Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of Ms X’s housing transfer application. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about the Council refusing to backdate her transfer application to 20199 when she first applied as homeless. She also says her current council home is damp and mouldy and repairs have ben delayed. She has been awarded compensation for the delay but says she has not received it yet.

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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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

3. We cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information provided by the complainant.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Ms X says the Council failed to advise her to re-apply for housing following her becoming a secure tenant in 2020. Prior to this she applied to the Council as homeless and was in interim accommodation and then temporary accommodation from 2019-2020. She re-applied for a housing transfer in late 2021 but her application was only listed from the date of processing in early 2022.
8. Ms X asked the Council to review the decision on her application and it did so. The outcome was that the application was backdated to July 2020 which was the start of her secure tenancy. Ms X complained that she has been on the housing list since she was homeless in 2019. The Council told her she was in interim and temporary accommodation when she was homeless and following the change of her circumstances, she needed to make a new application once she was no longer homeless. This is the earliest date her transfer request can begin.
9. Ms X says her current council home is damp and overcrowded and she has reported many repairs. The Council landlord awarded her compensation for delays in carrying out repairs which she says has not yet been paid. We have no jurisdiction to consider complaints from social housing tenants about repairs and tenancy matters. This falls within the remit of the Housing Ombudsman service.
10. Ms X asked the Council to considered her for a direct let management transfer because she has not ben resident for 5 years to qualify for an active transfer under the normal allocations scheme. The landlord has refused to make her such an offer. We can only consider allocations under the council’s scheme under the provisions of the Housing Act 1996. Management transfers and direct offers are made outside this scheme and are matters for the social housing landlord to offer at their discretion.
11. We may not question the merits of decisions which have been properly made. We do not comment on judgements councils make, unless they are affected by fault in the decision-making process. In this case Ms X had a review of her application and the Council agreed to change the date of the application back to 2020. There is no fault in the procedure which the Council has followed.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of Ms X’s housing transfer application. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman