Housing

The word “accommodation” in the Housing Act 1996, in itself, was neutral. It was not, in its ordinary sense, to be equated with “unit of accommodation”. It was no abuse of language to speak of a family being “accommodated” in two adjoining flats. The limitation, if any, had to be found in the words “available for occupation...together with” the other members of his family. The statutory test would be satisfied by a single unit of accommodation in which a family could live together. However, it might also be satisfied by two units of accommodation, if they were so located that they enabled the family to live “together” in practical terms. Accommodation, whether in one unit or two, would not be “suitable” unless it enabled the fundamental objective of the Act, which was to ensure that families could “live together”, to be achieved.