Bantamagbari v Westminster City Council
Mr Bantamagbari applied to Southwark council, south London, as homeless. The council decided that he was owed a housing duty because he was in priority need and not intentionally homeless. But it also decided the duty should be transferred to Westminster council because Bantamagbari had a connection with that area and none with Southwark.

Westminster rejected the referral because it thought Southwark had been wrong on the intentional homelessness issue, leaving Bantamagbari in a housing "no man's land".

On his claim for judicial review, the judge decided Westminster had acted unlawfully. It was bound by Southwark's decision that a housing duty was owed unless it could itself get that decision quashed in a judicial review. Although it had joined Southwark as a defendant to Bantamagbari's claim, Westminster had failed to demonstrate that the decision of unintentional homelessness was wrong.

Source

Housing Today

Reference

There is a detailed arbitration arrangement for disputes about which authority a homeless applicant has a connection with. It does not stretch to disputes about whether a duty is owed in the first place. Perhaps this case shows that it should.