Summary: Miss X complains that a housing officer pressurised her to accept an offer of social housing which she considered unsuitable for her needs. The Ombudsman has found no evidence of fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains that a Council officer pressurised her to accept an unsuitable offer of social housing. She says she wanted to refuse the offer but the officer pressurised her to accept it on the day she viewed the property.

2. The property is in a village about 15 miles from the area where Miss X lived. She says it was too far from her workplace, her children’s schools and her support network. She wants the Council to offer another property in her preferred area.

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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. When considering complaints, if there is a conflict of evidence, we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we will weigh up the available relevant evidence and base our findings on what we think was more likely to have happened.
5. 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

6. I have discussed the complaint with Miss X and considered the information she sent me. I considered the Council’s reply to her complaint and the available housing records. I considered a written statement given by the housing officer who attended the property viewing and Miss X’s account of what happened.
7. Miss 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

The homelessness prevention duty and review rights

8. A person is threatened with homelessness if it is likely he or she will become homeless within 56 days, or a valid section 21 notice has been served which expires within the next 56 days.
9. If a council is satisfied an applicant is threatened with homelessness, and eligible for assistance, they must take steps to try to prevent them becoming homeless. This is known as the prevention duty.
10. There are several ways in which the prevention duty may end. For the purposes of this investigation, it may end when the applicant:
• has suitable accommodation available that has a reasonable prospect of being available for at least six months; or
• has refused a suitable offer of accommodation that would have been available for at least six months.
11. The Council must notify the applicant in writing that the prevention duty has ended and give reasons. The applicant must also be informed of the right to request a review of the decision to end the prevention duty.
12. An applicant for homelessness assistance has a legal right to challenge certain decisions by requesting a review within 21 days. There is a further right of appeal on a point of law to the County Court. The Ombudsman would usually expect applicants to use the review and appeal procedure provided the council has properly informed them of their rights.

The Housing Register and the Cornwall Homechoice scheme

13. Applicants who qualify to join the Housing Register can bid for social housing. The Council and partner housing organisations advertise available properties on the Cornwall Homechoice website.
14. Applicants can express an interest in an advertised property by making a bid online or by telephone. When the bidding period closes, the Homechoice team rank the bids in order of the applicants’ priority and draw up a shortlist. An applicant who is being considered for a property will usually be contacted to check they are still interested.
15. The Council’s housing allocations policy says the Council will cancel an application if the applicant refuses two offers of suitable properties within a 12 month period. They must then wait 12 months to make a new application.

Miss X’s circumstances

16. Miss X was a tenant in private rented accommodation. She applied to the Council in August 2019 for housing assistance. She was threatened with homelessness because her landlord had obtained a Possession Order.
17. The Council decided it owed Miss X the homelessness prevention duty. The Council says it would have sent Miss X a letter to inform her of this decision. But the letter was not uploaded to her case file so it could not provide a copy. It is not clear from the available records when the Council accepted this duty or what information it gave Miss X. The Council did not provide a copy of Miss X’s Personalised Housing Plan when I requested it.
18. Miss X qualified to join the Housing Register. She was placed in priority band C which includes applicants who are homeless or threatened with homelessness. This allowed Miss X to bid for social housing advertised on the Cornwall Homechoice scheme.

The offer of the property

19. Miss X bid for a Council house advertised on the Cornwall Homechoice website. It was in “Village Z” which is about 15 miles from the area where Miss X lived. The Homechoice team selected an applicant who had higher priority than Miss X for this property.
20. Miss X said she had made this bid by mistake. She did not notice until the bidding period ended and by then it was too late to cancel her bid. She says she would not have bid for properties in Village Z because it is too far from her workplace, her children’s schools, and her existing support network.
21. Another Council property in Village Z was advertised on the Homechoice website around the same time. As there were no bids for this property, the Homechoice team went through the shortlist of unsuccessful bidders for the other property. An officer contacted Miss X by email in mid-January 2020 to ask if she would be interested. The Council says Miss X expressed an interest.
22. A few days later, a housing officer contacted Miss X to arrange a time for her to view the property. According to the housing officer, Miss X told him she had already checked public transport connections from the village and contacted an employment agency about job opportunities in the area.
23. Miss X met the housing officer at the property the following day. In his statement for this investigation, the housing officer said Miss X told him she liked the property but had concerns about the location. He says he gave Miss X the option of taking another day before deciding whether to accept the offer.
24. As Miss X had previously refused an offer of a property in another town, the housing officer reminded her that the Homechoice application would be cancelled if she refused two suitable offers. He says Miss X was aware of this policy and understood it.
25. The housing officer says Miss X did not ask for more time to make a decision. She signed the tenancy agreement and was given the keys on the day of the viewing.
26. Later on that day, Miss X spoke to the homelessness prevention officer who had been dealing with her application for homelessness assistance. She told her she had accepted the tenancy. After the call, the officer wrote to Miss X to explain that the homelessness prevention duty had ended because she had suitable accommodation which would be available for at least six months. The letter explained Miss X’s right to request a review of the decision within 21 days. Miss X did not ask for a review.
27. Three days later, Miss X made a complaint to the Council. She claimed that the housing officer had bullied her into accepting the property. She said the officer had told her:
• if she did not accept the offer, she would be found intentionally homeless and Cornwall Housing would not help her find permanent accommodation;
• any accommodation offered if she became homeless would be temporary and she and her children would have to share a room;
• Children’s Services may remove her children if she became homeless and had nowhere to live.
28. A senior officer investigated Miss X’s complaint. He spoke to Miss X and interviewed the housing officer. The housing officer denied telling Miss X she would be found intentionally homeless if she refused the offer. He also denied suggesting Children’s Services would remove her children if she became homeless. He said he had asked Miss X for details of agencies supporting her family. This was a standard enquiry to verify information she had given on the Homechoice application form. Miss X told him she had a social worker in Children’s Services. The housing officer says that was the only time he referred to Children’s Services.
29. The senior officer says housing officers have received safeguarding training and understand there is a complex decision-making process before children are removed from the care of a parent. He found no evidence to uphold Miss X’s complaint.
30. The Council says Miss X could have refused the property in village Z when she was first contacted by email or when she viewed the property. The housing officer had to explain the Homechoice policy to make sure Miss X knew her application would be cancelled if she refused two suitable offers of accommodation. It accepts the housing officer’s statement that he did not comment on the impact a refusal would have on the Council’s homelessness duties. At the time the offer was made, the Council owed Miss X the prevention duty. So the property was not a final offer to end the relief or main housing duty. So if Miss X had refused this offer, and later became homeless, the refusal would not have affected future decisions the Council made about the relief duty or the duty to arrange interim accommodation.
31. In mid-February 2020 Miss X informed the Council she could not move to the property for financial and personal reasons. She did not have a job in the area and she did not drive so she could not move to village Z. She completed a termination of tenancy form and returned the keys by post.
32. Miss X was due to be evicted from her private rented accommodation in early March 2020. She stayed for a short time with a relative and then found private rented accommodation in her preferred area by mid-March.

Analysis

33. Miss X and the housing officer have given conflicting accounts of what happened on the day of the viewing. I have carefully considered both accounts and decided, on the balance of probabilities, it is unlikely that the housing officer bullied Miss X or put her under pressure to accept the offer. The officer does not accept Miss X’s account and has given a different version of events. The Council suggests Miss X later regretted her decision to accept the property.
34. I appreciate Miss X did not bid for this Council property. But she agreed to view it and she accepted the offer and signed the tenancy agreement on the same day. The Council was entitled to end the homelessness prevention duty in these circumstances. It properly notified Miss X of its reasons for ending the duty and her review rights. If Miss X considered the location made the property unsuitable, she could have used the review procedure to challenge the Council’s decision to end the prevention duty. She could have refused the offer and used a separate review procedure if the Council had then cancelled her Homechoice application because she had refused two offers. The suitability of the offer and the location of the property could have been considered in the review process.
35. The Council could not provide the letter it sent to Miss X when it accepted the prevention duty because it had not been uploaded to the case records. It did not provide Miss X’s Personalised Housing Plan. Although this is poor record-keeping, it is not necessary for me to see these documents to make a decision on this complaint. The evidence shows the Council did inform Miss X of the decision to end the prevention duty and her right to request a review if she disagreed with that decision.

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Final decision

36. I have completed the investigation and found no evidence of fault by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman