Summary: Miss X complained about how the Council managed her housing benefit and council tax after she moved out of the Council’s area. There was fault in how the Council paid Miss X a housing transition payment and claimed she still owed council tax from 2017. This caused Miss X avoidable frustration and upset for which the Council agreed to apologise and pay a financial remedy. The Council also agreed to stop any further automated correspondence being sent to Miss X.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about how the Council managed her housing benefit and council tax after she moved out of the Council’s area in September 2022. She says the Council:
• took too long to pay her a housing benefit transition payment;
• tried to recover the payment from her; and
• pursued her for council tax debts she does not owe.
2. Miss X says the Council’s actions caused her significant frustration, upset and distress. She wants the Council to confirm that she does not owe anything, pay her compensation and agree to not contact her again.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
6. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
7. The Social Entitlement Chamber (also known as the Social Security Appeal Tribunal) is a tribunal that considers housing benefit appeals. (The Social Entitlement Chamber of the First Tier Tribunal)
8. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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)

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What I have and have not investigated

9. I have investigated how the Council managed the end of Miss X’s housing benefit claim, her request for a transition payment and the recovery action the Council took.
10. I have not investigated whether Miss X was entitled to a housing benefit transition payment or how much housing benefit she was entitled to. The Council’s decisions about Miss X’s entitlement were appealable to the Social Security Appeal Tribunal and I am satisfied it would have been reasonable for Miss X to use that appeal right.

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How I considered this complaint

11. I considered:
• the information Miss X provided;
• the Council’s comments on the complaint and the supporting information it provided; and
• a previous decision we made on a related complaint from Miss X.
12. Miss X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Housing benefit transition payments

13. When most people who receive housing benefit (which is administered by councils), apply for universal credit (which is administered by the Department for Work and Pensions, DWP), their entitlement to housing benefit automatically ends.
14. In these cases, the person moving from housing benefit to universal credit is entitled to continue to receive housing benefit for two weeks after they change benefits. This is called a housing benefit transition payment.
15. A transition payment should be paid automatically if the someone’s universal credit entitlement starts from the day after their housing benefit would have ended. If there is a gap between the two benefits, the transition payment would not be triggered.
16. Councils can still make deductions from the transition payment, including for previous housing benefit overpayments, such as when someone is paid more housing benefit than they were entitled to.

What happened

17. Miss X moved out of the Council’s area in late September 2022. Before she moved home, Miss X received housing benefit and council tax support from the Council.
18. Around a week before Miss X moved, the Council paid housing benefit for the two weeks from mid-September to early October 2022 to her bank account.
19. Miss X told the Council on the day she moved and asked it to “Please cancel my housing benefit claim from today’s date”.
20. The Council had already paid Miss X housing benefit for the week after she had moved so it decided she had been overpaid one week’s housing benefit. The Council sent Miss X a letter about its decision and an invoice for one week’s housing benefit at the end of September 2022. In its letter the Council told Miss X that she had the right to appeal the Council’s decision if she believed it was wrong. The Council also ended Miss X’s council tax support claim at the same time.
21. In early October 2022, Miss X contacted the Council asking about a housing benefit transition payment because she was claiming universal credit. The Council replied a few days later asking Miss X to send it, by early November 2022:
• a copy of her tenancy agreement for hew new address; and
• confirmation that she received universal credit.
22. Miss X told the Council she might not be able to send the required information about her universal credit claim within the month the Council had asked her to. The Council replied explaining that Miss X’s universal credit claim would need to start from the day she moved to be entitled to the transition payment and so she should receive confirmation of this by the end of October 2022.
23. After a short exchange of emails, the Council agreed that Miss X could send the Council evidence of her universal credit entitlement when she received it. However, it explained it could not pay the transition payment until it had evidence of when Miss X’s universal credit entitlement started.
24. In late November 2022, Miss X sent the Council confirmation of her universal credit award. However, this said Miss X’s universal credit started from early October, rather than the date she moved in September, so the Council decided Miss X did not qualify for the transition payment. The Council explained this in more detail a few days later and told Miss X she had a right to appeal the Council’s decision about this if she did not agree.
25. At this time the Council also told Miss X she sill owed council tax of around £200 from 2017.
26. Miss X told the Council she was challenging the DWP’s decision not to backdate her universal credit claim to the date she moved. In response, the Council told Miss X that if her universal credit claim was backdated it would be able to award the transition payment at that stage.
27. In mid-February 2023 Miss X told the Council her universal credit award had been backdated to the date she moved.
28. In mid-April 2023, the Council awarded Miss X the housing benefit transition payment equivalent to two weeks housing benefit. It deducted the housing benefit it had already paid for the week after she moved out and paid the rest into Miss X’s bank account.
29. However, the Council realised it had awarded the transition payment for the wrong dates, so it reversed the previous award and made a second, covering the correct dates. The amount of both awards was the same.
30. Reversing the incorrect award caused an overpayment which the Council accepts it should have offset the second award against. However, instead of doing this, the Council only offset part of the second award against the first and paid Miss X another almost £500.
31. The Council later send Miss X an invoice for the second payment it had sent her but did not clearly explain how the overpayment came about.
32. Miss X complained to the Council in May 2023 about:
• how it had handled her housing benefit transition payment; and
• that the Council wrongly claimed she still owed it council tax from 2017/18.
33. In its final decisions about her complaint, the Council said:
• it believed the housing benefit awards and invoices were correct; and
• it would write off the outstanding council tax it claimed she owed.
34. In response to my enquiries the Council reviewed Miss X’s housing benefit and council tax accounts. It wrote off the housing benefit overpayment and the council tax it said Miss X owed.

My findings

Housing benefit transition payment

35. It is not the Ombudsman’s role to decide whether the Council correctly decided Miss X’s entitlement to benefits, including any transition payment. Miss X had appeal rights against those decisions which I am satisfied it would have been reasonable for her to use. Therefore, I my findings are restricted to how the Council communicated with Miss X and how it implemented the decisions it made.
36. When Miss X moved and first claimed universal credit, there was a gap between when she moved and her universal credit entitlement started. Therefore, I am satisfied the information the Council gave Miss X about her entitlement at the time was correct. It told her about her right to appeal its decision if she disagreed with it. There was no fault in how the Council first approached Miss X’s claim to the transition payment.
37. After Miss X’s universal credit entitlement was backdated to the date she moved, the Council awarded Miss X a transition payment. Since it had decided it had already paid Miss X housing benefit for the week after she moved, I do not consider there was fault in how the Council offset part of the transition payment it made.
38. However, there was fault when the Council tried to correct the dates of the transition payment it made. Instead of making this change ‘seamlessly’ the Council made a further payment to Miss X which it then tried to recover. It also did not send Miss X the letters it should have done when it made those changes explain its decisions. This caused Miss X avoidable frustration and confusion about what she was entitled to and what she owed.

Council tax

39. We made a decision about an outstanding council tax debt owed by Miss X in 2021. This related to part of the period in 2017/18 which the Council recently claimed Miss X still owed council tax. During our investigation into the complaint, the Council led us to believe that it had corrected the errors.
40. Despite this, the Council told Miss X that she still owed around £200 from the same period in May 2023 and this was due to a decision it made in 2020.
41. In response to my enquires the Council said it no longer had details about how this debt came about so it decided to write off the debt. While this means that Miss X no longer owes anything to the Council, I am satisfied the error caused her significant frustration. The fact that we have previously made a decision about the same or a similar issue, covering the same period is, in my view, an aggravating factor and made the injustice to Miss X more significant.

Remedy

42. The Ombudsman’s approach to remedies is to put people back in the position they would have been had any errors not happened.
43. Had the Council correctly administered Miss X’s transition payment when it paid this, she would not have experienced the frustration, confusion and worry caused by the overpayment and the Council’s attempts to recover this. I consider a financial remedy of £250 would have been suitable to properly recognise that distress.
44. However, Miss X would also not have received the second payment of nearly £500 the Council incorrectly made. Therefore, my view is that the extra payment Miss X received has put her in a better financial position than she otherwise would have been in. Therefore, I do not intend to recommend a financial remedy to recognise that distress caused by that error.
45. Any errors in Miss X’s council tax account are separate and are not connected with her claim for a transition payment. While the Council did not take any further action to recover the council tax debt, I am satisfied that the Council’s claim that she still owed it money from 2017 after our decision in 2021 did cause her significant frustration. Although the Council has since written off this debt, this did not financially benefit Miss X directly, so I consider a financial remedy is appropriate and £250 would be suitable.

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Agreed action

46. Within one month of my final decision the Council will:
• apologise to Miss X for the mistakes when making her housing benefit transition payment and for how it managed her council tax account. It should also confirm, as part of the response, that she does not owe the Council any housing benefit or council tax debts;
• pay Miss X £250 to recognise the avoidable distress caused by claiming she still owed council tax form 2017;
• refund to Miss X any outstanding credit on her council tax account; and
• make changes to Miss X’s housing benefit and council tax accounts that block any further automated correspondence being sent to her while she lives outside the Council’s area. It should ensure that any correspondence sent is checked by a Council officer before it is sent and that officers are directed to both this and our 2021 final decisions before sending any correspondence. Copies of both decisions should be retained by the Council on Miss X’s accounts for that purpose.
47. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

48. I have completed my investigation. There was fault in how the Council paid Miss X a housing transition payment and claimed she still owed council tax from 2017. This caused Miss X avoidable frustration and upset for which the Council agreed to apologise and pay a financial remedy. The Council also agreed to stop any further automated correspondence being sent to Miss X.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman