Summary: We will not exercise discretion to investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to rehouse Mrs X in permanent accommodation since she applied to the housing register 23 years ago. The complaint was received outside the normal 12-month period for investigating complaints. There is no evidence to suggest that Mrs X could not have complained to us sooner.

The complaint

1. Mrs X says she was accepted as homeless by the Council and placed in temporary accommodation. She says she has been on the housing register for 23 years, although the Council only accepts her application from 2012 when she was accepted as homeless. She wants the Council to offer her a permanent home for her family because she has never been able to feel settled in temporary accommodation.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X says she has been on the housing register since 1999 and in temporary accommodation for nearly two decades. She has asked the council when she will be offered a permanent four-bedroom home for her family but it is unable to tell her.
6. The Council says that since she first registered the allocation policies have changed several times and some of her priority, such as employment, no longer applies under the current scheme. The Council has advised her that there is no duty to house applicants in permanent accommodation within a specific timescale. He needs are for a 4 bedroom property and these are in very short supply.
7. It was reasonable for Mrs X to complain to us in previous years about her lack of success in being rehoused. There is no evidence to suggest she could not have complained to us sooner. However, it is unlikely that, had she done so, we would have been able to investigate as there is no timescale to which the Council could be held for rehousing her permanently.
8. Mrs X says she was suspended from bidding on vacancies for 18 months until 2022 because an offer which she was hoping to be made did not arise and her bidding rights were suspended. The Council says it has investigated this and that of the six vacancies which she could have made bids on in this period were accepted from families with higher housing priority than her own so she suffered no injustice as a result.

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Final decision

9. We will not exercise discretion to investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to rehouse Mrs X in permanent accommodation since she applied to the housing register 23 years ago. The complaint was received outside the normal 12-month period for investigating complaints. There is no evidence to suggest that Mrs X could not have complained to us sooner.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman