The A to Z of Housing Discrimination Case Law: Powell v Dacorum Borough Council

From Akerman-Livingstone to Z v Hackney, learn about the cases and the principles which have shaped Housing Discrimination since the Equality Act 2010 came into force.  In each of our podcasts, we will discuss one case: its facts, its context, and what principles it decided.

In this eleventh podcast, Iris Ferber KC and Stefan Liberadzki discuss Powell v Dacorum Borough Counsel, heard by the Court of Appeal in 2019: one of the first big housing cases about the Public Sector Equality Duty, which establishes, firstly, that compliance with the PSED is fact-specific and also function-specific (that is, it depends on what sort of public function the local authority is exercising); secondly, that compliance is a matter of substance not form, requiring a conscientious consideration of all the relevant factors in good faith; and thirdly – perhaps most importantly in practice – that an earlier breach of the PSED is capable of being remedied by a public sector landlord, so long as it does conduct a PSED assessment by the time of the Court hearing.

Tune in below:

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19th Oct 2026

Iris Ferber KC

Call 2005 | Silk 2023

Stefan Liberadzki

Call 2013