The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s failure to act on his request for a review of its decision on his homelessness application from February 2020. We will not exercise discretion to investigate this complaint which was received outside the normal 12-month period for investigating complaints. There is no evidence to suggest that Mr X could not have complained to us sooner.
The complaint
Mr X complains the Council failed to carry out a statutory review of its decision that he made himself ‘intentionally homeless’ from his social housing tenancy. He says important information was not considered properly concerning the outstanding amount of rent arrears apparently owed to his social landlord.
He says he has been suffering stress, anxiety, and depression consequently. He would like to be put back into affordable accommodation and receive financial compensation.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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) The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by the complainant about his complaint. We also asked the Council to send us copies of its responses to Mr. X’s complaint.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Where an applicant requests a review of a council’s decision this must be completed within eight weeks. If the applicant is dissatisfied with the review decision or if a council fails to reach a decision within eight weeks, the applicant can appeal to the County Court on a point of law. The Ombudsman would normally expect someone to appeal to the County Court.
Mr X complains about what happened when his social housing landlord evicted from his permanent accommodation for rent arrears. Mr X then applied to the Council as homeless, but the Council decided he had made himself ‘intentionally homeless’ so was not eligible for assistance.
Mr X says his homelessness application was not considered properly and also his request for a review of the Council’s decision in February 2020 was not responded to either.
The Council’s complaints responses sent in March and August 2021 say its records show that Mr X withdrew the request for a review. And the Council assisted him with deposit/rent in advance for his new property.
I will not investigate as Mr X has made his complaint late. I do not see good reason to exercise discretion to investigate as I have seen nothing to suggest that Mr X could not have complained to us sooner than he has.
However even if he had complained in time, we would not have been able to investigate. As outlined in paragraph eight, this is because it was reasonable to expect him to remedy his concerns via an appeal to the County Court.
Mr X seems to have an additional complaint about the ‘affordability’ of the property he moved in to after he was evicted from his social housing tenancy. I note the Council’s responses asked him to contact the relevant teams to discuss this further. However, again there is no evidence to suggest he could not have complained to us in 2020 about this matter so, we will not investigate this late complaint either.
Final decision
I will not exercise discretion to investigate these late complaints. There is no evidence to suggest that Mr X could not have complained to us sooner.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman