Summary

Mrs B complains about the council delaying helping her when she was faced with homelessness. She also complains about the quality and location of the temporary accommodation, and that the Council cancelled her Housing benefit without good reason.

The complaint

Mrs B complains the Council delayed in helping her when she was faced with homelessness after being served notice to leave a private rented property. She then says the Council placed her in unsuitable temporary accommodation (a hotel) due to its disrepair and distance from her GP. Further she complains the Council wrongly cancelled her housing benefit for her hotel room leaving her with a debt for that accommodation. It acted on wrong information that she had swapped rooms in the hotel.

 

Finding

The Ombudsman upheld the complaint and found fault causing injustice.

Recommendations

To remedy the injustice caused the Council should:

• provide an unreserved apology to Mrs B for failings highlighted in this report;
• pay Mrs B £1,250 in recognition of her injustice and settle any costs awarded against her resulting from her landlord taking possession action;
• immediately take whatever action it needs to ensure a dispute about non-payment of housing benefit at the temporary accommodation can be heard by the Tribunal Service. Or else the Council should arrange for the immediate write-off of any debt owing from her stay in that accommodation.

We also recommend within three months of this decision the Council should undertake a series of procedural improvements learning from this complaint.

These include:

• improvements to its housing service when dealing with enquiries from households facing eviction from private tenancies; and
• give urgent attention to providing a supply of temporary accommodation in its area, as it currently only provides temporary accommodation out of its area.
• It should ensure that homeless households know of their right to request a review and appeal temporary accommodation they consider unsuitable.
• It should make sure it properly considers all expressions of dissatisfaction with housing benefit decisions.

Ombudsman satisfied with Council's response: 5 September 2018.

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