Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this housing benefit complaint from a landlord. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council and insufficient evidence of injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs X, says the Council sent misleading letters about her tenant’s housing benefit. This caused a lot of stress to Mrs X and meant she had to spend time trying to resolve the issue. Mrs X wants compensation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I read the complaint and the Council’s responses. I considered comments Mrs X made in reply to a draft of this decision.

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What I found

Housing benefit and landlords

4. A council can pay housing benefit to a landlord. The housing benefit remains the responsibility of the tenant and entitlement is based solely on the tenant’s circumstances. If a tenant thinks their housing benefit is wrong they can ask for a review or an appeal. The landlord cannot change or influence the amount of housing benefit a tenant is entitled to. If a council is paying the benefit to the landlord it will tell the landlord how much benefit the tenant has been awarded. A housing benefit award will change when a tenant’s circumstances change.

What happened

5. Mrs X is a landlord. Her tenant receives housing benefit. The Council pays the housing benefit to Mrs X.
6. On 26 February the Council told Mrs X that her tenant would get £160 a week from 2 March. On 5 March the Council told Mrs X that her tenant had been awarded £195 a week from 1 April. However, the payment Mrs X received in April did not reflect the higher amount.
7. Mrs X contacted the Council. The Council explained it has to produce benefit letters to reflect changes for the new financial year. However, these letters do not reflect changes that may subsequently occur in the tenant’s circumstances. The Council explained that the tenant had reported a change in her circumstances which led to a reduction in her housing benefit from 2 March. The Council explained to the tenant why her housing benefit had been reduced from the amount stated in the letter of 5 March.
8. The Council agreed the letters had been confusing. It told Mrs X it would change the letter template to make it clear that the benefit was correct at the time the letter was produced but the benefit may change according to the claimant’s circumstances. The Council declined Mrs X’s request for compensation of £150 because she had received the correct amount of money and because the Council had quickly clarified the situation.
9. Mrs X is dissatisfied with the response. She wants compensation for the stress and for the time she had to spend dealing with the issue. She sent many emails and made five calls. She suggests it is not legally correct to pay a different amount to the amount stated in the decision letter.

Assessment

10. I will not start an investigation because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council. The Council issued benefit letters based on the information it had. But, it had to reduce the award, and issue revised decision letters, because the tenant’s circumstances changed and her benefit entitlement fell. The Council can only pay benefit based on a tenant’s circumstances and any change will supersede previous benefit decisions.
11. If the tenant thought any of the benefit decisions were wrong, she could have used her appeal rights. This is not something Mrs X can do because she is not the claimant. In addition, it was for the tenant, not Mrs X, to contact the Council to query the amount of benefit and to ask questions regarding the reduction.
12. I also will not start an investigation because there is insufficient evidence of injustice. Mrs X has not suffered a financial loss and it is her tenant’s responsibility to pay the rent, regardless of how much housing benefit she gets. In addition, the Council explained to the tenant in March why her benefit had been reduced. The Council sent emails to Mrs X in April and provided a complaint response in early May. Although Mrs X says the matter was not resolved promptly, I see no evidence of undue delay especially as Mrs X did not become aware of the reduced benefit until 20 April.

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Final decision

13. I will not start an investigation because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council and insufficient evidence of injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman