Summary: Mrs X complained that the Council has not yet rehoused her when she has an urgent need to move for medical and welfare reasons. We found the delay is not due to fault by the Council.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained that the Council has not yet rehoused her from her four-bedroom Council house to a two-bedroom house. It has known since 2018 that she needs to move for medical and welfare reasons.
2. Mrs X lives in a house which is much larger than she needs. It also triggers memories of traumatic events in her personal life which has an adverse impact on her mental health and delays her recovery. She wants to move to a new build two-bedroom house or bungalow with a garden so she can make a fresh start.

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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 have:
• spoken to Mrs X and considered the information she gave me;
• considered documents sent by the Housing Ombudsman Service who redirected Mrs X’s complaint to us with her consent;
• considered the Council’s comments and evidence from its housing records;
• considered the relevant law and the Council’s housing allocations policy.
6. Mrs X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered their comments before making the final decision.

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What I found

7. 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))
8. The allocations scheme must give reasonable preference to applicants in the following categories:

• homeless people;
• people in insanitary, overcrowded or unsatisfactory housing;
• people who need to move on medical or welfare grounds;
• people who need to move to avoid hardship to themselves or others;
  (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(3))
   

9. The Council is a partner in a local choice-based lettings scheme – Home Link - which allows existing tenants and housing applicants to register and bid for social housing properties managed by Nottingham City Homes and partner Housing Associations. Available properties are advertised every week online. There is no limit on the number of bids an applicant can make each week.
10. The Council says all new build homes in the area are advertised on Home Link. None are reserved for direct offers to applicants outside the bidding process. The property advert will identify if the property is a new build. The Council sent me some examples of new build properties which were advertised.
11. The Council says it would not agree to an applicant’s request to be offered only new build properties even if there were special circumstances. New build properties are very limited, in high demand, and subject to Local Lettings Policies. The Council does not build two-bedroom non-family type accommodation suitable for a household with two adult sharers.
12. The Council’s previous housing allocations policy said applicants may be considered for a type of property they are not usually entitled to in special circumstances. But the current policy, introduced in January 2020, removed this discretion. The Council says it made this change because of the increased demand for housing and the need to maximise occupancy.
     

Mrs X’s circumstances

13. Mrs X is a Council tenant. Nottingham City Homes (NCH) is an Arms Length Management Organisation which manages council properties for the Council.
14. Mrs X moved with her family to a four-bedroom Council house more than 20 years ago. Her children are now adults and no longer live in the family home.
15. Mrs X has been diagnosed with anxiety and severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). She told me she is fearful of germs and rarely leaves the house. She also has a physical condition which causes incontinence. She receives healthcare support from a nurse and support worker in the Community Mental Health team, a clinical psychologist and her GP. Two of her sons visit every morning and evening. She told me she needs help with incontinence pads and medications.
16. Mrs X wants to move to a two-bedroom house or bungalow with one of her adult sons, whom I shall call M. Her current home constantly triggers memories of traumatic events in her past. Mrs X said M will not live in the house because he associates it with these traumatic events. Mrs X says M will move in with her, and provide care and support, when she moves to suitable accommodation.
17. Mrs X is only willing to move to a new build property. She says her OCD and fear of germs means she is too anxious to live in a property that has been occupied before. She would also like to stay in the same area of the city to be near family members who visit her every day.
18. Mrs X says there are several new build social housing developments in the local area. She does not understand why the Council will not offer her one of these properties, particularly as moving to a two-bedroom house would release her four-bedroom house for a family in housing need.

The background to Mrs X’s rehousing application

19. In May 2018 the NCH Allocations and Tenancy Management Panel considered a report from the Area Housing Manager who recommended Mrs X should be moved to a three-bedroom house. (At the time, two of Mrs X’s adult sons were still living with her).
20. The report gave details about Mrs X’s deteriorating mental health and information about traumatic events in her childhood and family life. A Community Psychiatric Nurse strongly supported the application. The Panel awarded urgent Band 2 priority for a move on mental health grounds. It also approved a direct offer of a three-bedroom house to reduce the waiting time for a move. The report referred to the impact of Mrs X’s OCD but did not say she needed to move to a new build property.
21. Mrs X met the criteria for “reasonable preference” in the housing allocations scheme.
22. Following the Panel’s decision, the Council made Mrs X two direct offers of three-bedroom houses in June 2018 and April 2019 respectively. Mrs X refused both offers because they were not new build properties. Two officers met Mrs X and M at the local housing office in April 2019 to discuss the second offer. They explained the property would be repaired and cleaned before she moved in. Mrs X said she was only willing to consider a new build property. She described the property as a slum. Officers explained they could not guarantee she would be offered a new build property and if she waited for one that would delay her move.
23. Officers also informed the Community Mental Health team of their concerns for Mrs X’s welfare because she was extremely upset and threatened to self-harm.
24. An applicant who refuses two reasonable offers of accommodation is usually removed from the Homelink register and their application is closed. The Council said it cannot confirm a letter was sent to inform Mrs X no further direct offers would be made after she refused the second offer. However, officers explained the position to her and she knew she would need to bid for properties.
25. The Council says Mrs X has only bid for one property on Home Link in October 2019. She was not successful with that bid and has not bid for any other properties advertised since then. Mrs X told me she relies on her son, M, to check the advertised properties for her every week. She says no new build properties have been advertised on Home Link. The Council provided evidence of some new build properties which were advertised in 2021. Mrs X would not have met the specific lettings criteria for these properties.
26. In May 2021 the Council offered Mrs X a rarely available one-bedroom new build house. By then, Mrs X was living alone. The Council says it made this offer as an exception to its usual policy. Mrs X refused the offer because the house was in an area of the city which she considered was too far from family members who support her.
27. Mrs X no longer has reasonable preference for a move on medical grounds. She is currently in Band A – the highest priority band – because she is under-occupying a large property which would be released if she moved. This means she is no longer in a reasonable preference group.
28. Mrs X’s household has also changed since 2018. Only one of her sons – M – now intends to live with her if she moves. So, she is now entitled to a two-bedroom property.
29. In January 2020 the Council introduced a new housing allocations policy. The new policy made significant changes to the rules for allocating social housing which apply to all new and existing applicants on the Home Link scheme. Two changes directly affect Mrs X:
• A household made up of two adult sharers (who are not a couple) are only entitled to a flat, bungalow or non-family type maisonette – they are not entitled to a two-bedroom house;
• Band A priority is normally awarded for six months. After six months, applicants who have not bid for a property or accepted an offer may be removed from the register or be moved to a lower priority band. The six months may be extended if no suitable properties become available within the initial six-month period.
30. The Council also reviews applications annually. It usually closes an application if the applicant has failed to make at least one bid in the previous 12 months and suitable properties were advertised. In Mrs X’s case, although she has not bid for a property since October 2019, the Council decided not to close her application because if she moves it will release a high demand four-bedroom property.

My analysis

31. The demand for social housing far outstrips the supply of properties. We will not find fault with a council for failing to re-house someone if it has prioritised applicants and allocated properties according to its published housing allocations policy.
32. Mrs X has been waiting since 2018 to be rehoused. My task is to decide whether this is due to fault by the Council.
33. The Council’s housing allocations scheme says it will not allocate two-bedroom houses to households with two adult sharers. The law gives councils considerable freedom and flexibility to draw up their allocations scheme. So, we cannot say it was fault not to offer Mrs X and her adult son a two-bedroom house when the Council’s scheme does not allow that.
34. Mrs X has a deep-seated phobia of germs due to her mental health condition. But it was not fault for the Council to consider her for direct offers of all suitably sized properties. The scheme does not give applicants the right to rule out certain types of properties for direct offers. The Tenancy and Allocations Management Panel considered her housing needs and the report from the community psychiatric nurse. It did not instruct officers to offer her a new build property. And the Panel awarded priority because it recognised Mrs X needed to move urgently. If the Council had excluded offers of properties which were previously occupied, that would have greatly reduced the pool of properties and limited its ability to make an offer reasonably quickly. The purpose of awarding urgent priority is to meet a pressing and immediate need for rehousing. This means the Council had to consider every suitable property and not limit the options.
35. When it made the second direct offer, the Council tried to address Mrs X’s concerns by offering to get the property cleaned before it was let to her. That was a practical response to Mrs X’s concerns but this was not acceptable to her.
36. The Council could have closed Mrs X’s application and removed her from the Homelink register after she refused the second direct offer. It could also have closed her application because she has not bid for a property since October 2019 and the scheme requires applicants to bid at least once every 12 months. However, the Council allowed her to stay on the register, and keep Band A priority, when it could have moved her to a lower band. The Council exercised discretion in her favour.
37. Mrs X has good prospects of making a successful bid for a property if she is prepared to be more flexible about her choices. She can bid for any two-bedroom flat, bungalow or non-family type maisonette advertised on Home Link. If she does not bid, she will not be considered for properties.
38. I have not found the Council was at fault so I cannot make any formal recommendations. However, it is clearly in Mrs X’s interests to move and it is in the Council’s interests to recover an under-occupied house for a large family in housing need. With this in mind, the Council may wish to offer a three-way meeting with Mrs X and her mental health support worker to explore the housing options available within the rules of its scheme. It may also wish to explore whether Mrs X needs any support with bidding for properties.

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Final decision

39. 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