Dartford Borough Council (20 000 618)

Statement Upheld Allocations 24-Nov-2020

Summary: the complainant says the Council failed to properly manage her homeless application resulting in delay in offering her suitable accommodation and the Council placing her out of the district. The Council accepts it made mistakes and offered a remedy. The Ombudsman finds the Council at fault and has agreed a remedy.

Great Yarmouth Borough Council (19 012 492)

Statement Upheld Allocations 24-Nov-2020

Summary: The Ombudsman found fault on Miss M's complaint against the Council about delays dealing with her requests for reviews of its decisions on her housing application. A letter failed to properly explain whether she was entitled to refuse 1 or 2 offers of accommodation. It also failed to give reasons why she did not qualify under the main allocation scheme. The actions the Council took, and the agreed action, remedies the injustice caused.

Medway Council (19 010 017)

Statement Upheld Allocations 23-Nov-2020

Summary: Miss N complains the Council failed to ask her questions about disability benefits, that were crucial in the award of a higher priority on its housing register. We uphold the complaint, as we find fault with the way the Council dealt with asking Miss N about adjustments she needed because of her disability. The Council has agreed to our recommendations.

London Borough of Barnet (19 010 758)

Statement Upheld Allocations 18-Nov-2020

Summary: Mrs X complains on behalf of her son, Mr Y, that the Council delayed in accepting a homelessness application from him and failed to consider his medical records. She also complains that the Council failed to communicate with her and did not escalate her complaint to stage 2 of its complaints procedure. The Ombudsman finds the Council was at fault in failing to review Mr Y's personalised housing plan and in failing to notify him that the prevention duty had ended. It also failed to communicate with Mrs X and escalate her complaint to stage 2. In recognition of the injustice caused, the Council has agreed to apologise to Mrs X and Mr Y and make a payment.

London Borough of Lambeth (19 014 439)

Statement Upheld Allocations 11-Nov-2020

Summary: Miss X complains about the way the Council handled her application for emergency rehousing after she fled her home due to domestic violence. Miss X and her children suffered injustice due to fault by the Council and its failure to consider making a direct offer of accommodation. The Council has accepted our recommendations for a suitable remedy.

Birmingham City Council (20 003 360)

Statement Upheld Allocations 06-Nov-2020

Summary: A housing applicant complained that the Council had unreasonably suspended her from bidding for accommodation on the basis she had refused two property offers. But the Ombudsman does not have reason to start an investigation of this matter. This is because the Council has now retracted its bidding suspension in the woman's case and is allowing her a further offer.

St Albans City Council (19 012 255)

Statement Upheld Allocations 05-Nov-2020

Summary: Mr X complains that he missed out on bidding for properties for about 11 weeks after the Council withdrew an offer of housing. It was fault for the Council to advertise the property as two-bedrooms when in fact it was a three-bedroom property, but it was entitled to withdraw the offer. Due to a change in computer systems, the Council is unable to provide detailed information about what happened in the period so Mr X is left not knowing if he would have been offered another property. As a result of this further fault, the Council should now offer Mr X the next available two bedroom house.

Westminster City Council (19 019 045)

Statement Not upheld Allocations 04-Nov-2020

Summary: There is no fault in the Council's handling of Ms X's application for a housing transfer.

London Borough of Camden (19 018 506)

Statement Upheld Allocations 30-Oct-2020

Summary: The Council is at fault as it did not deal with Ms X's request for medical points for her housing application in December 2018. The Council is currently reviewing its decision on Ms X's medical application so it should consider an appropriate remedy for Ms X if it awards medical points following its review. There is no evidence of fault in how the Council made direct offers of properties to Ms X.

Gloucester City Council (19 012 543)

Statement Upheld Allocations 30-Oct-2020

Summary: The complainant, Miss Y, says the Council delayed in re-housing her despite having an urgent medical and welfare need. The Ombudsman finds fault with the Council because it took too long to review Miss Y's application when she submitted notice of a change of circumstance. However, we are satisfied based on the information seen, Miss Y did not lose the opportunity to be re-housed during the period of delay. The fault did cause some injustice, in the form of time and trouble, which the Council will apologise for and make a payment of £200 to Miss Y.