Summary: The Council failed to issue the correct decisions about Mrs X’s homelessness on time and did not consider the affordability of interim accommodation. There is no fault in how the Council handled her application for social housing. The Council should apologise, pay Mrs X £1400, and issue new decisions.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council failed to provide her and her family with proper assistance when they had nowhere to live. She also says the Council did not process her application to the housing register.
2. As a result, Mrs X says she and her husband had to move into unsuitable accommodation.

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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. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I spoke to Mrs X about the complaint.
6. I made written enquiries of the Council and considered its response along with relevant law and guidance.
7. I referred to the Ombudsman’s Guidance on Remedies, a copy of which can be found on our website.
8. Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant Law and Guidance

Homelessness

9. Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 and the Homelessness Code of Guidance for Local Authorities set out councils’ powers and duties to people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness.
10. If councils are satisfied applicants are threatened with homelessness and eligible for assistance, they must help them to secure that accommodation does not stop being available for their occupation. This is called the prevention duty. In deciding what steps they are to take, councils must have regard to their assessments of the applicants’ cases. (Housing Act 1996, section 195)
11. If councils are satisfied applicants are homeless and eligible for assistance, they must take reasonable steps to secure accommodation. This is called the relief duty. When a council decides this duty has come to an end, it must notify the applicant in writing. (Housing Act 1996, section 189B)
12. A council must secure interim accommodation for applicants and their household if it has reason to believe they may be homeless, eligible for assistance and have a priority need. (Housing Act 1996, section 188)
13. The law says councils must ensure all accommodation provided to homeless applicants is suitable for the needs of the applicant and members of his or her household.  This duty applies to interim accommodation and accommodation provided under the main homelessness duty.  (Housing Act 1996, section 206 and (from 3 April 2018) Homelessness Code of Guidance 17.2)
14. If, at the end of the relief duty, a council is satisfied an applicant is homeless, eligible for assistance, and has a priority need the council has a duty to secure that accommodation is available for their occupation. This is called the main duty. (Housing Act 1996, section 193)
15. After completing inquiries, the council must give the applicant a decision in writing. If it is an adverse decision, the letter must fully explain the reasons.  All letters must include information about the right to request a review and the timescale for doing so. (Housing Act 1996, section 184, Homelessness Code of Guidance 18.32 and 18.33)

Housing Allocations

16. Every local housing authority must publish an allocations scheme that sets out how it prioritises applicants, and its procedures for allocating housing.  All allocations must be made in strict accordance with the published scheme.  (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(1) & (14))
17. Councils must notify applicants in writing of the following decisions and give reasons:

• that the applicant is not eligible for an allocation;
• that the applicant is not a qualifying person;
• a decision not to award the applicant reasonable preference because of their unacceptable behaviour.

The Council must also notify the applicant of the right to request a review of these decisions. (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(9))

18. Housing applicants can ask the council to review a wide range of decisions about their applications, including decisions about their housing priority.

What happened

19. In June 2019, Mrs X and her family applied to the Council for help with their housing. Mrs X’s sister-in-law asked the family to leave her home and they had nowhere else to live.
20. On the same day, Mrs X applied to the Council’s housing register.
21. In July 2019, Mrs X contacted the Council to say they had to leave her sister-in-law’s home that day.
22. The Council says it arranged interim accommodation that day for the family. It says Mrs X refused the accommodation.
23. Mrs X says she did not refuse accommodation. She says the accommodation provider called her and told her not to come because it wasn’t suitable for children.
24. Mrs X and her family found a private rented property a few weeks later. She says the Council never contacted her about her housing again.
25. The Council wrote to Mrs X at her sister-in-law’s address in August to advise that refusing interim accommodation meant the Council did not have to offer them any further accommodation.
26. In October, the Council wrote to Mrs X, again care of her sister-in-law, notifying her the Council’s prevention duty had ended.

My Findings

Allocations

27. Mrs X applied to the housing register on the same day she approached the Council as homeless.
28. The Council did not make a decision about Mrs X’s allocations application. The Council says it needed Mrs X to provide some documents before it could. Mrs X says had the Council told her what documents it needed, she would have provided them.
29. The Council has explained that its online application tells applicants what additional documents it will need at the end of the form. The automatically generated letter tells applicants how to provide the documents.
30. Therefore, I find the Council did tell Mrs X what documents it needed to process her housing application. Mrs X did not provide these documents. There is no fault by the Council in how it dealt with Mrs X’s application to the housing register.

Homelessness – Assessment and Personalised Housing Plan (PHP)

31. There is no fault in the Council’s initial assessment of Mrs X’s homelessness. It took an application, decided it owed the prevention duty and issued a PHP. The PHP sets out steps for both Mrs X and the Council to take.
32. Councils must keep PHPs under review. The Code of Guidance does not specify how frequently this should happen. However, the Code says councils should always review a PHP when a plan was made at prevention stage and the applicant becomes homeless. (Homelessness Code of Guidance 11.32)
33. There is no evidence the Council ever reviewed Mrs X’s PHP. This is fault.

Homelessness – s188 interim accommodation

34. The Council says it arranged s188 interim accommodation for Mrs X and her family the day they became homeless. It says the family refused the accommodation and so its interim accommodation duty ended.
35. Mrs X’s account is significantly different. She says the hostel manager contacted her and told her the accommodation wasn’t suitable for children so she and her family should not come.
36. In response to my enquiries, the Council provided a copy of the form the Council completed to confirm “non-uptake of homelessness services”. This form says the Council “agreed [the] family could come and view and then decide but [their] lift fell through. As [there are] vacancies agreed they could come [the next day] but…” This sentence is incomplete on the form.
37. The court has decided that not being able to travel to interim accommodation on the day it is offered does not constitute a refusal of that accommodation. The Council cannot discharge its interim duty to accommodate families it has reason to believe are homeless and in priority need on this basis. Therefore, the Council should not have considered the existence of vacancies as a relevant factor in its decision that the family could come the following day. (Carstens v Basildon DC [2006] EWHC Admin)
38. Because the Council did not finish filling out the form, there is no way to know what the end of the incomplete sentence would have been. In the absence of a complete record, and given Mrs X’s different account, I cannot say whether Mrs X refused the accommodation.
39. However, the form also records that the “client [is] very upset at [the] potential costs” of the accommodation. The Council’s assessment says that Mr X works full-time. It is therefore unlikely the family would be eligible for housing benefit to meet the cost of the interim accommodation.
40. The law says accommodation offered to carry out a duty under the Housing Act 1996 must be suitable. (Housing Act 1996, section 206(1)) Suitability includes whether the accommodation is affordable.
41. There is no evidence the Council considered the affordability of the accommodation before offering it to Mrs X and her family. This is fault.

Homelessness – Decisions

42. On the day Mrs X told the Council she and her family were now homeless, the Council’s records say it accepted the relief duty. However, the Council accepts it did not write to Mrs X to tell her this. This is fault. The law is clear that all decisions about duties owed to homeless applicants must be notified in writing. (Housing Act 1996, section 184)
43. Whether Mrs X and her family accepted the interim accommodation did not affect the Council’s duty to take steps to relieve their homelessness. There is no evidence the Council contacted Mrs X again until August, when it wrote to her to say it would not make any other offers of interim accommodation. This is fault.
44. Had the Council kept in touch, it would have known that Mrs X and her family moved into a private rented tenancy a few weeks after they became homeless.
45. Instead, the Council wrote to Mrs X in October 2019 telling her the prevention duty had ended. The Council accepts that this was the wrong decision and says it should have sent a letter ending the relief duty. Sending an inaccurate letter ending the wrong duty was fault.
46. However, the law says the Council could only end the relief duty without making a main duty decision if it was satisfied that Mrs X had:
• suitable accommodation available for occupation; and
• such accommodation would be available for at least six months. (Housing Act 1996, section 189B(7)(a))
47. Because it had not kept in contact with Mrs X, the Council did not consider whether the private rented accommodation was suitable. Mrs X says it is not. If the Council had issued a decision ending the relief duty at the time, it would have carried a right of review. Mrs X could have challenged the decision on the basis she considered her family was still homeless because it had no suitable accommodation.
48. Mrs X says the current accommodation is unsuitable. She is in remission from cancer, so her immune system is compromised. She says the private tenancy has no central heating or double glazing and so is very cold. She says this puts her health at risk. Mrs X also says the property is rendered unaffordable by the costs of running an electric heater to make the property habitable. These are relevant matters the Council must consider in deciding whether the family are currently housed in suitable accommodation.
49. The Council explained Mrs X had a right to seek a review in the end of prevention duty letter it sent in October. Mrs X says she never received this letter. Even if she had, I do not consider it reasonable to expect Mrs X to have understood the decision in the letter to have any relevance to her circumstances at the time. Not only does the letter end the prevention duty instead of relief, it makes no reference to the private tenancy or its suitability.

Conclusion

50. There is no fault in how the Council dealt with Mrs X’s application to the housing register.
51. The following faults I have identified caused Mrs X and her family injustice.
52. The Council did not properly discharge its interim duty to accommodate Mrs X and her family. If the Council had considered the affordability of the accommodation, it might not have been suitable. In that case, the Council would have found the family alternative accommodation. Instead, Mrs X accepted a private tenancy which she says is not suitable for her family. She must now live with that uncertainty.
53. The Council accepts it did not issue the correct decisions, with rights of review, at the correct time to end the relief duty. If it had, it would have decided either:
• The private rented accommodation was suitable and therefore the relief duty had ended; or
• The accommodation was not suitable and Mrs X and her family were still homeless.
54. In either case, Mrs X would have had a right of review of the decision.
55. It has now been over a year and Mrs X has had to live with the uncertainty of not having a proper decision on her homeless application. In that time, she has been living in accommodation she says is unsuitable.

Agreed action

56. To remedy the injustice to Mrs X from the faults I have identified, the Council has agreed to:
• Apologise to Mrs X in writing;
• Pay Mrs X £1400 in acknowledgement of the significant delay and resulting uncertainty;
• Issue a new homelessness decision, based on Mrs X’s current circumstances, with a right to review that decision; and
• Invite Mrs X to make a new application to the housing register and support her to complete the process.
57. The Council should take this action within eight weeks of my final decision.
58. The Council should also take the following action to improve its service:
• Remind relevant staff that Personalised Housing Plans must be kept under review, in particular when there is a change in duty;
• Remind relevant staff of the need to consider suitability of interim accommodation, and to keep records of decisions about suitability; and
• Remind relevant staff of the importance of keeping accurate records and issuing correct and relevant decision letters promptly.
59. The Council should tell the Ombudsman about the action it has taken within three months of my final decision.

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Final decision

60. I have completed my investigation. The Council is at fault. The action I have recommended is a suitable remedy for the injustice caused.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman