Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about housing allocations. This is because there is not enough injustice to warrant our investigation and it is unlikely we could add anything further to the investigation already considered by the Council.

The complaint

1. Miss Y complains the Council unfairly removed her successful bid for a property. She says she feels she has been treated poorly, causing her inconvenience, and upset.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss Y placed a bid on property A on the housing register in November 2019. In December the Council carried out checks and it became clear Miss Y had moved. Miss Y’s advocate contacted the Council to provide her current address. The Council asked Miss Y to supply information to confirm her new address. Property A needed extensive refurbishment before tenants could move in and consequently became unavailable.
6. Miss Y was unable to provide the further information as her application had been suspended while verification checks were carried out. The Council therefore reactivated her online account to allow her to provide the information online in mid-January 2020.
7. Miss Y then placed a bid on a Property B in late January. The Council emailed Miss Y, explaining any property bids made before the change of circumstances form had been submitted by Miss Y and verified by the Council would not be considered.
8. Miss Y completed the change of circumstances form later the same day, just before midnight. The bidding for property B closed a minute later at midnight.
9. The following day, the Council considered the change of circumstances form and reactivated the account again to allow Miss Y to place further bids.
10. Another day after this, the Council offered property B to another applicant. It said it had not considered Miss Y’s bid because her change of circumstances had not been verified at the point of bidding closed. It had therefore been removed.
11. The Council then offered property A to Miss Y, as this was now ready. Miss Y accepted but complained to the Council in January 2020. As the Council had not responded initially, we asked it to consider Miss Y’s complaint in September.
12. The Council provided a response in January 2021. It denied any fault in its handling of the application, but apologised for the delay in responding to Miss Y’s complaint. It also offered £150 to remedy this inconvenience caused.
13. Miss Y remained dissatisfied with the response and came ack to us. As the Council had a further stage to its complaints process, we asked it to provide its final response in February. The Council responded, to confirm its position in June.

Analysis

14. Miss Y bid initially on property A. While this was unavailable, Miss Y was required to update her address details and provide evidence to the Council to confirm her change on circumstances. When the Council reactivated her account to allow her to provide the evidence online, Miss Y took the opportunity to bid on another property. The Council was not able to verify her details before the end of the bidding on property B as the information was submitted only a minute before the deadline. Consequently, it did not consider her bid.
15. The Council was however able, just a few days later to offer her property A, which she has accepted. Consequently, any upset Miss Y may have felt at not being offered property B was short lived and ended as soon as she was offered property A, which she had been willing to accept both before her bid on property B and afterwards. Any injustice Miss Y may feel is not sufficient to justify our investigation.
16. Further the Council has apologised for the delay in responding to Miss Y’s complaint and offered her £150. This is likely to be more than the Ombudsman would recommend to remedy her complaint. It is therefore unlikely we could add anything further to the investigation the Council has already carried out.
17. Consequently, we will not investigate this complaint.

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Final decision

18. We will not investigate Miss Y’s complaint because there is not enough injustice to warrant our investigation and it is unlikely we could add anything further to the investigation already considered by the Council.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman