommodation. At this point the council can also refer you to another council if it thinks you don’t have a local connection to where you are. The council will probably try to turn you away if you don’t have a local connection even though it shouldn’t. It makes sense to apply to an area where you have a local connection, unless you have a very good reason for not wanting to.

To show you have a local connection you need evidence. Some examples are:

• To show how long you have lived or slept rough somewhere - a tenancy agreement, a letter saying how long you have been at your GP or Dentist, or proof that your children have been attending school in the area.
• To show you work in the area - your employment contract or a letter from your employer stating where you work and how long you have worked there.  

Suitability of accommodation

Be aware that the council can end its duties to you if you turn down accommodation. This means that if you turn down housing, the council will not help you again or offer you somewhere else. So, usually it is sensible to accept any housing that the council offers you and then try challenge how suitable it is later. You should try and find a legal aid solicitor that does housing law or a housing adviser to get help. Make sure you don’t just refuse accommodation without some legal advice first.

If you don’t want to live in the accommodation offered to you by the council you need to explain that it doesn’t meet your needs. This means that you need evidence to back up what you do need.

Examples of evidence about what you need could come from different places. For example:

• Health problems or disabilities - ask your GP or other health professional working with you or your children for a letter saying what you need in terms of accommodation. 
• If you can’t afford the rent - get bank statements to show how low your income is or information from a debt adviser to show you can’t manage it.
• If it is to do with the situation or state of the accommodation, take photos to show the council what the problem is.