Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council offering Miss X a property. Even if the Council did not tell Miss X she would stop being eligible to bid for social housing if she accepted a property it offered, that did not directly cause a significant injustice. Miss X could have appealed to the court about the suitability of the offer. Part of the complaint is also late.

The complaint

1. Miss X complains:
1. The Council did not tell her when offering her a property outside its area that she would not be able to remain on its housing register and bid for social housing.
2. The property the Council offered is unsuitable.
2. Miss X says this means she can no longer seek social housing in the Council’s area, where she wants to live, she and her children experience inconvenience from the location of her property, and she worries about the future.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
4. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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. 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, section 26B, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

Miss X not remaining on the housing register

9. Miss X was in homelessness temporary accommodation. In November 2020 the Council offered her a privately rented property outside its area. She moved there. Miss X suggested this was also temporary accommodation. However, the Council’s letter offering the property was clear it was a long-term offer to end Council’s homelessness duty. It is not temporary accommodation.
10. As paragraph 3 explained, I must consider whether any alleged fault caused Miss X a significant enough injustice to warrant the Ombudsman investigating. Miss X implies she would have accepted the offer if she had known she would no longer be able to bid for social housing in Waltham Forest. However, the Council was not obliged only to offer Miss X accommodation in Waltham Forest. If she had refused its offer, then unless Miss X had succeeded in changing the Council’s position by asking it for a review or by taking court action, the Council would have ended its homelessness duty to her and she would have had nowhere to live. Therefore I am not persuaded Miss X would necessarily have refused the property outside the Council’s area.
11. Even had the Council withdrawn that particular offer, it would still have been looking to end Miss X’s temporary accommodation by offering long-term privately rented housing. And even had the Council offered a private property in Waltham Forest - and it did not have to do that – it would still then have ended Miss X’s housing register application as it would have considered she now had adequate housing.
12. So it was unlikely Miss X would have got social housing through the Council’s housing register anyway. Therefore the Council’s alleged fault – not telling Miss X that accepting the offer would lead to it closing her housing register application – did not directly cause Miss X a significant injustice. So it would be disproportionate to investigate whether the Council was at fault.
13. Miss X told me a Council officer, when offering the property, said the move would be for two years and the Council could then move her back into its area. That is not in line with the letter the Council sent at the time, which said the Council was ending its duty. Nor did the Council have any duty to move Miss X back to its area in two years. There might have been a misunderstanding around the two-year tenancy period but we could not expect to reach a clear enough view now about what said in that conversation.

Suitability of the property the Council offered

14. The Council’s letter offering Miss X the property told her she could ask the Council to review the offer if the considered the offer unsuitable. Miss X would then have had the right to appeal to the county court on a point of law if she remained dissatisfied after a review. So the restriction described in paragraph 5 above applies here.
15. Miss X did not ask the Council to review the property’s suitability. Miss X had previously used her right to seek a review of an earlier offer, so I am satisfied she could do this despite her limited English. Nor would any language barrier in itself necessarily have prevented her taking court action if the Council had not changed its offer after reviewing its decision. Miss X could have sought help in taking such action. There might be a cost to court action but help can be available and the potential cost is not in itself automatically a reason for the Ombudsman to investigate instead. Overall, I consider it would have been reasonable to expect Miss X to ask for a review and then use her right to go to court if she was dissatisfied with the offer of a property outside the Waltham Forest.
16. Separately, I note the Council offered the property in November 2020. Miss X considered the offer unsuitable then. She complained to us 14 months later. So the restriction described in paragraph 6 also applies to this complaint. I appreciate Miss X moved home during this period and the language barrier might mean she takes a little longer to pursue matters. However, I still consider 12 months was enough time for Miss X to complain to us on a matter she evidently considers important. I am not persuaded there are good reasons to accept this complaint late.

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Final decision

17. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint. This is because even if the Council did not tell Miss X she would stop being eligible to bid for social housing, that did not directly cause a significant injustice. It is also because Miss X could have appealed to the court on the suitability of the offer. Part of the complaint is also late.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman