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

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about the Council’s decision to withdraw an offer of housing which it made in 2023 and to reduce her housing priority from Band B to Band C2. She says she should have been allowed to include her father-in-law on her housing application.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended).

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered the information provided by the complainant and the Council. I have Also considered the Council’s housing allocations policy.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X applied to the Council for housing and in 2023 she was offered a 3-bedroom flat. The offer was conditional on her application details being verified. The Council told her that she had included her father-in-law on her housing application but that he did not meet the household requirements of the allocation scheme. The Council says he was not direct family and had not lived in the accommodation for six months before the application was made as he had lived in a care home since 2020 and with other family before that.
6. The Council withdrew the offer because Miss X’s banding should have been C2 without her father-in-law’s inclusion in the application and the offer would have been made to other eligible applicants in a higher banding had this been clear.
7. The Council’s housing allocation policy makes it clear that all offers are subject to verification of the applicant’s circumstances in order to prevent fraud or tenancies being granted contrary to housing legislation. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.
8. The Council followed the requirements of the allocation procedure and there is no fault in it withdrawing the offer which could have resulted in injustice being caused to other applicants had it resulted in a tenancy.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s assessment of Miss X’s housing application and offer of housing. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman