The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: X complains about how the Council dealt with their housing situation. They consider the Council failed to provide appropriate housing to meet their needs which meant they lived in unsuitable and unstable accommodation. There was fault by the Council. The Council should make a payment to X in recognition of the injustice caused.
The complaint
I refer to the complainant as X and use the pronouns they/their.
X complains about how the Council dealt with their housing situation. They consider the Council failed to provide appropriate housing to meet their needs which has meant they lived in unsuitable and unstable accommodation.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended) We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended) We cannot question whether an organisation’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended) If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered the complaint and documents provided by X and spoke to them. I asked the Council to comment on the complaint and provide information. I sent a draft of this statement to X and the Council and considered their comments.
What I found
Summary of the relevant law, guidance and good practice Someone is threatened with homelessness if, when asking for assistance from the Council: he or she is likely to become homeless within 56 days; or he or she has been served with a valid Section 21 notice which will expire within 56 days. [Housing Act 1996, section 175(4) & (5)] Where the local Council is satisfied that an applicant is homeless (rather than just threatened with homelessness) and eligible for assistance, it is must take reasonable steps to help the applicant secure accommodation that will be available for at least six months. This is regardless of whether the applicant may be in priority need, but does not mean Council must actually secure accommodation (although it may choose to do so). This is referred to as the relief duty.
Councils must complete an assessment if they are satisfied an applicant is homeless or threatened with homelessness. Councils must notify the applicant of the assessment. Councils should work with applicants to identify practical and reasonable steps for the council and the applicant to take to help the applicant keep or secure suitable accommodation. These steps should be tailored to the household, and follow from the findings of the assessment, and must be provided to the applicant in writing as their personalised housing plan. (Housing Act 1996, section 189A and Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraphs 11.6 and 11.18) If homelessness is not successfully prevented or relieved, and the council is satisfied an applicant is eligible for assistance, and has a priority need it has a duty to secure that accommodation is available for their occupation. But councils will not owe the main housing duty to applicants who have turned down a suitable final accommodation offer or a Housing Act Part 6 offer made during the relief stage, or if a council has given them notice due to their deliberate and unreasonable refusal to co-operate. (Housing Act 1996, section 193 and Homelessness Code of Guidance 15.39) What happened Summary of the key events X lived in a housing association property. In August 2019 they approached the Council as homeless. X said it was unsafe for them to continue to occupy the property because of the risk of violence from a neighbour. It appears the Council gave X some advice about looking for a privately rented property or looking at a mutual exchange.
No decision was made on X’s homelessness application. They complained and in responding to the complaint in August 2020 the Council accepted it had not dealt with their application the previous year as it should and invited them to make a further homelessness application.
The Council said X approached the Council again in December 2020 and was assigned a case officer. In January 2021 the Council accepted the relief duty to X. In early February the Council issued a personal housing plan (PHP). X signed an amended version of the plan later that month.
In the middle of March the Council accepted it had the full housing duty to X and asked if they wanted temporary accommodation. The Council said X replied in June saying they did. The Council offered X temporary accommodation in early July but they declined it as they had put in some security measure at their home.
Also at this time the Council reviewed X’s priority for housing. It decided they had the highest priority for housing. However, if they moved into temporary accommodation, they would lose that priority. The Council agreed it would allow X to retain high priority and would make them a direct offer of accommodation.
In early August the Council accommodated X in a hotel. At the beginning of November the Council made an offer of accommodation. X did not consider it was suitable but did agree to accept it. But in December the Council said it had more information and decided it was not suitable for their needs. In January 2022 the Council identified a property which it considered would be suitable. It formally offered X the property at the beginning of March. X accepted it but requested a review of its suitability.
Throughout this later period X remained living in hotel accommodation provided by the Council. The Council made an offer of accommodation and X challenged the suitability of it.
Analysis Time taken to accept the relief and full homelessness duty X presented to the Council as homeless in August 2019. The Council accepted they were eligible but says it was not immediately clear they were homeless. It said it carried out extensive enquiries including contacting the police and obtaining information from X’s landlord. It finalised its enquires in January 2021 and accepted it had the relief duty to X.
The Council has not provided any detail or evidence about the action it was taking over this period. In its own response to X it accepted there was fault because it had not passed X’s information to its medical assessor in August 2019. It also accepted there was delay in accepting the full housing duty to X from August 2020. I consider there was more delay. I have seen no evidence to explain why it took so long for the Council to conclude its assessment.
Where there has been fault we consider what impact that has had on the complainant and we ask the Council to take action to put them back, as far as is possible, in the position they would have been had there been no fault. For me to come to a view on that point I need to consider what happened once the Council had accepted the full housing duty to X.
Temporary accommodation The Council offered X temporary accommodation because it accepted it was not safe for them to occupy their home. X declined the offer. A factor in that was that it would mean they would not be able to choose the property and would lose the high priority points. This meant they were in a much more favourable position to place bids from the housing register.
The Council then agreed to provide hotel accommodation for X. This was because it accepted they could not return to where they had been living and it had concerns about their mental and physical health.
This approach by the Council was exceptional, it was using its discretion to meet X’s needs. There was no fault in the approach taken by the Council.
Period in hotel accommodation X moved into hotel accommodation in August 2021 and has remained there. The Council made one direct offer but that was later withdrawn. I do not have any details about what led the Council to withdraw the offer but it is not significant in terms of my investigation.
X accepted the latest offer of accommodation made but requested a review of its suitability. It is not for me to consider the suitability of the property as there is a laid down process for such a challenge which X is using. Any complaint X has about that can be raised as a new complaint, first with the Council and then with the Ombudsman.
There was considerable correspondence between X and the Council about how the Council managed the hotel accommodation and bookings. If X wanted to pursue that as a complaint in its own right then they need to do that with the Council. If X was not happy with the outcome then they could come to us.
I cannot say whether there was any fault or not in the detail of how this has been managed but there was no fault in the principle of the Council providing hotel accommodation in this case. Obviously that has been for a considerable period but this has to be seen in the context that the arrangements the Council had put in place were exceptional and it could have reverted to making an offer of temporary accommodation.
I have no grounds to conclude there has been delay in the Council finding alternative accommodation to make a direct offer. It did make an offer but then accepted that the property was not suitable. It then identified another property it considered to be suitable about six weeks later.
Conclusion
There was delay of a year in how long it took the Council to accept it had the relief and then the full housing duty to X. This failure meant the whole process was delayed. Had the Council acted as it should then X may still have had a period while a property was found but it may have avoided the period of hotel accommodation as they may have been able to be move straight from the previous tenancy.
Agreed action
The Council will, within a month of this decision, apologise to X and pay them £1200 in recognition of the impact the delay.
Final decision
There was fault by the Council which caused injustice to X.
Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate X has referred to events going back to 2012 which they consider were relevant and should be investigated. I consider X could have raised complaints at the time if they were concerned about the Council ‘s actions.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman