Summary: There is no fault in the Council’s decision to stop housing benefit when a related benefit claim was cancelled. The Council wrote to tell Mr B of the cancelled claim and overpayment but did not receive a response or appeal against the decision that he should repay the overpayment.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I shall refer to as Mr B, complains that he was wrongly evicted from his Council property due to rent arrears because of a housing benefit claim.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated Mr B’s complaint there were issues with his housing benefit in November 2016 which led to arrears. I have also investigated his complaint that the Council did not deduct his rent directly from benefits to avoid rent arrears.
3. The final section of this statement contains my reason(s) for not investigating the rest of the complaint.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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)
5. We cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)
6. 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)
7. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal. 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)
8. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’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)
9. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

10. I read the papers sent by Mr B.
11. I considered the Council’s comments about the complaint and any supporting documents it provided.
12. I gave the Council and Mr B the opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

13. Mr B has supplied an email sent by an estate manager to the mental health team in 2015. This says 'they are trying to engage with Mr B but are finding it difficult as they do believe that he is suffering from Mental Health issues but so far have not been able to assess him’.
14. Mr B claimed housing benefit until 14 August 2016. His housing benefit claim was suspended as the DWP told the Council he was no longer entitled to Job Seekers Allowance.
15. The Council cancelled Mr B’s claim on 21 November 2016 which created an overpayment of housing benefit. The Council sent an invoice and two reminders to Mr B but he did not contact the Council.
16. In his complaint, Mr B says he fled the property on receiving the notice seeking possession on 29 November 2016.
17. The Council has said it has no record of Mr B having any current health needs or of Mr B contacting the Council regarding the cancellation of his housing benefit.
18. The Council has said that it is now recovering the overpayment from Mr B’s new address. The Council has said that it cannot make deductions from housing benefit payments for rent arrears.
19. Mr B complains about the Council’s actions in response to his housing benefit claim. I can see no evidence the Council was aware that Mr B had current mental health issues when the problems occurred with his housing benefit. The email sent by Mr B suggests he could have mental health problems, but with no medical diagnosis or doctors letter sent to the housing benefit department, I cannot say they could have done anything differently.
20. The Council cancelled Mr B’s housing benefit claim as his Job Seekers Allowance was cancelled. I cannot find fault on this point.
21. The Council wrote to Mr B, but he did not respond. So, I cannot see how the Council could be at fault if it could not contact Mr B.
22. Mr B had the right to appeal against the recovery of the overpayment of housing benefit in 2016. The Ombudsman would expect Mr B to use this right of appeal and so would not investigate the Council’s decision to recover the overpayment now. Over three years have elapsed since the decision to recover the overpayment was made and so I cannot see any reason to exercise discretion on this point, as it is unlikely there is enough evidence available to make a sound decision on whether he received the information about his appeal rights. This is especially the case as it seems that he may not have been living in the property when the Council sent the decision letter.
23. I cannot see how the Council could have deducted payments from Mr B’s housing benefit directly to prevent rent arrears, as the Council had cancelled his housing benefit claim. The Council has explained that its policy will allow Mr B to bid for housing if he can maintain repayment of the arrears for 13 weeks on a repayment plan.

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Final decision

24. Subject to further comments by Mr B and the Council, I intend to complete my investigation of this complaint. This complaint is not upheld.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

25. I have not investigated Mr B's complaint about how the Council dealt with his eviction. The Ombudsman cannot look at complaints about the management of Council housing, this is a matter for the Housing Ombudsman.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman