The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: Miss X says the Council acted unfairly when it suspended her housing application and ended its main housing duty. We will not investigate as it was reasonable to expect Miss X to use her legal right to appeal to court.
The complaint
Miss X says her housing application was wrongfully suspended by the Council and the main duty ended after she turned down an offer of unsuitable housing.
Miss X says she asked the Council to review its decision, but she says the Council’s review was unfair and not impartial. Miss X says she has been caused significant distress and wants her new housing application to be backdated to the date of her first housing application.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
The law says we normally cannot 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 the information Mr X provided with his complaint.
My assessment
The Housing Act 1996 (“the Act”) says that where someone is homeless and eligible for assistance, councils have a legal duty to try and relieve their homelessness.
If a council is satisfied an applicant is homeless, eligible for assistance, and has a priority need the council 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.(Housing Act 1996, section 193 and Homelessness Code of Guidance 15.39) The Act also gives homeless applicants a right of review about councils’ main decisions on their homelessness application to the Council. If an applicant wants to dispute a negative review decision, they can ultimately appeal to the county court on a point of law.
The Council’s 7-page review response lists Miss X’s objections to the property offered. And the Council went through her objections one by one rejecting them together with detailing its previous warnings that its duty would end if Miss X rejected an offer of suitable housing. the offer. The Council’s response advised her of her legal right to appeal to the court.
We will not investigate. This is it was reasonable to expect Miss X to have appealed to the county court if she felt that her appeal factors were not sufficiently taken into account. Unlike the courts we have no powers to overturn council homelessness decisions or make rulings on points of law so it was reasonable to expect her to have taken up her right to appeal.
Final decision
We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to end its housing duty towards her. This is because Miss X had an appeal right to the county court on a point of law and it was reasonable to expect her to use this.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman