Summary: Mrs X complained about the way the Council considered her homelessness application, its failure to consider her request for accommodation and to properly consider her review. There was fault which caused Mrs X significant injustice to Mrs X. The Council agreed to provide a suitable financial remedy and make service improvements.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained that the Council wrongly refused to take a homelessness application and make inquiries in April 2019. When it later made a homelessness decision, it did not respond to her request for a review and for accommodation.
2. Mrs X says she slept rough for several months due to the Council’s refusal to take a homelessness application and arrange interim accommodation. She says sleeping rough affected her health and exposed her to the risk of harm. Her tent was confiscated and she was harassed by teenagers.
3. Mrs X says she wants to return to the property from which she was evicted. She believes the County Court did not have jurisdiction to make the eviction order. She also wants the Council to compensate her for the hardship she suffered while she was sleeping rough.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons to do so. A complaint is late 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)
5. 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)
6. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

7. Mrs X complained to us in August 2020. This was more than 12 months after she first approached the Council for homelessness assistance in March 2019. So the complaint was made late.
8. I exercised discretion to investigate what happened in the period from March 2019 to August 2020 because Mrs X had been sleeping rough for several months. This made it difficult for her to make the complaint sooner. She complained to us promptly after the Council signposted her to our service in July 2020.
9. I have considered Mrs X’s complaint form and all the information she sent us. I made enquiries to the Council, considered its response and the available housing records.
10. Ms X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

11. If a council has ‘reason to believe’ someone may be homeless or threatened with homelessness, it must take a homelessness application and make inquiries. The threshold for taking an application is low. The person does not have to complete a specific form or approach a particular council department. (Housing Act 1996, section 184 and Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraphs 6.2 and 18.5) 
12. After completing inquiries, the council must give the applicant a decision in writing. If it is an adverse decision, the letter must fully explain the reasons.  All letters must include information about the right to request a review and the timescale for doing so. (Housing Act 1996, section 184, from 3 April 2018 Homelessness Code of Guidance 18.32 and 18.33)
13. Applicants may ask a council to provide accommodation pending the outcome of a review.  Councils have a power, but not a duty, to accommodate certain applicants and members of their household.  (Housing Act 1996, sections 188(3), 199A(6), 200(5))

What happened

14. In September 2018 the County Court made an order for Mrs X to be evicted from the home she jointly owned with her ex-husband. The eviction happened in mid-October. It seems her ex-husband applied for the Order because he wished to sell the property and Mrs X would not consent to this. Mrs X left most of her personal belongings in the property.
15. Following the eviction, Mrs X stayed in a hotel in the borough at her own expense.
16. In mid- March 2019 Mrs X asked the Housing Options service for assistance because she was homeless. She said she had used up her savings to pay for the hotel. The Council says a duty manager asked Mrs X to complete an online form to provide information for a housing assessment. The Council says Mrs X refused to do so. Mrs X disputes that. She says the officer told her the Council would not help a single person who had no dependent children. Mrs X says she felt there was no point in completing the form and left the office. The Council says it has no record of the advice given on 11 March so it cannot confirm or deny Mrs X’s account.
17. On 12 March the manager of the Housing Options service replied to an email from Mrs X. He asked her to complete the online form so the Council could carry out a housing assessment. He said she could telephone or attend the Housing Options office in person if she had any difficulty completing the form.
18. Mrs X completed the online form the next day. She included an email address but did not give a contact telephone number. On 18 March the Council invited her to an appointment with a Housing Options Officer, Officer A, on 12 April.
19. Meanwhile Mrs X continued to send emails to the manager of the Housing Options service throughout March. She said she was already homeless and asked if she could sleep in the Council’s grounds in a sleeping bag. She asked several questions. The manager was on leave at the time and replied when he returned to work on 27 March. He asked Mrs X to come into the Housing Options service and speak to a duty officer if she was already homeless. He also gave her details for the emergency out of hours service. Mrs X said she would wait until the appointment on 12 April.
20. Mrs X attended the initial intake interview on 12 April. She showed Officer A her passport. As a British citizen, she was eligible for housing assistance. Mrs X complained about the way the officer conducted the interview and the questions she asked. The Council has no records of this interview.
21. Following the interview, and Mrs X’s complaint, the manager of the Housing Options service asked Mrs X for certain documents relating to her divorce and her legal interest and equity in other properties in the UK and abroad. He explained the legal powers under which a joint owner could apply to the County Court for an order to sell a property. He also explained the Council could not override the Court’s decision to evict Mrs X. However it did have a duty to assess her housing needs as a homeless person and decide what duty it owed her.
22. On 29 April Mrs X attended an interview with Officer B. This was the housing assessment interview. Officer B noted Mrs X had been evicted in October 2018. Since then she had been staying in a local hotel. The notes say Mrs X declared that she and her ex-husband owned other properties in the UK and abroad, and the properties abroad had been sold. Mrs X said she and her husband had divorced several years ago but she did not have any divorce papers. Officer B checked the Land Registry records. These showed Mrs X was still registered as the joint owner of the property from which she was evicted in October. Mr X was registered as the sole owner of another property in the borough where he lived.
23. Mrs X told Officer B she did not consider the County Court had jurisdiction to evict her from her home. She believed she was unlawfully evicted. Officer B advised Mrs X she would need to get legal advice on this matter.
24. Following the interview, Officer B handed Mrs X a letter. It made two conflicting statements. It said:
• She had not taken a homelessness application because she did not have reason to believe Mrs X was homeless, or threatened with homelessness;
• She was satisfied that Mrs X was not homeless or threatened with homelessness because she had not been able to verify the information Mrs X gave her during the interview;

The letter did not inform Mrs X of her right to request a review of the decision that she was not homeless.

