Sofa surfing: are you legally homeless and what help can you get?

"Sofa surfing" means staying with friends or family for now because no permanent home of your own exists. Many people in this spot never realise they may legally be homeless, and owed help by the council. Here are your rights.

Is sofa surfing the same as homelessness?

Yes, in most cases. The law never requires sleeping on the streets. Under the Housing Act 1996, you are homeless where no home exists that you hold a legal right to occupy. Staying on someone's sofa with nowhere else to go, and no legal right to remain, likely makes you homeless in law.

That matters because it shapes the help the council must give.

What if the person I am staying with needs me to leave?

Told by your host, a friend, relative or ex-partner, that the stay must end? Or is the arrangement plainly unsustainable? That triggers the right to approach the council for homelessness help.

No need to wait for the day you must go. Threatened with homelessness within 56 days, say by a host asking you to find somewhere soon, means the council must help under the prevention duty.

What will the council do?

Approach the council as homeless, or at risk, and:

1. An assessment must follow: your circumstances, housing history, and support needs.
2. A personalised housing plan must follow too: the steps you and the council will take to end the homelessness.
3. Emergency housing must be provided where the council has reason to believe you may be homeless and in priority need, say with children or a serious health condition.

Priority need takes in families with dependent children, pregnant women, and people made homeless by fire or flood. Some groups hold it automatically, care leavers under 21 and people with certain serious conditions among them.

Outside every priority category, the council still owes you the prevention and relief duties, even where the full main housing duty never applies.

What if the council says I am not homeless?

Any decision on your application can be challenged. Ask for a review within 21 days of receiving it. A failed review can go to the county court on a point of law.

Can I approach a council in an area I have just moved to?

Yes. Any council in England can be approached. But with no local connection to the area, the council may pass your case to one where a connection exists, short of you facing risk there.

When should I contact Support for Tenants?

We help tenants with housing disrepair claims. Staying elsewhere because disrepair the landlord never fixed made your own rented home unlivable? Call us.

Call us on 0800 030 4669. No upfront cost. You only pay if you win, and the fee comes out of the compensation, not your pocket. If you don't win, you pay nothing.

Sources

• Housing Act 1996, Part 7 (homelessness) (legislation.gov.uk)
• Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 (legislation.gov.uk)