Summary: Ms B complains the Council failed to take appropriate action in respect of her homelessness. The Ombudsman finds no fault by the Council in this matter.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Ms B, complains the Council has failed to take appropriate action in respect of her housing and homelessness situation. She is homeless with children. She says the Council has threatened to remove her children from her care because of her housing situation.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated the actions of the Council in respect of Ms B’s housing and homelessness from January 2019.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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)
5. 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)
6. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
7. 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)
8. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)
9. 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

10. I considered all the information provided by Ms B about her complaint. I made written enquiries of the Council and took account of the information it provided n response. I provided Ms B and the council with a draft of this decision, gave them the opportunity to comment on it, and considered the responses received.

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What I found

Legal and administrative information

11. Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 and the Homelessness Code of Guidance for Local Authorities set out councils’ powers and duties to people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness.
12. If councils are satisfied applicants are threatened with homelessness and eligible for assistance, they must help them to secure that accommodation does not stop being available for their occupation. This is the ‘prevention duty’. In deciding what steps they are to take, councils must have regard to their assessments of the applicants’ cases. (Housing Act 1996, section 195)
13. A council must secure interim accommodation for applicants and their household if it has reason to believe they may be homeless, eligible for assistance and have a priority need. (Housing Act 1996, section 188)
14. Councils must take reasonable steps to secure accommodation for any eligible homeless person. This is the ‘relief duty’. When a council decides this duty has come to an end, it must notify the applicant in writing. (Housing Act 1996, section 189B)
15. Homeless applicants may request a review within 21 days of being notified of the decisions on homelessness including on their eligibility for assistance, what duty (if any) is owed to them if they are found to be homeless or threatened with homelessness, and giving notice to bring the relief duty to an end.
16. Following a review, if the applicant wishes to challenge the review decision, or if a council takes more than eight weeks to complete the review, they may appeal on a point of law to the County Court (Housing Act 1996, sections 202 and 204)

What happened in this case

17. The background to this complaint is that in May 2018, following a period of homelessness, Ms B and her children were housed in a tenancy by Wolverhampton Homes, which manages properties owned by the Council. Arrears built up on her rent account and in November 2018 the Council began action to seek possession of the property. A Notice seeking possession was served in mid-December 2018 and the claim for possession was set to be heard in the county court in February 2019.
18. In January 2019 Ms B approached the Council’s housing options service for advice, and she made a homelessness application. She said the property she was in was unaffordable and that she had issues with repairs and with anti-social behaviour (ASB) from her neighbours.
19. The Council’s evidence shows that a personalised housing plan was drawn up and that the housing options together team and the private sector leasing team worked together to look at ways to prevent Ms B and her family becoming homeless or to help her secure alternative accommodation. Two options were proposed. The first was a payment of £1000 towards the rent arrears and a direct debit of £20 per month, with a view to keeping Ms B in her current tenancy. The second was to assist Ms B to find another tenancy and to use the £1,000 towards fees for this. The Council’s records note that these two options were put to Ms B in a telephone call, and both were refused.
20. Ms B then corresponded with the Council raising queries about the rent account and about repairs and ASB at the property. The Council confirmed the arrears on the rent account and set out again the two options that had been put forward to try to prevent homelessness. Regarding repairs, the Council said there had been a visit about a month ago which had not highlighted any problems with the heating or with damp. but a re-inspection would be arranged. Concerns about ASB were referred to the relevant team.
21. Regarding bidding for property, under the Council’s allocations scheme
    applicants on the housing register are placed in bands according to priority awarded in accordance with their circumstances. Band 1 applicants have the highest priority, Band 4 the lowest. Ms B’s application was placed in Band 3, the category which applies to “Applicants owed a prevention duty, or relief duty for as long as that duty is owed but would not be or are unlikely to be owed the main duty when any relief duty came to an end and intentionally homeless”. Given the Council’s assessment of Ms B’s circumstances, this banding was correct. In any event, she was advised in writing of her banding and of her right to request a review.
22. When the possession proceedings came before the court, it granted a suspended possession order. This meant that provided Ms B kept to an agreement to pay her current weekly rent plus £16 a month in respect of the arrears, she would be able to remain in her home. However, Ms B did not comply with the terms of the order, making only one payment.
23. In mid-May 2019 Ms B was given four weeks’ notice to leave the tenancy as she had not complied with the terms of the suspended possession order. The same day Ms B attended the Council’s office to hand in her notice on her tenancy. She told the Council she had moved out of the property but would not disclose where she had moved to. The Council says that Ms B was advised that it would not accept the keys until the arrears had been cleared and property inspected for any damage. At this point she was also advised she would be found intentionally homeless, and that interim accommodation could be provided for her, but Ms B declined this and left the office.
24. At the beginning of June 2019 Ms B again attended the Council’s offices and she then surrendered the keys to the tenancy. The Council says she was again advised she would now be found intentionally homeless.
25. At the end of July, following notification via our enquiries of the care-of address Ms B was using, the Council issued its decision on Ms B’s homelessness application. The notification letter formally set out the Council’s decision that Ms B was intentionally homeless and that it therefore owed her only a limited accommodation duty after the relief duty ended. The right to request a review within 21 days was clearly set out.
26. Ms B did not exercise her right to request a review.

Analysis

27. The actions of the Council in this case were not affected by fault. Ms B’s homelessness application was dealt with appropriately in accordance with its legal duties. The Council considered what could be offered to help to keep her in her tenancy, and a personalised housing plan was completed. The Council was prepared to offer her interim accommodation when she subsequently became homeless. It gave her a written decision in respect of her homelessness application, with a right of review, and it placed her in the appropriate band under its allocations policy enabling her to bid for suitable properties as they become available, should she choose to do so. In June and July 2019 she placed no bids, but she began bidding again in August.
28. Ms B could have exercised her right to request a review of the decision on her homelessness and if dissatisfied thereafter she could have pursued an appeal to the county court on a point of law. Ms B also had the right to request a review of the decision to place her in Band 3, and she was correctly advised of that right in writing. It would have been reasonable for Ms B to use these rights of review if she wished to challenge the Council’s decisions.
29. On the matter of the involvement of social services in this case, the Council has provided evidence that a multi-agency referral form was submitted at the beginning of September. This was reviewed by a manager but rejected and no further action was taken. I have seen no evidence that the Council threatened to remove the children from her care as a result of her housing situation at any time during the period considered by my investigation.

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Final decision

30. I have completed my investigation on the basis set out above.

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Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

31. For the reason set out in paragraph 7 above I did not investigate the actions of the Council prior to January 2019. This is because it would have been reasonable for Ms B to complain to the Ombudsman sooner about any earlier matters.
32. For the reason set out in paragraph 8 above, any dispute about the facts leading to the possession order, such as the level of arrears owed, is outside the Ombudsman's remit. This is because it was the decision of the court to grant possession of Ms B's home to the landlord.
33. For the reason set out in paragraph 9 above, I have not pursued issues raised relating to disrepair and ASB in the tenancy. This is because these matters fall within the remit of the Housing Ombudsman Service.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman