Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about historic housing benefit overpayments. This is because it is a late complaint and because there were appeal rights the complainant has used or could have used.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Ms X, says the Council is aggressively pursuing her for housing benefit overpayments. She says she has proved the overpayments arose from Council error but the Council will not accept this. Ms X wants to go to the tribunal.

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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 law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone has a right of appeal, reference or review to a tribunal about the same matter. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to use this right. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
5. 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)
6. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a tribunal about the same matter. We also cannot investigate a complaint if in doing so we would overlap with the role of a tribunal to decide something which has been or could have been referred to it to resolve using its own powers. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by the Council and Ms X. This includes correspondence about the overpayments. I also considered our Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. The Council created 12 housing benefit overpayments between 2014 and 2017. Ms X asked for a reconsideration of some of the overpayments. She appealed to the tribunal about one overpayment. The tribunal rejected her appeal in 2016 and said she must repay £4582.
9. The current position is that Ms X owes £5655 which the Council is trying to recover. For some of the overpayments the Council is facilitating late appeals to the tribunal. It will be for the tribunal to decide whether to accept a late appeal. The Council says Ms X has agreed a payment plan.
10. I will not start an investigation for the following reasons.
11. This is a late complaint. Ms X has known about the overpayments since the period 2014 to 2017 but she did not complain to us until 2024. I have not seen any good reason to investigate such a late complaint.
12. Ms X appealed to the tribunal about one overpayment. She continues to dispute the overpayment and the tribunal decision. The law says we cannot investigate any matter that has formed part of an appeal to the tribunal. Ms X appealed so I have no power to start an investigation. This restriction applies even though Ms X disagrees with the tribunal decision.
13. Ms X could have appealed to the tribunal about the other overpayments. It is reasonable to expect Ms X to have appealed about each overpayment because the tribunal is the correct organisation to consider housing benefit appeals.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate this complaint because it is late and because there were appeal rights the complainant has used or could have used.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman