Summary: There is fault by the Council in how it dealt with Miss X’s application to join the housing register and her homelessness. It should apologise, pay Miss X £300, and take action to improve its service.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about how the Council dealt with her homeless application. In particular, she says the Council:

1. Delayed taking an application;
2. Delayed providing interim accommodation;
3. Wrongly suspended her application to the housing register;
4. Took too long to review this decision; and
5. Discharged its duty into a property she can’t afford.

2. As a result, Miss X says she experienced unnecessary distress and anxiety.

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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 Miss 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. 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

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. 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)

Allocations

14. 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))
15. 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))

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

Background

Homelessness

17. Miss X says she approached the Council in June 2019. The Council interviewed her about her circumstances in September. She said she was living with her parents, who had asked her to leave.
18. Miss X says she told the Council she had recently returned to the UK from another country. She said she had experienced domestic violence from her ex-partner and returned to escape him.
19. The Council decided Miss X was not habitually resident in the UK and therefore was not eligible for assistance under homelessness legislation. Miss X asked for a review of the decision in early October.
20. Later that month, Miss X came back to the Council. She had now applied for welfare benefits. The Council decided she was now eligible and took a fresh application.
21. Miss X was by then staying with her sister-in-law. Her sister-in-law told the Council Miss X and her children could not continue to live with her. At the end of October, the Council placed Miss X into interim accommodation and accepted it had a duty to relieve her homelessness.
22. In January 2020, the Council identified a private rented tenancy which met
    Miss X’s needs. Miss X viewed the property, and the Council told Miss X that it was a suitable offer of accommodation by which the Council could discharge its duty to relieve her homelessness.
23. The Council applied for a Discretionary Housing Payment for Miss X to make the property affordable.

Housing Allocations

24. In June 2019, Miss X applied to join the Council’s housing register.
25. However, in dealing with Miss X’s homelessness, the Council identified some inconsistencies in Miss X’s address history. The Council decided Miss X had given false or misleading information in her application for housing and suspended her application to the housing register for 12 months.
26. Miss X asked for a review of this decision in January 2020. In February 2020, the Council upheld her review. It said she met the local connection criteria because she had close family in the city. However, by this time, Miss X had moved into the private tenancy and therefore no longer had a housing need which would qualify her to join the housing register.

My Findings

Homelessness – delay taking an application

27. Miss X applied to the housing register in June 2019. In her application, Miss X said the reason she needed to move was that she was living with her parents temporarily, but they were overcrowded.
28. The law is clear that to make a homeless application, an applicant does not have to approach a particular department or fill out a specific form. The Code of Guidance says:

“Housing authorities should take particular attention to identify instances where information on an inquiry about a social housing allocation scheme, or an application for an allocation of housing under Part 6, provides reason to believe that the applicant might be homeless or threatened with homelessness. This should be regarded as an application for homelessness assistance.” (Homelessness Code of Guidance, 18.6)

29. The threshold for taking an application is low. The Council had enough reason to believe Miss X was threatened with homelessness in June 2019 to take an application. It did not assess her circumstances until September 2019. This is a delay of three months and is fault.
30. However, Miss X left the country between July and September to collect her children and complete her divorce. There is therefore no significant injustice to Miss X from the Council’s fault. She would not have been in the UK to benefit from any steps the Council might have taken to prevent her homelessness.

Homelessness – eligibility

31. The Council accepted a prevention duty to Miss X in September 2019. It then decided she was ineligible. This is fault. To accept the prevention duty, the Council must first be satisfied the applicant is eligible for assistance.
32. Miss X asked for a review of the decision she was ineligible for assistance. There is no evidence the Council completed the review. Instead, when Miss X provided new information about her circumstances in October, the Council took a new application. This is fault.
33. The Council should have provided the new information to the reviewing officer. The reviewing officer would then have considered this information before reaching a decision.
34. The outcome for Miss X might have been the same either way in that the Council accepted it owed her the prevention duty. However, completing the statutory review process provides important protections for the applicant and learning for the Council. The applicant has a right of appeal to the county court following a review decision. Review decisions which overturn those of the Council provide the Council opportunities to identify errors in practice or understanding of the legislation and improve its service for future applicants.
35. Because the Council took a new application, Miss X must live with the uncertainty of not knowing if she was eligible for assistance when the Council assessed her in September. This is an injustice to Miss X.

Homelessness – support needs

36. The law says applicants must have an assessment which includes “the support that would be necessary for them…to have and sustain suitable accommodation.” (Housing Act 1996, section 189A, paragraph 2(c))
37. The Code of Guidance says an assessment of support needs should be “holistic and comprehensive”. (Homelessness Code of Guidance, 11.11)
38. Miss X says she told the Council she had returned to the UK to escape domestic violence at her initial interview. The Council says she did not. In any event, when the Council asked Miss X to complete an address history in October, the Council recorded her return to the UK as “following a breakdown in marriage due to DV”. ‘DV’ is commonly understood to stand for domestic violence. Therefore, by October at the latest, the Council knew Miss X had fled domestic violence.
39. There is no evidence the Council considered whether Miss X had any support needs because of domestic violence at any stage of her application. This is fault. This is despite Miss X telling the Council about this difficult subject at least once. This is an injustice to Miss X.

Homelessness – interim accommodation

40. Miss X says the Council delayed providing interim accommodation. She says as a result she remained staying with family in unsuitable conditions for too long. Both her parents’ and sister-in-law’s properties were very overcrowded with Miss X and her four children.
41. The Council says it offered interim accommodation as soon as Miss X’s sister-in-law confirmed Miss X and her children could not continue to stay with her. It says that up until that point, Miss X’s accommodation was reasonable to continue to occupy.
42. The courts have found that accommodation which would be unreasonable to occupy for a long period, might nonetheless be reasonable to occupy for a short period. (R v London Borough of Brent, ex parte Awua [1996] AC 55)
43. In response to my enquiries, the Council refers to this case and says “it was therefore reasonable for [the Council] to consider [Miss X] to be threatened with homelessness at this point, rather than homeless.”
44. The Ombudsman cannot question the merits of a decision made without fault. In September 2019, the Council decided Miss X was threatened with homelessness because her parents were not asking her to leave straight away and she had been living there since her return to the UK in May 2019. There is no fault in the Council’s decision not to offer interim accommodation while Miss X was living with her parents.
45. When the Council took the second application from Miss X in October, she was no longer staying with her parents. She was now staying with her sister-in-law in a much smaller property. The Council accepted the prevention duty to Miss X from this address. On balance, I find this means it had considered whether Miss X’s accommodation was reasonable to continue to occupy. Therefore, there is no fault or delay in the Council providing interim accommodation.
46. Although not fault, it would be good practice for the Council to keep a record showing it has considered whether and why accommodation is reasonable to continue to occupy.

Homelessness – offer of a property

47. Miss X says the Council discharged its relief duty into a private rented property she cannot afford.
48. The Council’s records show it considered the affordability of the property before making the offer. It applied for a Discretionary Housing Payment to top-up the difference between the housing costs element of Universal Credit and the rent.
49. The Council wrote to Miss X explaining that this offer of accommodation was suitable. The letter explained that Miss X could ask for a review if she disagreed with the decision. Miss X did not ask for a review of the suitability of the private tenancy.
50. There is no fault in how the Council discharged its duty to relieve Miss X’s homelessness.

Allocations – disqualification

51. In December 2019, the Council decided Miss X had provided “false or misleading information” as part of her application for housing. It therefore disqualified her from the housing register for 12 months.
52. The Council considered Miss X had given false information about her five-year address history. The Council decided Miss X gave this inaccurate information to ensure she met the local connection criteria of the allocations policy.
53. After reviewing its decision in February 2020, the Council accepted that Miss X met the local connection criteria anyway because her parents had lived in the city since 2003. In response to Miss X’s complaint, the Council said it was “very sorry that this factor was not considered when your application was originally investigated before being suspended and [it] appreciate[s] the distress this could have caused you.”
54. Not to consider whether Miss X met the local connection criteria regardless of her address history was fault. As a result, the Council suspended her application when Miss X’s homelessness meant she was eligible for Band Two priority on the housing register. By the time the Council reviewed the decision, Miss X no longer qualified to join the register because she was suitably housed.
55. I cannot say that Miss X would now be in a social housing tenancy were it not for the Council’s fault. However, the Council’s fault denied Miss X the opportunity to bid for accommodation that might have relieved her homelessness. She must now live with that uncertainty. This is an injustice to Miss X.

Allocations – time taken to review

56. Miss X says the Council took too long to review its decision to disqualify her from the register. Miss X says had the Council decided more promptly, she would have been able to bid for accommodation before accepting the private tenancy.
57. Miss X asked for a review of the decision in January 2020. The Council upheld her appeal in February 2020. The period was 29 days. The Council’s policy says it aims to complete all requests for review within 56 days. Its own internal target is 28 days.
58. Therefore, although the Council missed its internal target by one day, it completed the review well within the 56 days given in its policy. There is no fault in how long the Council took to review its decision to disqualify Miss X from the housing register.

Conclusion

59. There is no fault in how the Council:
• Decided Miss X was threatened with homelessness while she was living with her parents and her sister-in-law.
• Discharged its duty into a private tenancy.
• Reviewed its decision to disqualify Miss X from the housing register.
60. I have found fault with the Council for failing to take a homeless application when Miss X applied to the housing register in June 2019. But this fault did not cause Miss X any injustice.
61. I have found fault with the Council for:
• Accepting a prevention duty in September 2019 before being satisfied about Miss X’s eligibility.
• Failing to complete the statutory review Miss X asked for and instead taking a new homeless application.
• Failing to consider Miss X’s support needs as a survivor of domestic violence.
• Failing to recognise that Miss X met the local criteria despite any concerns about her address history.
62. As a result of the faults I have identified, Miss X experienced avoidable distress and uncertainty.

Agreed action

63. To remedy the injustice to Miss X for the faults I have identified, the Council has agreed to:
• Apologise to Miss X in writing; and
• Pay Miss X £300
64. The Council should take this action within four weeks of my final decision.
65. The Council should take the following action to improve its services:
• Remind relevant staff of the legal requirement to be satisfied an applicant is eligible before accepting any duty.
• Ensure all requests for statutory reviews of homeless decisions are completed.
• Remind relevant staff of the need to consider support needs as part of homelessness assessments and personalised housing plans.
• Remind relevant staff of the need to approach issues of domestic violence with sensitivity and care. The Council should consider if staff need refresher training on this subject.
66. The Council should tell the Ombudsman about the action it has taken within eight weeks of my final decision.

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Final decision

67. I have completed my investigation. There is fault by the Council. 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