Summary: Mrs X complained about the Council’s decision to pay part of her housing benefit direct to her landlord in 2015, and to recover overpaid housing benefit in 2016. Mrs X said the Council refused her request for it to reconsider its overpayment decision. The Council was not at fault. It considered Mrs X’s request for reconsideration in line with the relevant regulations and decided her request was late. I have not investigated the Council’s decision to pay the landlord directly, or the circumstances around the overpayment as those matters are late.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains about the Council’s decision to pay part of her housing benefit direct to her landlord in 2015, and to recover overpaid housing benefit from 2016. Mrs X said the Council refused to reconsider the matter. She said the matter has caused her stress and financial loss.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated how the Council treated Mrs X’s request to reconsider its decision to recover her housing benefit overpayment. I have not investigated the Council’s decision to pay part of her housing benefit directly to the landlord in 2015, or the circumstances around the overpayment for the reasons set out in paragraph 30.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service the 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)
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. 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)
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. 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

8. I considered Mrs X’s complaint letter.
9. I considered information the Council provided in response to my enquiry.
10. I considered The Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2001.
11. Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered comments before I made a final decision.

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What I found

Housing Benefit-The Law

12. Housing benefit helps people on low incomes to pay their rent. It is a means tested benefit, taking both capital and income into account. Depending on the claimant’s means the benefit might not meet their entire rent amount. If this is the case the claimant is responsible for making up any shortfall.
13. If the Council reviews a claim and decides it has paid too much benefit, this is an overpayment which the Council is entitled to recover in most circumstances.
14. The Council must make decisions in writing. The notice must also advise claimants of their rights to ask for more information and to appeal the decision. Claimants can ask the council to review and reconsider its decision. The request must be made in writing within one month of the receiving the council’s decision letter.

The Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit (Decisions and Appeals) Regulations 2001

15. Regulations 4 and 5 deal with housing benefit revision decisions and late applications for revisions.
16. Regulation 4 states an application for revision of housing benefit must be made within one month of the date of the original decision, or within a time extension agreed by the council.
17. Regulation 5 states the council may extend the time allowed to make an application for revision of housing benefit. It states the application will not be granted unless the person satisfies the council that:
• it is reasonable to grant the time extension, or
• the application or revision has merit, or
• there were special circumstances which did not make it practicable to apply within the time limit.
18. The regulation says any refusal of a time extension may not be renewed.

What happened

19. Mrs X paid rent as part of a shared property from December 2015 to February 2016. The Council paid the first two weeks of the rent directly to the landlord to avoid any risk to the tenancy. Following that the Council paid Mrs X’s housing benefit directly to her.
20. Mrs X’s landlord notified the Council in March 2016 that Mrs X had left the property towards the end of January 2016. Mrs X had not told the Council she had left the property, therefore it continued to pay her housing benefit. This meant the Council overpaid Mrs X housing benefit for the last part of January 2016 and for the whole of February 2016.
21. The Council wrote to Mrs X in March 2016 to inform her of the overpayment and that it had ended her housing benefit claim. The Council sent the letter to the shared property as that was the only address it held for her and she had not provided the landlord with a forwarding address.
22. Records show Mrs X contacted the Council about her housing benefit at the end of March 2016 by telephone. The Council said it made Mrs X aware of the overpayment. The Council said Mrs X declined to provide it with a new address. The Council found Mrs X’s new address in May 2016. It raised an invoice for the overpayment and sent Mrs X a letter.
23. Mrs X wrote to the Council disputing the overpayment in June 2016 and asked it to reconsider the matter. Mrs X told the Council she was late disputing the decision because she had only just become aware of the matter. Mrs X said she had asked the Council to pay all her housing benefits to her and not to the landlord. Mrs X said she had paid the landlord for the first two weeks rent and was unaware the Council had also paid them directly. Mrs X said it was the Council’s mistake which caused the overpayment.
24. The Council wrote to Mrs X in August 2016 and said it would not consider her request for it to reconsider the overpayment because she was late and outside the one-month time limit. The Council decided Mrs X had not shown good reason for the lateness of her request. The Council said it took steps to notify Mrs X of its decision and said Mrs X did not inform it when she moved and declined to provide it with a new address. The Council said Mrs X had no further right of appeal on the matter. The Council accepted Mrs X had asked it to pay all housing benefit direct to her and apologised for the oversight in paying the first two weeks direct to the landlord. The Council said Mrs X should contact the landlord if she believed she had paid money to them incorrectly.
25. Mrs X contacted the Council about the matter again in October 2019 when she continued to dispute the overpayment. Mrs X questioned why the Council had not tried to claim the overpayment back from the landlord. Mrs X said she was being made to pay for the Council’s oversight in failing to pay the benefits directly to her.
26. The Council wrote back to Mrs X. It explained the overpayment occurred because she had moved out of the shared property but did not tell either the landlord or the Council. As the benefit was paid to Mrs X, it is recoverable from her. The Council said it cannot ask the landlord to pay it back because it was Mrs X who received the payments.
27. Mrs X remained unhappy and complained to the Ombudsman.

My findings

28. The Council wrote to Mrs X to inform her about the overpayment in March 2016. It had no alternative address for Mrs X so wrote to her at the shared property. It had no other address because Mrs X left no forwarding address with the landlord and failed to tell the Council she had left the shared property. So, I see not fault in how the Council notified Mrs X about the overpayment.
29. Mrs X did not write to dispute the overpayment until June 2016 which was around three months outside the statutory time limit of one month. There is no evidence Mrs X asked the Council to pass the matter to the tribunal, so it therefore treated the matter as a reconsideration request. Mrs X said she was late disputing the matter because she had only just become aware of the matter. However, Mrs X was aware of the overpayment from a telephone call with the Council at the end of March 2016 when she declined to provide it with her new address. The regulations state it is for the Council to determine whether to grant an extension of time. It did not accept Mrs X’s reason for making the late request. The Council dealt with the matter in line with the regulations and there is no fault in its decision not to further consider her late request for reconsideration.

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Final decision

30. I have completed my investigation. The was no evidence of fault by the Council.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

31. I have not investigated the Council’s oversight in paying some of Mrs X’s housing benefit to the landlord, nor have I investigated the circumstances around the overpayment. This is because the matters occurred in 2015 and 2016 so the complaint is late, and I consider it was reasonable for Mrs X to complain to the Ombudsman sooner.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman