Summary: The Council was at fault for failing to make accommodation available to Miss B for two weeks after she became homeless, despite knowing of her impending homelessness four weeks in advance. Miss B experienced distress and uncertainty during this two-week period, and paid for hotels. The Council has agreed to apologise to Miss B and make a payment of £350 to recognise her injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Miss B, complains that the Council failed to provide temporary accommodation when she became homeless in July 2017.
2. Miss B says that – when the Council did eventually provide temporary accommodation – it refused to put her name on a council tax bill, so she could not claim council tax reduction. She says the Council also provided misleading information about her rent arrears to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), so her Universal Credit payments were reduced.
3. Miss B says the Council provided incorrect homelessness advice for 11 years before 2017, and prevented her from making a homelessness application in 2016.
4. Miss B says that – in early 2017 – the Council arranged a medical assessment by someone who was not medically trained.
5. Miss B says she does not believe that the Council’s housing bidding system bids automatically on properties. She believes housing officers do this and claim the system does it automatically.

Back to top

What I have investigated

6. I have investigated how the Council dealt with Miss B’s homelessness application in July 2017 (including the provision of temporary accommodation), and how its actions affected her claims for council tax reduction and Universal Credit.
7. The final section of this decision statements sets out why I did not investigate other matters.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

8. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
9. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)
10. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe it is unlikely we would find fault, or if the injustice is not significant enough to justify the cost of our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
11. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

12. I considered information from Miss B and the Council.
13. I considered the Housing Act 1996 and the Homelessness (Suitability of Accommodation) (England) Order 2003.
14. I considered the Ombudsman publication ‘Guidance on good practice: remedies’.
15. I wrote to Miss B and the Council with my draft decision and considered their comments.

Back to top

What I found

16. I have considered each part of Miss B’s complaint in turn.

The Council allowed Miss B to become homeless in July 2017 and ignored her requests for temporary accommodation

What should have happened?

17. New legislation and guidance has come into force since Miss B submitted her application. I have set out the Council’s duties as they were in July 2017.

The Housing Act 1996

18. Under section 179 of the Act, councils must provide advice and information about homelessness (and the prevention of homelessness). They must ensure the implications and likely outcomes of available housing options are made clear to applicants.
19. Section 175 of the Act says a person who has accommodation is to be treated as homeless if it would be unreasonable for them to continue to occupy it.
20. Section 184 says a council, having received a homelessness application (which can be submitted in any form), must make enquiries to find out if the person is eligible for assistance, and decide what duty (if any) the council has towards them.
21. If a council has reason to believe an applicant is eligible for assistance and has a priority need, it has a duty under section 188 to make suitable accommodation available to the applicant.
22. Section 189 says an applicant with whom a dependent child resides has a priority need for accommodation.

The Homelessness (Suitability of Accommodation) (England) Order 2003

23. Articles 3 and 4 of the Order say an applicant with “family commitments” must not be placed in bed and breakfast accommodation, unless there is no alternative available and it is for less than six weeks.

What happened?

24. On 4 July 2017 Miss B wrote to the Council said she and her dependent son would be homeless at the end of July. She said she believed she would be in priority need because her son lived with her.
25. The Council asked Miss B for more information to support her application, and she provided it. On 25 July she provided financial information and the name of her landlord (who was evicting her).
26. On 31 July Miss B and her son became homeless. They began ‘sofa-surfing’ and staying in hotels.
27. On 1 August the Council recorded, in Miss B’s case notes, that Miss B’s landlord had confirmed that he had asked her to leave.
28. On 3 August the Council also recorded that Miss B had left a message, asking the Council to find her new accommodation.
29. On 4 August Miss B says she contacted the Council and asked if it could provide interim accommodation while it was processing her application. However, she did not send this email to the correct email address.
30. On 8 August Miss B sent another email to the Council (this time to a correct address) and asked for interim accommodation.
31. Miss B had an appointment with the Council on 14 August. By this point she had spent around £200 on hotels.
32. On 15 August the Council offered interim accommodation in a bed and breakfast. However, Miss B refused this offer, and said she needed to be in a different area of the country while her son attended a therapy course.
33. On 21 August the Council wrote to Miss B and accepted that it had a duty to house her. It said it would make one suitable offer, and this would discharge that duty.
34. On 23 August Miss B contacted the Council again, and said she and her son would need temporary accommodation from 26 August (pending the Council’s offer of suitable accommodation).
35. On 26 August the Council placed Miss B and her son in a bed and breakfast. It said there was no suitable alternative.
36. On 22 September the Council moved Miss B from the bed and breakfast into temporary accommodation and, on 27 November, into her own tenancy.

My findings

37. If a council has reason to believe that an applicant is eligible for assistance and may have a priority need, it must make suitable interim accommodation available to them.
38. The Housing Act says an applicant with whom a child resides has a priority need, and Miss B raised that issue when she first wrote to the Council (four weeks before she became homeless). By 1 August 2017 (the day after she became homeless), the Council was satisfied that her landlord had asked her to leave.
39. I have seen nothing to suggest that, by the time Miss B became homeless, the Council thought was not likely to be eligible for assistance or in priority need.
40. A fortnight later the Council agreed to provide interim accommodation. However, it should have done this on the day Miss B became homeless. It knew in advance that she was to be homeless, it knew her son lived with her (and therefore she may have had a priority need), and it knew her landlord was evicting her.
41. However, the Council did not do this, and Ms B had to ‘sofa-surf’ – with her son – and pay for hotels for two weeks before the Council offered accommodation.
42. This was fault by the Council. It should reimburse her hotel costs and make a payment for the distress and inconvenience she experienced.
43. From the 15 August 2017 onwards, the Council offered Miss B interim accommodation, which she initially refused. She then asked for accommodation, and the Council provided it. Although this was in a bed and breakfast, it was for less than six weeks, so was an acceptable arrangement in the absence of alternatives.
44. As a result, the Council was not at fault from 15 August onwards. Its failure to provide accommodation was between 31 July and 14 August.

The Council refused to put Miss B’s name on the tenancy at her temporary accommodation, so she could not get a council tax reduction

45. Miss B moved into temporary accommodation on 22 September 2017. When she moved in, she signed a tenancy agreement which said £20 would be added to her rent each week to pay for council tax.
46. The tenancy agreement confirmed that, when council tax is included in rent, the tenant can claim for this as part of a housing benefit application. This is because the total rent amount has been decided with council tax included.
47. In Miss B’s case, housing benefit had been incorporated into Universal Credit. However, she still had the opportunity to claim for the total rent – which was calculated to include the £20 weekly council tax.
48. Because of this, Miss B did not suffer an injustice because of her lack of opportunity to also apply for a council tax reduction.
49. As a result, I have not considered the matter further.

The Council gave the DWP misleading information about Miss B’s rent arrears, which affected her Universal Credit payments

What happened?

50. On 23 August 2017 Miss B asked the Council for temporary accommodation (to start on 26 August). The Council agreed, and told her she should submit a Universal Credit claim. It said the claim should include the housing element of the benefit, to contribute towards the cost of the temporary accommodation.
51. The Council said it would fund the difference between the housing element of Universal Credit and the cost of the accommodation.
52. The Council placed Miss B in a bed and breakfast from 26 to 31 August 2017 (five nights). This cost the Council £79.60 per night.
53. Miss B arranged her own accommodation for 31 August and 1 September.
54. The Council then placed Miss B in a bed and breakfast from 2 to 11 September (nine nights). This cost the Council £70.44 per night.
55. On 5 September the Council wrote to the DWP and asked for Miss B’s rent arrears to be deducted from her Universal Credit payments (and paid directly back to the Council). It said she owed £1,032 – which was the total cost of the bed and breakfast accommodation for 14 nights.
56. Miss B says the full rent arrears were deducted from her Universal Credit payments, and she suffered financial hardship as a result. She says the Council should not have claimed for the full cost of the bed and breakfast – it should have done what it had agreed.
57. Miss B also says, however, that she has now been refunded for the Universal Credit deductions.

My findings

58. The Council’s records support Miss B’s claim that she was told the Council would fund the difference between the housing element of Universal Credit and the cost of the temporary accommodation.
59. However, it appears that the Council asked for the total cost back from the DWP, and Miss B says she paid it all out of her benefits.
60. I cannot look at the actions of the DWP. From the information I have, it is unclear what was taken out of Miss B’s benefits and why. It is also unclear who was responsible (if too much money was erroneously taken from Miss B’s payments).
61. Miss B has now been refunded for the money that was taken out of her payments, so any injustice she experienced has now been remedied.
62. As a result, it would not be a proportionate use of public resources to continue investigating this matter.

Back to top

Agreed actions

63. The Council has agreed to apologise to Miss B for failing to make accommodation available for two weeks after she became homeless.
64. The Council has agreed to make a payment of £350 to Miss B to recognise her distress, inconvenience, and what she spent on hotels during the two weeks in which the Council failed to make accommodation available to her.
65. These actions should be completed within six weeks of the date of this decision statement.

Back to top

Final decision

66. The Council was at fault for failing to make accommodation available to Miss B for two weeks after she became homeless, despite knowing of her impending homelessness four weeks in advance. The agreed actions remedy Miss B’s injustice.

Back to top

Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

67. I did not investigate Miss B’s complaints about 11 years of incorrect homelessness advice, how the Council dealt with her application in 2016, or the medical assessment in early 2017. Although I exercised discretion to investigate matters from July 2017 (18 months before Miss B complained to the Ombudsman), events from before that are too old. As there was no reason Miss B could not have complained about them before, I cannot investigate them.
68. I did not investigate Miss B’s complaint about the Council’s housing bidding system, because her belief does not appear to be based on (or supported by) any evidence. As a result, it is unlikely I would find fault with the Council.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman