Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to recover a housing benefit overpayment. This is because Mr X’s complaint is late and there are no good reasons to exercise our discretion to investigate.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council asking him to pay back overpayment of housing benefit in 2019.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. 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)
4. 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)
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 read the complaint information sent by Mr X. I also sent him my draft decision.

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What I found

7. If a council pays too much housing benefit to someone it will usually ask them to repay it. The law says an overpayment is recoverable unless it was caused by an official error and it was not reasonable to expect the person to realise they were receiving too much benefit. If someone disagrees with a decision that they must repay an overpayment they can appeal to the tribunal.

What happened

8. Mr X says the Council stopped paying him housing benefit in 2019 as it had not received his self-assessment form. He says he provided the information requested and tried to appeal. He says the Council failed to accept his appeal and registered the debt in the county court instead. He complains the Council is now threatening to send bailiffs to his house to recover the debt.
9. The Council’s documents show Mr X was advised of his appeal rights in October 2019.
10. The Council says Mr X missed the opportunity to submit an appeal in time as he only contacted the Council via his accountant in December 2020.

Assessment

11. If the Council did fail to accept an appeal from Mr X, I would have expected him to complain to us in 2019 when he first became aware of the overpayment. We would have advised him of his right to appeal to the Social Entitlement Chamber which is the expert body for deciding appeals. We cannot determine the rights and wrongs of the decision to seek an overpayment now. Therefore, I do not see good reason to exercise discretion to investigate as Mr X’s complaint clearly lies outside our usual 12-month time frame for accepting complaints.

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Final decision

12. I will not exercise discretion to investigate this late complaint as there are no good reasons to do so.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman