Facts: Alternative Futures provided accommodation, board and care in a number of homes registered under the Registered Homes Act 1984. It then created a second company (‘Alternative Housing’) to deal with its property, which granted tenancies to the residents, with the original company continuing to provide care. The local authority refused to cancel the registration of the homes or pay housing benefit, on the basis that the registered status of the homes precluded such payments.

Judgment: the Court of Appeal (Waller and Mance LJJ, Sir William Aldous) held that a home could in substance be a care home notwithstanding that occupiers had been granted assured tenancies, where in truth the establishment provided accommodation together with nursing or personal care and, in this case, Housing and Futures, together with each house, had operated as one establishment: it was a question of act, ultimately.