Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s amendments to the registration date of Ms X’s housing application. There is insufficient evidence of fault which has caused any significant injustice which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about the Council’s alterations to her housing application registration date which left her confused and with higher expectations of being rehoused than her application warranted.

Back to top

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
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34(B))

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

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

Back to top

My assessment

5. Ms X says her housing application date was changed in 2024 when she was accepted into Band B priority due top being under the Council’s homelessness prevention duty. She complained to us about this change in the date of her registration in complaint reference 24009795 and we did not uphold the complaint. The Council changed its allocations policy to match other authorities who made the date of a banding change the effective date of application.
6. In 2025 Ms X says she asked a housing manager to change her banding to the original date of 2017 in a telephone call and he agreed to do so. She did not receive a letter confirming this but says that when she was bidding on the online bidding system after this her effective date was shown as 2017, not 2024. This placed her in a much stronger bidding position than when she was registered for 2024.
7. Ms X says that after six months of expecting she would be made an offer in the near future her effective date reverted back to 2017 which placed her much lower down the bidding priority list. She again did not receive any written notification of the change to her date. When she made a formal complaint about the changes the council appeared to be unaware of any change to her application status since the change in 2024 to Band B, which was the subject of her previous complaint to us.
8. Ms X has not provided any written evidence from the Council to confirm her banding was changed for a period of months other than an undated screenshot showing the earlier date. The Council had no reason to change her date of application because she was registered as Band B in 2024 and her circumstances have not changed since that registration date.
9. Ms X says she was given raised expectations that she would be rehoused soon but the average waiting time for an offer under Band B in her area is 7 years and she had only been in Band B for one year. There was no reason why her banding should have been changed without a change in her circumstances and if any offer had been made on the basis of her original 2017 application this would not be compliant with the allocations policy.
10. Before a formal offer to a successful bid can be made the bid is subject to a verification process and it would have identified that Ms X’s Banding had not changed since her effective date of 2024 and so she would not have been eligible for an offer. If an error was made the error could have resulted in Ms X being offered a property above applicants in Band B with longer waiting periods and this would have resulted in injustice to those applicants.
11. We will not investigate this complaint because there is insufficient evidence that Ms X’s registration date should have been changed and she remains of the housing register from the correct effective date of her banding priority.

Back to top

Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s amendments to the registration date of Ms X’s housing application. There is insufficient evidence of fault which has caused any significant injustice which would warrant an investigation.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman