What you need to know about emergency and temporary accommodation

Broadly, the council has two kinds of accommodation for people to stay in if they find themselves homeless and ask for help from the council.

Firstly, there are places you can stay that are classed as emergency accommodation. This is available at a moment’s notice and is often pretty bad. It is called this because it is for emergencies – when you really have nowhere else to go.

Secondly, there is temporary accommodation which is accommodation that they give to people who are likely to live in it for a while. Unfortunately, due to the crisis in housing in the UK, people can end up staying in a place that is classed as ‘temporary’ for many months and even years.

Emergency and temporary accommodation are words that councils use to describe the different types of places they can offer you. They are not the legal terms that explain what rights you have depending on where you are in the housing application process.

In this guide we explain and use the legal terms too because:

1. you will see them in letters from the council, and,
2. it is important to understand them so that you understand your rights at the different stages of the process.

The different stages of the homelessness process – an overview

Stage 1 – interim accommodation and your assessment

This is the stage you are in when the council agree to offer you somewhere to stay right away while you are assessed to see what other help you might get.

The actual place you will get varies depending on what the council has but often it will be a room in a hotel or a hostel. This type of place to stay often gets called emergency accommodation because you are in an emergency situation yourself. We explain more about interim accommodation in the next section.

Stage 2 – the council gives you a decision

The council has 8 weeks (two months) to carry out its assessment. Then it should give you a decision. At this point the council can either decide:

1. that you are entitled to what they call ‘the main housing duty’ (sometimes called the ‘full duty’) or,
2. you are not entitled to the main housing duty.

If you are entitled to the main housing duty, you have more rights. You should be moved into slightly better accommodation - what people often call ‘temporary accommodation’ at this point. But, due to housing shortages, you may not actually be moved. Instead, you may find you stay in the same place for some time. The important difference is that even if it doesn’t feel like anything much has changed for you, your legal rights have changed and you are no longer classed as being in interim accommodation – instead you are owed the main housing duty.

If the council say you are not entitled to the main housing duty, go to our guide on how to challenge the decision for more help.

In the next section we explain more about interim accommodation – often called emergency accommodation.

The Council must provide you with accommodation straight away if they think you:

• may be homeless,
• may be eligible for help, and
• may be in priority need.

We explain what you have to show to meet these requirements in our guide on what to do if you are homeless.

If you meet these requirements, you have a legal right to ‘interim accommodation’. People often call this emergency accommodation. Whatever you hear people call it, what it means is somewhere to stay for a short time because you have nowhere else suitable to live right now, while the council works out what other help the law says it has to give you. 

During this time, while the council are assessing you, they have a legal duty to help you with your housing problem. Lawyers call this the ‘relief duty’. This means helping you to find a private rented sector home or somewhere else.

The types of places the council can use to house people in an emergency

The places the council uses at this stage are not meant for long-term living. They are very basic with few or no facilities. You should only have to stay here while the council works out if it has a longer-term legal duty to help you with your housing problem. The council should decide this within two months of your application but often they take longer.

You could be offered any of the following:

• a hostel,
• a property where you have no cooking facilities at all or if you do you have to share them or where you have to share toilets and bathrooms (this is known as B&B accommodation even if there is no food provided),
• a privately run B&B - you should not be placed here if you are a family with children or pregnant (if you are placed here because the council has nowhere else, it should not be for more than 6 weeks),
• a hotel,
• a self-contained space like a bed-sit, or flat or house if you are lucky.

None of these places are likely to meet your needs or be what you want as the standard of the accommodation is usually basic, to say the least. 

It is best to accept the accommodation offered, however, as if you refuse it the council may decide that they have done all that the law requires them to do, and then refuse to provide you with anything else. In fact, the council should still help you find somewhere (what lawyers call the ‘relief duty’) and to go on investigating whether or not they owe you the main housing duty, even if you do refuse the place offered to you. You may need to remind them that this is the law.

Try to get help or advice before refusing a particular place otherwise the council may refuse to provide you with somewhere else. See the section called More help and advice at the end of the guide.

Your legal rights when you are entitled to interim accommodation

Unfortunately, while you are at this stage of the process you don’t have many housing rights. So, for example, you could be told you have to leave immediately, if you have behaved in a way that is threatening or violent to other people staying in the same place.

You can also be asked to move to another place at very short notice, for example the next day, if you are in accommodation that is arranged by the council on a day by day basis. With this type of accommodation, the council pays the landlord by the night. The agreement is renewed or ended each day which means you have no right to more than a day’s notice if you are told to leave. It might be the new place is better, but it might not be. 

Legally, the council must provide somewhere for you to stay that is ‘reasonably suitable’ for you and your household. If you think it isn’t suitable for you, you can ask to be moved. If you are not sure, try and get legal advice. We explain more about this in our guide on what to do if you are homeless. What rights you do have will depend on whether you have a tenancy agreement or just a licence. Who your landlord is, is important too. We explain these things next.

Licences

A licence is just permission from the landlord for you to stay in a place that they run or own. The permission can be taken away by the landlord more easily than a tenancy agreement. If you are in a hostel, B&B or hotel, it is likely that you only have a licence. If you are in a self-contained unit like a bedsit, flat or house you are likely to be a tenant even if the landlord has given you a licence agreement.

Tenancy agreements

The housing arrangement you have is usually a tenancy agreement when you have the following:

1. you pay an agreed amount of rent, and,
2. you have a space that is only for you, that you can exclude other people from.

To understand the rights you might have, you need to work out if you have just a licence or a tenancy agreement. If you don’t feel confident about what you have or what this means you can get advice from Shelter.

If you have a tenancy, you have a right to get repairs done at the place you are living in. You also have a notice period that is worked out by looking at the rental period. So, if you have a monthly tenancy, you are entitled to a month’s notice before you can be made to leave the place you are living in. The landlord does not need a reason to give you notice to leave in this situation.

Regardless of the type of living arrangement you have, (a licence or a tenancy), you can be asked by the council to move to another place at very short notice. You might be able to challenge this, with the help of a lawyer but often it will be better to accept the new place, at least to start with, and then look into getting legal advice about whether it is suitable for you. 

When you are in interim accommodation, whether you have a tenancy or a licence, it is still very easy for your landlord to evict you. This is because the laws that protect people from being evicted at short notice don’t cover this type of housing.

Rights in interim accommodation	If you have a licence	If you have a tenancy agreement
You can ask for repairs to the place you are living in	Only if your actual licence agreement says so
You get a notice period (how much time you have before moving out once the landlord tells you to leave – based on how long your tenancy period is)	Only if your actual licence agreement says so

Landlords

A landlord is a person or organisation that has some kind of legal ownership of a place where someone else lives.

Depending on the place the council offers you, the council might be your landlord, or your landlord could be someone else. If the place you are offered is owned by the council, then the council is your landlord. If not, the landlord could be an individual. For example, someone who owns and runs a private hotel or B & B or has their own house or houses they rent out. Another type of landlord is a housing association. This is not one person, but an organisation that owns and runs places for people to live in more permanently.

It is not always clear who your landlord is. The only way to be sure is to look at your licence or tenancy agreement. So, it is really important to get a copy of your licence or tenancy agreement and keep it safe so you know who your landlord is. You need to know who your landlord is for various reasons but it is especially important to know if there is an emergency situation in the place you are living such as a problem with no water or no heating.  

When the 8 week assessment period is up, the relief duty is over and the council can either decide:

1. it no longer has any duty to help you with your housing problem, or,
2. it owes you the main housing duty.

You can read more about how the council makes its decision and what you need to do in our guide about what to do if you are homeless.

Be aware that it can take the council longer than 8 weeks to do their assessment and you will need to chase them if you don’t hear from them after 8 weeks has passed since you went into an emergency place to live.

The main housing duty

If the council decides that it owes you the ‘main housing duty’ it means the council must accommodate you in temporary accommodation until you can find or be found somewhere more permanent. You are likely to find yourself living in temporary accommodation for quite a long time.

The Council should tell you if they are offering you a different place to live in, that counts as temporary accommodation, or if they have decided that where you are, in your emergency place, is still suitable for you and your household.

If the council decides that they do not owe you the main duty, they will ask you to leave your accommodation. They should usually give you some notice. If they say you have made yourself intentionally homeless you should get at least 4 weeks’ notice before you have to leave. We explain more about what making yourself intentionally homeless means in our guide about what to do if you are homeless. 

When the council makes this decision, it should put it in a letter and send, email or give the letter to you. If you just get told the decision, on the phone or in a meeting, you need to ask for the decision to be put in writing.

You have a right to ask the council to review this decision if you think they have overlooked something important about your housing situation.

There is only a short amount of time in which you can do this (three weeks from the date you get the decision letter) so make sure you read more about challenging the council’s decisions on your homelessness application so you can decide what you want to do, in time. 

The council must make sure you have accommodation that is suitable for you and your household until the main housing duty that they owe you comes to an end. This accommodation is often called 'temporary accommodation'. Often it will not, in fact, be suitable for your needs. This is the main legal point you can challenge the council on to get a better place to live.

To understand more about what lawyers call the ‘suitability test’, go to our guide on what to do if you are homeless.

The council’s main housing duty comes to an end when the council offers you more settled accommodation. A permanent home in this situation means either a private rental for at least 12 months or a social housing tenancy, from the council itself or a housing association. When you are offered one or other of these places to live you can leave temporary accommodation.

Unfortunately, if you live in areas where there are big shortages of rented homes or social housing then you may have to wait many months or even years, to be offered more settled accommodation. There is no time limit by which the council must offer you a longer-term home.

The types of places you can be offered as temporary accommodation

Your legal rights change when you move from being entitled to interim accommodation to being entitled to temporary accommodation but the actual types of places the council is allowed to offer you are broadly the same. This can feel confusing and frustrating.

You shouldn’t be left in a hotel when the council decides you are entitled to temporary accommodation but sometimes it does happen. Families should get self-contained places to live such as bedsits, flats or houses, but there’s no guarantee. If you are in B&B accommodation run by a private landlord you should not have to stay there for more than 6 weeks. 

The place the council offers you should be in your local area. But there is such a shortage of housing in many parts of England that councils are now sending people out of their area if they can show they have nothing suitable within their own area.

Moving out of the area is highly likely to add to your worries, unless you will be safer somewhere else. Depending on your situation you may be able to say that a place out of your local area is not suitable for you and the people you live with. We talk more about what this means next.

Your rights while living in temporary accommodation

Again, your rights depend on whether you have a licence or a tenancy agreement – take a look at the section called Interim accommodation for a reminder of the difference and where to get help if you are not sure what housing arrangement you have.

Whether you have a tenancy agreement or a licence, you have the right to say to the council you don’t think the place they have offered you meets your and your household’s needs. To do this you need to ask the council to look again at the place they have offered you because you do not think it is suitable.

When the council looks again at a decision it has made, it is called a ‘review’.

There are many different reasons why a place you have been housed in might not be suitable for you. Next, we list some examples.

• It might be too expensive for you to manage – you need to make sure you are claiming all the benefits you are entitled to – if it is still too much you can say you can’t stay there.
• The condition of the place you are offered might be poor or even very poor. For example, there might be damp problems, heating issues or old wiring might make it unsafe.
• The place might not be big enough for you and your family – this is called ‘overcrowding’.
• You or people in your household might have extra needs or health conditions that can’t be met in the place you have been offered – for example if you need to use a wheelchair but there is no way of getting one into the property.
• The place offered might be too far from your children’s schools. They may just have to move schools but if this would have a serious impact on their education, for example if your child was in the middle of important exams, you could say they need to stay at the current school.
• If you have a job, the new place offered to you must not mean you lose it – either because you are too far away, or because it would take too long or cost too much to get to work.

How to challenge the place you are offered as temporary accommodation

It is usually a good idea to accept the offer made by the council, even if you think that the place is going to be unsuitable. This is because you can challenge the offer after you have accepted it. If you refuse the offer straight away you can still challenge it, but if the challenge is unsuccessful the council may decide that they don’t have to help you anymore. 

You only have 21 days (3 weeks) to challenge the suitability of the place you have been offered. This is 21 days from the date that you receive the decision letter from the council offering you the place as temporary accommodation. That means if you want to challenge it, you don’t have long. You should try and get legal advice as soon as possible. Our guide on how to challenge the council’s decisions about your housing problem gives you more help and support on this area of law, including information on how to get legal advice. 

Paying rent and other responsibilities when you are living in temporary accommodation

Rent

You have to pay rent when you live in temporary accommodation but if you are on a low income, you can claim housing benefit and other benefits to help with this. You might also be entitled to a discretionary housing payment from the council.

Repairs

What repairs or maintenance the landlord or council have to do at the place you live in depends on whether or not you have a licence or a tenancy. So, the first thing to do is find out what you have, what it says, and who the landlord is in the agreement. If you have a tenancy, then the landlord has to fix many problems whatever the agreement says.

In addition to the rights you may have under your agreement, the council is still responsible for making sure your accommodation is suitable for you and your household. So ultimately, you can always complain to the council that the place you live in is not suitable or has stopped being suitable because of the poor conditions and ask for a review. You need to be aware that this may get you moved rather than actually getting your repairs fixed. So, before you ask for a review about the accommodation being unsuitable, make sure you are prepared to move if that is the council’s answer to the problem.

Other requirements

Depending on where you are housed, there may be particular requirements you need to stick to, for example about overnight visitors and pets. It is important to check what your licence or tenancy agreement says so that you don’t accidently do something that could mean you are evicted.

Eviction from temporary accommodation

It is essential you do all you can to avoid being evicted from temporary accommodation. This is because if the council decides you have done something yourself to cause this, they no longer have to help you at all. This is often called ‘making yourself intentionally homeless’.

Next, we list problems that can cause you to be evicted from temporary accommodation.  

• If you do not pay your rent, or other costs such as a service charge, your landlord can evict you.
• If you decide not to stay in the property and live somewhere else the council can evict you. So, even if the accommodation is really bad it is important to stay and try and fight to get it sorted out rather than move somewhere like a family member’s spare room or sofa-surf. 
• If you don’t stick to the conditions of the licence or tenancy agreement, your landlord may evict you.

Advice on your housing rights

Start by contacting Shelter. You can call Shelter's free housing advice helpline on 0808 800 4444. The line is open from 8am – 6pm Mondays – Fridays. Closed Bank Holidays. Calls are free from UK landlines and all major UK mobile operators. There’s also a webchat service on their website.

Shelter also has some advice centres in England where you can go to get personal, face-to-face advice from a housing specialist. 

To find a lawyer that specialises in housing law and to find out if you are eligible for legal aid go to GOV.UK and to the GOV.UK legal aid checker. 

Civil Legal Advice is a service that provides some free legal advice over the phone, funded by the government. You need to be on a low income with either a small amount or no savings to be entitled to this help. 

Citizens Advice is the national body for Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB). Scroll down their homepage to search for a CAB near you.

You can also get help from law centres who employ solicitors and other workers who specialise in helping people with housing, employment, immigration, education, community care, and benefit problems. 

LawWorks is a charity that connects people in need of legal advice and assistance with lawyers willing to meet those needs for free. It supports 170 legal advice clinics across England and Wales. Most of these law clinics take place in the evening and provide free initial advice to people about social welfare issues, employment law, housing matters and consumer disputes. 

Community organisations – some local community organisations offer housing advice, and sometimes in languages other than English. If there’s a community organisation near where you live, it’s worth asking them if they can help. If you don’t know whether there is one, ask your local council if they know of any.

Debt advice

National Debtline offers you free advice over the phone.

Helpline: 0808 808 4000 – open Monday – Friday 9am-8pm, and Saturday 9.30am-1pm. They also offer a webchat service.

StepChange - helpline: 0800 138 1111 - open Monday – Friday 8am-8pm, and Saturday 9am – 2pm. StepChange also offers an online debt service - available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Domestic abuse support

Always dial 999 in an emergency.

For support or to discuss your options you can call the National Domestic Violence Helpline on 0808 2000 247 or in Wales, Live Fear Free on 0808 80 10 800.

Both helplines are for anyone who is experiencing, or has experienced domestic abuse, or for anyone who is worried about domestic abuse happening to a friend, family member or colleague. It is free, confidential and the number will not show up on a BT telephone bill.

If you are a man affected by domestic abuse, or you are worried about someone you know who is suffering abuse, you can contact Men’s advice line who offer confidential advice, support and information - 0808 8010327 Mon–Fri 10am-5pm.

The National Centre for Domestic Violence provides a free, emergency injunction service to survivors of domestic violence regardless of their financial circumstances, race, gender or sexual orientation. You can contact them on 0800 970 2070. Alternatively, you can text: NCDV to 60777 and they will call you back.

Galop runs a national helpline for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people experiencing domestic abuse. You can contact them on 0800 999 5428. 

You can find more information and support from:

• Refuge
• Women's Aid 
• Welsh Women's Aid
• Surviving Economic Abuse

If you are worried about your own behaviour towards your current or ex-partner, or are you concerned for someone you know who is being abusive, help is available to stop this at Respect Phoneline with non-judgemental advice and access to behaviour change programmes. Call 0808 8024040, Monday–Friday 10am-5pm.

This is a quality-controlled selection of all the best legal information from a range of providers hand-picked by the Advicenow team.

Our resources

• see our Top Picks on temporary accommodation for other sources of help. 
• We also have a short video about the law and living in temporary accommodation 

Homelessness Code of Guidance

This is government guidance that local authorities should follow in all homelessness cases they are responsible for. It is a useful document to understand and refer to when dealing with local councils. They know they should be following the Code so if you quote it to them, they are more likely to pay attention.

Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s guide on temporary accommodation

This guide is aimed at housing officers who work for local councils. It sets out good practice on how housing officers should work with people who are living in temporary accommodation. If you are in this role it will be useful. If you are not, it could still be very useful as you can use it to explain to a housing officer what they should be doing. It includes helpful case studies where the Ombudsman has found the council to be at fault and the person complaining about their housing has a valid complaint.

National Homelessness Advice Service

This service, delivered by Shelter, provides free expert advice, training and online information resources to professionals working on the front line in England. It is funded by Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities. Eligible organisations include:

• Citizens Advice
• local authorities
• voluntary organisations
• public authorities such as prisons, probation, jobcentres or health services

Shelter England resource on how to challenge the suitability of accommodation offered by a local authority

This resource helps you understand what the legal test of suitability means, the procedure for challenging the suitability of an offer of homelessness accommodation, and the courts' powers where a challenge is successful.

Disclaimer

The information in this resource applied to the law in England.

Some laws on housing and homelessness are different in Wales. The laws in Scotland and Northern Ireland are also different.

The law is complicated. We have simplified things in this guide. Please don’t rely on this guide as a complete statement of the law. We recommend you try and get advice from the sources we have suggested.

The cases we refer to are not always real but show a typical situation. We have included them to help you think about how to deal with your own situation.

Acknowledgements

Advicenow would like to thank all those who provided feedback on this guide in particular those who took the time to tell us about their experiences of temporary accommodation. Our special thanks go to David Thomas for peer reviewing this resource. 

	November 2024 This resource was updated and extended thanks to funding from the Better Temporary Accommodation for London initiative at Trust for London, in partnership with Oak Foundation and from Disrupt Foundation.
	September 2023 This resource was funded as part of the Better Temporary Accommodation for London initiative at Trust for London, in partnership with Oak Foundation.

If you would like this guide in another format, please email guides@lawforlife.org.uk