25. The Council accepts the letter was defective. Officer B conflated two separate issues: on the one hand, she said she had not taken a homelessness application. On the other hand, Officer B said she had decided Mrs X was not homeless. But that decision could only have been made if a homelessness application had been taken. The letter also failed to inform Mrs X of her right to request a review.
26. On 1 May Mrs X requested a review of the decision that she was not homeless or threatened with homelessness. She also asked the Council to arrange accommodation for her while it considered the review.
27. The Council told us it withdrew the decision on 2 May. It intended to make further inquiries to decide what duty, if any, it owed Mrs X. However it seems Mrs X was not informed of this decision at the time. She sent several emails in May chasing up a response to her review request. The Council did not respond to the request she made on 1 May for accommodation pending the outcome of the review.
28. No further progress was made with the application after 2 May. The Council says its records do not show any attempts to contact Mrs X to request further information or documents, no other inquiries were made and it did not make a new decision. Officer B no longer works for the Council.
29. Eight months later, in January 2020, Mrs X made a further approach to the Council for housing assistance with support from an organisation that works with rough sleepers in London. They found Mrs X sleeping rough in a park in January and arranged for her to stay in a hotel from 6 January. Mrs X said she had been street homeless and sleeping in a park since she left the hotel in Bromley in July 2019. This had a serious impact on her health and she began to experience seizures from November 2019.
30. A different officer in the Housing Options service interviewed Mrs X on 13 January 2020. He completed a new housing assessment and asked her to provide documents by 24 January.
31. From 6 January 2020 Mrs X had accommodation in a hotel and a winter night shelter. The Council assisted her under the Everyone In scheme for rough sleepers at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and, more recently, under its interim accommodation duty.
32. The Council made three offers of interim accommodation between March and August 2020. Mrs X refused the first two offers. The first property was in another south London borough. The second property was a self-contained studio flat in a town in the South East. In August 2020 Mrs X accepted the Council’s final offer of a room in a property in the borough.
33. Mrs X complained to us in August 2020. Our investigation has not examined what has happened since then. However it is relevant to note that the Council accepted the relief duty and sent Mrs X a Personalised Housing Plan. It asked her to provide bank statements and evidence about the properties abroad. The Council went on to accept the main housing duty in December 2020.

The Council’s offer

34. In response to our enquiries, the Council accepted there were serious failings in the way it handled Mrs X’s case. The 29 April 2019 decision letter was defective and Officer B applied the wrong test. When Mrs X requested a review, it withdrew the decision but then failed to make further inquiries and make a new decision about what duty it owed Mrs X. It did nothing until Mrs X approached the Housing Options service again in January 2020.
35. The Council accepts these failings caused Mrs X injustice. She was homeless and slept rough for several months until January 2020.
36. The Council offered to pay Mrs X £3,500 for the hardship this caused. It based its offer on the Ombudsman’s published guidance on remedies which suggests a payment of £350 per month in these circumstances.
37. It offered a further £500 to recognise Mrs X’s distress and her time and trouble in pursuing the complaint.
38. It says it will also make Mrs X an offer of social housing.
39. The Council had already identified weaknesses in the Housing Options service. It has taken steps to restructure and streamline the service to improve the experience for users by providing more continuity. It has recruited staff with more housing options experience and is recruiting a new service manager to drive through these changes. It has secured funding to recruit two staff to work with rough sleepers in the borough.

Analysis

40. There were several significant failings in the way the Council handled Mrs X’s case:
• The 29 April 2019 decision letter was muddled and did not include the required information about the right to request a review;
• There are no records of some interviews and contact with Mrs X;
• It did not inform Mrs X of the decision to withdraw the 29 April 2019 decision or send a written response to her 1 May review request;
• No further action was taken to progress the case after 2 May;
• It failed to consider Mrs X’s request for accommodation pending the outcome of the review;
• There was a delay in accepting the relief duty;
• There was inadequate management oversight of the case.
41. Mrs X suffered a serious injustice. She had nowhere to stay for several months and slept rough in a tent in the park. This continued into the winter months. This caused significant hardship and exposed her to the risk of harm.

Agreed action

42. Within one month of my final decision, the Council will:
• pay Mrs X £4,000;
• send Mrs X a letter of apology from a senior manager;
• issue a written briefing note to officers in the Housing Options service to remind them of:
1. the need to make a written record of interviews and other significant contact with applicants;
2. the legal threshold for taking a homelessness application and making inquiries;
3. the duty to consider and respond to an applicant’s request for accommodation pending the outcome of a review.
• review all the letter templates currently used to ensure they include a paragraph informing applicants of their right to request a review of homelessness decisions and the relevant timescale for doing so;

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Final decision

43. I have completed the investigation and found the Council’s faults caused significant injustice to Mrs X. The agreed financial remedy and service improvements are a suitable remedy.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman