Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s decision to offer only a two bedroom home. This is because it is unlikely he would find fault by the Council in the way it made its decision.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I refer to as Mr X, says the Council has failed to properly assess his housing need. It wrongly decided to offer him a two bedroom property, instead of the three bedroom property he and his family need.

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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 or continue with an investigation if we believe it is unlikely we would find fault. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I read what Mr X has told us about his complaint, his correspondence with the Council and the information it has provided, including his request for succession. I invited Mr X to comment on a draft of this decision.

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What I found

4. Under the Housing Act 1985, occupiers of council housing have a legal right to succeed to a secure tenancy subject to certain conditions. One of these conditions is that there must have been no previous succession.
5. The Council’s housing policy sets out what happens if there is no succession to a tenancy. It says on a very limited number occasions it will offer a tenancy to an applicant under its discretionary tenancy policy.

What happened

6. In July 2018, Mr X applied to succeed to the tenancy of a three bedroom house, following the death of his mother, the previous tenant. In his succession request form he confirmed his wife and adult sister lived in the house with him.
7. The Council decided Mr X did not meet the criteria to succeed to the tenancy to the house because there had been a previous succession (his late mother had succeeded to the tenancy from Mr X’s late father).
8. On the basis of the information Mr X gave in his application, and following the allocations policy, the Council assessed his housing need as two bedrooms. This is one room for Mr X and his wife and a separate bedroom for his adult sister. In September 2019 the Council told Mr X it had decided he did not meet the criteria to succeed to the tenancy but a decision had been made to offer him a two bedroom property.
9. Mr X was unhappy about the decision to offer a two bedroom property. He told the Council he needed a three bedroom property. There were four adults in his household, as his sister-in-law was now living with them. In response the Council confirmed its decision to offer a two bedroom property, but did not explain why it had not taken into account the request for an additional bedroom for Mr X’s sister-in-law.

Assessment

10. The Council has told us that it assessed Mr X’s housing need, and made its decision, on the basis of the information provided by Mr X at the time of his succession request. He had confirmed in this request that only he, his wife and sister lived at the house. This showed a two bedroom need.
11. I note from the correspondence that in response to his request for a three bedroom property, the Council did not explain to Mr X why it had assessed his housing need as two bedrooms only. It would have been better if it had explained that the decision was based on his housing need at the time Mr X applied for succession.
12. But I do not consider there is anything to show fault by the Council in the way it assessed Mr X’s housing need or made its decision to offer a discretionary tenancy for a two bedroom property. The failure to provide an explanation does not, in itself, require an investigation and would not result in the Council offering a three bedroom home.

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Final decision

I will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council in the way it made its decision.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman