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

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the Council’s failure to offer her transfer to a 4-bedroom property. She says her current council home is overcrowded, unsuitable for her family’s needs and has repair problems over recent years.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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, 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)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

6. Mrs X says she has been on the Council’s housing register since 2023 and needs a 4-bedroom vacancy due to overcrowding, medical needs and disrepair. She is currently in Band 2 for overcrowding and some medical needs and the Council has advised her that the current waiting list allocations time for 4-bedroom homes is 8-10 years. She is eligible to bid on 3 and 4-bedroom vacancies and the Council says that it offered her a 3-bedroom property but she refused this.
7. Mrs X says she has suffered from disrepair in her home in recent years and in 2023 took legal action in the County Court over repairs which had not been completed by the Council. The council says it is seeking to decant her to another property so that it can complete extensive repairs.
8. Councils have a duty to allow eligible applicants to go apply to the housing register. However, there is no specific duty to re-house someone within a given timescale. The chance of being offered a vacancy depends on the occurrence of vacancies and the number of applicants. The Council has told Mrs X correctly how many years it is likely to take before a 4-bedroom offer may take place based on the statistics of its lettings history. This timescale may be longer in future as vacancies get fewer and more applicants joining the list with higher priority. This is a similar pattern in housing authorities throughout the country.
9. 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.
10. We may not find fault with a council’s assessment of a housing application or a housing applicant’s priority if it has carried this out in line with its published allocations scheme. We recognise that the demand for social housing far outstrips the supply of properties in many areas. Mrs X does not meet the threshold for Band 1 priority which is reserved for the most urgent cases.
11. Mrs X has already exercised her right to take court action against her Council landlord for disrepair in 2023. The Council says it is seeking a decant offer so that it can carry out more extensive repairs. We have no jurisdiction to investigate complaints about disrepair and decants in social housing. The Housing Ombudsman is the body which investigates these complaints.

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Final decision

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

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman