Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to discharge its housing duty and refuse her late review request. This is because it was reasonable for Miss X to appeal to the County Court about the decision to discharge the housing duty. Also, we have not seen enough evidence of fault in the way the Council decided to refuse to accept her request for a review.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains about the Council’s decision to reject a late review request against its decision to discharge its housing duty. She says the Council ignored its discretion to accept late reviews.
2. She says the Council failed to consider her personal circumstances and failed to reconsider her housing priority.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
5. We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by Miss X and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. The Council notified Miss X in May 2025 that it had discharged the main housing duty it owed to her under the Housing Act 1996.
9. It told Miss X that she had 21 days to ask the Council to review its housing decision. However, she made her review request in August 2025. The Council refused her review request because it was late.
10. I will not investigate this part of the complaint because Miss X had appeal rights to the County Court and I consider it reasonable to expect Miss X to have appealed.
11. Miss X also complains that the Council failed to take her personal circumstances into account and reconsider her housing priority.
12. The Council took Miss X’s personal circumstances into account as part of its original consideration of her application. It accepted its housing duties, placed her in band B in its housing priority and offered her accommodation that it deemed to be suitable.
13. The Council’s Housing Allocation policy makes it clear that band B priority will be cancelled if a homelessness duty is ended, even if an applicant has not had an offer of accommodation.
14. We will not investigate this part of her complaint because we have not found enough evidence of fault with the Council’s actions.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because it is reasonable to expect her to appeal to the County Court against the Council’s decision to discharge its housing duty to her. Also, there is not enough evidence of fault in the way the Council cancelled her housing priority to justify an investigation into this matter.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman