Summary: Mrs B has raised a complaint with respect to the suspension and termination of her housing benefit by the Council. Further, she alleges the Council has incorrectly billed her in respect of a housing benefit overpayment. With regards to the first issue, this part of the complaint is late and there is no good reason to exercise discretion. Moreover, matters concerning housing benefit overpayments carry a right of appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal. The Ombudsman does not therefore have jurisdiction to investigate Mrs B’s complaints.

The complaint

1. The complainant who I refer to as Mrs B, is making a complaint about the way the Council has handled her entitlement to housing benefit. Specifically, Mrs B says:

• The Council wrongly terminated and suspended her entitlement to housing benefit between 2017 and 2018 without proper reason.
• The Council has issued her inaccurate payment demands for overpayments in housing benefit since 2017 to 2020.

2. Mrs B says the faults by the Council has resulted in her receiving eviction notices, increases to her rent and distress. As a desired outcome, Mrs B wants the Council to stop putting her housing benefit account in arrears and sending inaccurate bills concerning overpayments. Further, she wants a refund on monies she had to pay for rent and overpayments.

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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. 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).
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).

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How I considered this complaint

6. I have reviewed Mrs B’s complaint to the Ombudsman and Council. I have also had regard the responses of the Council, its supporting documents and applicable legislation. I now invite both Mrs B and the Council to comment on a draft of my decision before reaching a final view.

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What I found

Background

7. Housing benefit helps people on low incomes to pay their rent. It is a means tested benefit, taking into account both capital and income. Universal credit has been rolled out across the country for most new claims.
8. A council may suspend payment of all or part of a claim in some defined circumstances. The most common of these is when a council has asked for information the claimant has not supplied. Benefit may also be suspended if someone’s Department for Work and Pension benefit ends, pending information. There is no right of appeal against a decision to suspend benefit.
9. If a council reviews a claim and decides it has paid too much benefit, this is an overpayment. Some overpayments are always recoverable. A council has discretion to not recover any overpayment. Councils can recover an overpayment from the claimant or the person to whom it made the overpayment, for example the claimant’s landlord if a council has made a direct payment. The person from whom the authority decides to recover an overpayment can appeal.
10. Most housing benefit decisions (e.g. an overpayment calculation) have appeal rights. The claimant can first ask the local authority to 'reconsider' (internally review) its decision. There is then a right of appeal to the independent benefits tribunal (the First-Tier Tribunal) administered by the Ministry of Justice, through its HM Courts and Tribunal Service.

What happened

11. In March 2017, Mrs B received an overpayment letter from Council saying she owed money. She was informed about her right of appeal and to a review.
12. In February 2018, Mrs B received a letter from the Council that it needed to reassess her claim for housing benefit. It said this was because it needed to validate whether Mrs B’s son, who she lives with, is a non-dependant.
13. In March 2018, Mrs B complained to the Council about the suspension of her housing benefit. She said she had only learnt about the suspension from her landlord and without notification from the Council.
14. Later in March 2018, the Council responded to Mrs B by not upholding her complaint. It said the reason for the suspension was that it received a notification that Mrs B was not receiving child benefit for her son. It explained this would affect whether Mrs B’s son was no longer dependent on her and therefore the level of her housing benefit entitlement. Moreover, the Council said it did notify Mrs B of the suspension and requested information to support that her son was still dependent on her. That said, the Council reinstated Mrs B’s housing benefit on 7 March 2018 having established Mrs B was still in receipt of child benefit.
15. In February 2020, Mrs B escalated her complaint and challenged the Council’s assessment that she was in receipt of a housing benefit overpayment of approximately £1,000. She said she was receiving demands for the overpaid amount to be paid by her.
16. In March 2020, the Council responded to Mrs B explaining there had been fault in calculating her overpayment. This is because it was Mrs B’s landlord which had received the overpayments as opposed to her. Further, the Council recalculated Mrs B’s entitlement to Bereavement Benefit and established she should have received an additional award. The Council concluded Mrs B overpayment was instead approximately £30.
17. In April 2020, Council issued revised bill for approximately £30. However, Mrs B is still of the view the Council’s assessment of the overpayment is incorrect.

My findings

18. In my view, both aspects of Mrs B’s complaint are outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction as a matter of law. I will now explain my reasoning.

Termination and suspension of housing benefit

19. By law, I cannot investigate a complaint made more than 12 months of the complainant becoming aware of the problem, unless there are good reasons to investigate. As I understand, problems arose with the suspension and termination of Mrs B’s housing benefit between 2016 and 2018. On that basis, the complaint is late. I must therefore have regard to whether there are good reasons to exercise discretion and investigate.
20. In my view, Mrs B received a response from the Council with respect to this aspect of the complaint in March 2018. Subsequent to this, Mrs B did not raise the matters again until February 2020. I note that Mrs B has cited her having health difficulties during this period as mitigation. However, I do not consider from the evidence provided that this prevented Mrs B from escalating her complaint for nearly two years. Moreover, I consider there may be significant problems ascertaining evidence dating back four years and potentially earlier to consider this complaint. On this basis, I am not exercising my discretion to dispense with the limitation period. I will therefore not investigate this part of the complaint.

Overpayment of housing benefit

21. By law, I cannot investigate a complaint in circumstances where the complainant has a right of appeal to a tribunal. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. As I understand, Mrs B’s complaint is that the Council was wrong in its assessment of the overpayment amount it considers is payable. Further, she is dissatisfied with the Council’s reassessment completed in March 2020. In these circumstances, Mrs B had right of appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal at this point. However, Mrs B did not exercise her right of appeal and so I must consider whether it would have been reasonable for her to do so.
22. Problems about Mrs B’s overpayment began in March 2017 and have continued to present. The Council informed Mrs B about her right of appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal in March 2020. This followed there being a substantial delay in Mrs B escalating the matter with the Council. In my view, it would have been reasonable for Mrs B to have exercised her right of appeal when she was informed about this. I recognise Mrs B has cited health difficulties, but she was informed about her right of appeal at a time she was able to escalate her complaint in February 2020. I will therefore not investigate this part of the complaint.

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Final decision

23. The Ombudsman does not have jurisdiction to investigate Mrs B’s complaints concerning her housing benefit. This is because her complaint with complaint with respect to the suspension and termination of her housing benefit by the Council is late. Further, matters concerning housing benefit overpayments carry a right of appeal to the First-Tier Tribunal. I am therefore proposing to discontinue the investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman