Summary: Mr B complained about how the Council handled his housing situation. The Council has not shown that it took into account the mould and disrepair when it decided the family should stay until the landlord’s notice expired. The Council did not always communicate with Mr B or deal with his complaints properly, and it did not always give its legal homelessness decisions in writing. This caused Mr B distress and uncertainty. The Council should apologise to Mr B, make symbolic payments, and remind staff that decisions should always be given in writing.

The complaint

1. Mr B complains that the Council failed to:
• deal with his family’s housing situation properly when they were living in unsuitable accommodation and given notice to leave in August 2023;
• communicate with him properly, respond to contact from them, or explain clearly what was happening;
• place his family in suitable emergency accommodation so that in one property they were too far from school and work, and in another his wife could not access the shared kitchen; and
• deal with their housing application and banding properly or in good time, so he was prevented from bidding for social housing for 40 days when they were threatened with homelessness.
2. Mr B says that the Council’s shortcomings has caused him and his family distress and uncertainty, meant they have lived in unsuitable accommodation, and worsened his wife’s health.

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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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with an organisation’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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What I have and have not investigated

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 Council placed Mr B in settled accommodation. Mr B has asked the Council to review whether this was suitable due to his wife’s chronic health conditions. I have not investigated how the Council decided this accommodation was suitable. This is because Mr B has the right to ask the Council for a review of its decision and then if he remains dissatisfied, Mr B can start court action to challenge this decision. It is reasonable to expect the Mr B to use his legal right to start court action if he thinks the Council has not properly considered his family’s circumstances.
7. I have investigated Mr B’s complaint that the Council failed to provide suitable interim accommodation in the hotel and the flat in a neighbouring town. This is because these properties were interim accommodation and Mr B does not have the same legal right to ask for a review and to take the matter to court.
8. I have investigated the matters Mr B complained to the Council about in September and November 2023, and May 2024. These relate to the Councils actions between August and December 2023.

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered evidence provided by Mr B and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
10. Mr B and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

The law and guidance

Homelessness

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. Someone is homeless if they have no accommodation or if they have accommodation, but it is not reasonable for them to continue to live there. (Housing Act 1996, Section 175)
13. Councils must complete an assessment if they are satisfied an applicant is homeless or threatened with homelessness. The Code of Guidance says, rather than advise the applicant to return when homelessness is more imminent, the housing authority may wish to accept a prevention duty and begin to take reasonable steps to prevent homelessness. Councils must notify the applicant of the assessment. Councils should work with applicants to identify practical and reasonable steps for the council and the applicant to take to help the applicant keep or secure suitable accommodation. These steps should be tailored to the household, and follow from the findings of the assessment, and must be provided to the applicant in writing as their personalised housing plan. (Housing Act 1996, section 189A and Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraphs 11.6 and 11.18)
14. If a council is satisfied an applicant is threatened with homelessness and eligible for assistance, it must take steps to help the applicant keep their home or find somewhere new to live. In deciding what steps to take, a council must have regard to its assessment of the applicant’s case. This is known as the prevention duty (Housing Act 1996, section 195)
15. Councils must take reasonable steps to help to secure suitable accommodation for any eligible homeless person. When a council decides this duty has come to an end, it must notify the applicant in writing. This is known as the relief duty. (Housing Act 1996, section 189B)
16. A council must secure accommodation for applicants and their household if it has reason to believe they may be homeless, eligible for assistance and have a priority need. This is called interim accommodation. (Housing Act 1996, section 188)
17. The law says councils must ensure all accommodation provided to homeless applicants is suitable for the needs of the applicant and members of their household. This duty applies to interim accommodation and accommodation provided under the main housing duty. (Housing Act 1996, section 206 and Homelessness Code of Guidance 17.2)
18. Councils must consider the location of accommodation when they consider if it is suitable for the applicant and members of their household. If a council places an applicant outside its district, it must consider, among other matters:

• the distance of the accommodation from the “home” district;
• the significance of any disruption to the education of members of the applicant’s household; and
• the proximity and accessibility to local services, amenities and transport. (Homelessness (Suitability of Accommodation) Order 2012)

19. Wherever possible, Councils should avoid using bed and breakfast accommodation. (Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraph 17.33)
20. Bed and breakfast (B&B) accommodation can only be used for households which include a pregnant woman or dependent child when no other accommodation is available and then for no more than six weeks. B&B is accommodation which is not self-contained, not owned by the council or a registered provider of social housing and where the toilet, washing, or cooking facilities are shared with other households. (Homelessness (Suitability of Accommodation) (England) Order 2003 and Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraph 17.35)
21. The Council’s local policy sets out its priorities for allocating temporary accommodation. This includes that those who have transport, and those who have to access medical treatment only available within the city, can be offered accommodation in the neighbouring towns.

Housing allocations

22. Every local housing authority must publish an allocations scheme that sets out how it prioritises applicants, and its procedures for allocating housing. All allocations must be made in strict accordance with the published scheme. (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(1) & (14))
23. The Council operates a choice-based lettings scheme which enables housing applicants to bid for available properties which it advertises

Private housing standards

24. Private tenants may complain to their council about a failure by the landlord to keep the property in good repair. Local authorities have powers under the Housing Health and Safety Rating to take enforcement action against private landlords where the council has identified a hazard which puts the health and safety of the tenant at risk. If a council considers a category 1 hazard exists in residential premises they must take appropriate enforcement action.

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What happened

25. Mr B lived with his wife and two young children in a privately rented property. He had been on the Council’s housing register for some time and at the beginning of August 2023, Mr B asked the Council to help house his family when his landlord served a notice for them to leave. The Council told Mr B it would reassess his housing application and that he could not bid on properties in the meantime.
26. The Council’s housing team told Mr B to contact its homelessness prevention team because it was unlikely Mr B would be rehoused via the housing register before the notice expired.
27. Mr B tried to contact the homelessness prevention team but could not get through. He emailed and telephoned and was left on hold for two hours. Mr B asked the Council to help him contact the team but it was unable to. Mr B’s solicitor asked the Council to accept a homelessness application from Mr B.
28. On 25 August, Mr B told the Council he had significant problems in his house with mould and damp. He continued to try to contact the homelessness prevention team and his solicitor chased the Council too. Mr B was very worried about where he would go if the landlord’s notice expired.
29. On 11 September, the Council’s environmental health service visited Mr B’s rental property. It found that the damp and disrepair in the property was a category one hazard. The landlord could not repair the property with Mr B’s family living there. The environmental health service said the Council should move the family as soon as possible, and notified the homelessness prevention team.
30. The Council told Mr B on 18 September that it accepted a prevention duty and it sent him a personal housing plan. Mr B again asked whether the Council would move them. The Council decided that it was reasonable for the family to stay in the property until the landlord’s notice expired on 12 October.
31. At the end of September, Mr B’s MP asked the Council why it had not moved the family given the hazards. Also, Mr B complained to the Council. He said it had accepted that he was homeless but had still not given him the correct priority on the housing register. He also said that he had not been able to bid on properties for 40 days because the Council was reassessing his housing application. This meant that he had limited ability to help resolve his impending homelessness.
32. During this time, Mr B had asked the Council to consider giving his family extra priority because his wife had chronic illnesses and disabilities. The Council had assessed the information and decided that the family did not need an adapted property or was entitled to priority on a medical basis. Mr B asked the Council for its reasons.
33. On 3 October, the Council told Mr B that it had awarded him Band B priority on the basis of the hazards it had found at his property. It backdated this priority to 11 September, when it had first inspected the house. On 11 October, Mr B emailed the Council. The notice was due to expire the next day and he wanted to know what to do.
34. On 12 October, the Council moved Mr B to a hotel room. It had a shared kitchen which was up some steps. The Council ended the prevention duty and accepted the relief duty. It did not notify Mr B in writing of this, and it did not send him a new personal housing plan. As Mr B had moved and was no longer living in a house with hazards, the Council removed him from Band B and placed him in Band C.
35. The Council responded to Mr B’s complaint. It said he was not at risk of homelessness and the Council was working with him to prevent him from becoming homeless. Mr B asked the Council to review the banding decision.
36. The Council also responded to Mr B’s MP. It said Mr B is now in interim accommodation (the hotel), but he had not made a housing application.
37. Mr B asked the Council to review its decision to place his family in the hotel. He said that his wife could not access the shared kitchen due to her chronic health conditions and his child had fell out of the bunk bed. The Council decided that the hotel was suitable for the family.
38. After around four weeks, the Council moved Mr B out of the hotel and into self-contained accommodation in a nearby town. The Council’s case notes say that this was no longer interim accommodation and as Mr B was expected to stay here for more than six months, the Council could end the relief duty. It did not send Mr B notification of this.
39. Mr B told the Council that the new self-contained accommodation was not suitable for his family. He said local congestion meant that it was very difficult to get the children to school and him to work on time, and for his wife to access her medical appointments. He said it was too much travelling for the children. Mr B’s family lived in this accommodation for a month but the Council did not respond to his review request.
40. In December 2023, Mr B moved to settled social housing. Mr B had asked the Council to consider his complaint at stage two of its process because he had moved. It reassessed his housing application and decided to place him in Band C on the basis of his wife’s health difficulties.
41. Mr B asked the Council to review whether the new accommodation was suitable because his wife found it hard to access the local area due to her chronic health conditions. I have not investigated how the Council dealt with this review because Mr B has the right to take this to court if he disagrees with the outcome of the review.
42. Mr B also asked the Council to review his priority on the housing register. We have dealt with his complaint about that separately.
43. In November 2023, Mr B had made a separate complaint to the Council about how the first homelessness officer had treated him. He said the officer was rude and did not properly consider that his family was living in a home with hazards.
44. The Council responded to this separate complaint. It said that the officer may have lacked empathy but was factually correct to state that there was limited housing available. The Council said that its environmental health service had decided it was not safe for the family to live at the property, but it was reasonable to expect them stay there for a short time until the notice expired.
45. In May 2024, Mr B asked the Council to consider all the matters he had complained about at stage two of its complaints process. The Council advised Mr B to complain to the Ombudsman instead.

Findings

46. The Council decided that Mr B’s family should stay in the private rented property until the landlord’s notice expired. It is for the Council to decide this and it said that it did so due to the pressure on emergency housing. However, the Council’s file does not show how it took into account the category one hazard or the environmental health service’s recommendation that the family should be moved as soon as possible, at the time it made this decision. It did not explain its reasons to Mr B at the time, and only later when he complained again about this. This was fault by the Council and caused Mr B uncertainty that he was being left in a property with significant mould and disrepair longer than necessary.
47. The Council was first made aware that Mr B’s family was threatened with homelessness on 8 August. I can see that the Council was in touch with Mr B but it failed to give him clear information about how or if it would assess his homelessness until 18 September. It also was not contactable despite that the Council’s housing team regularly told Mr B to contact the homelessness prevention team. This caused Mr B distress and uncertainty.
48. The Council failed to notify Mr B in writing that it had ended the prevention duty and had accepted the relief duty and it also failed to send him a new personalised housing plan.
49. The Council also failed to notify Mr B in writing that it had ended its relief duty. I also note that although a case note says that the flat was not interim accommodation, the Council has sent me a nightly licence which suggests that this was not accommodation that it could expect Mr B to occupy for at least six months, and therefore housing him here did not end the relief duty.
50. These decisions carry a right to review, and the letters would have set out how Mr B could use this. This again meant that communication was not clear, and caused Mr B uncertainty about what was happening and about his review rights.
51. I have looked carefully at the information the Council had when it reviewed whether the interim accommodation it provided Mr B’s family was suitable and the reasons it gave.
52. The Council said that the hotel was suitable given the lack of available accommodation. It had information about Mr B’s wife’s condition and it was entitled to rely on the assessment it had already made that she did not require any adaptations to a property. It had found she could manage stairs. The Council also moved Mr B’s family to self-contained accommodation within the six-week legal time frame. There was no fault in how the Council considered the suitability of the hotel accommodation or Mr B’s review request of this decision.
53. Mr B also asked the Council to review whether the flat in the neighbouring town was suitable interim accommodation. Mr B was in this accommodation for around one month, but the Council failed to respond to Mr B’s review request. I appreciate that the reasons for the review fell away when Mr B moved, however, it was fault by the Council not to address his concerns either by completing the review in good time while he was living there, or via the complaints process once he had moved.
54. In response to my enquiries, the Council has acknowledged the difficulties Mr B’s family was having with the distance to school and work, and with Mrs B accessing her health care. However, it has shown that this is in accordance with its policy on interim accommodation and was overall, suitable for them. There was no fault in how the Council considered the suitability of this accommodation.
55. The Council has improved its homelessness service so that new Team Leaders can ensure officers are better supported with their caseloads. It says that this change has allowed officers to reduce caseloads and have quicker support with casework to provide better support to customers.
56. The Council took one month to reassess Mr B’s housing application priority when it found category one hazards. I appreciate that Mr B was in a very difficult and distressing situation, and would have preferred the Council to reassess his application sooner. However, a month is a reasonable timeframe for the Council to make this decision and it was not fault. Although this meant that Mr B could not bid on properties, there was no fault when the Council suspended this while it reassessed his housing priority.
57. The Council correctly placed Mr B in band B of its housing priority on the basis of the category one hazard in the home. It was right to move his application to band C when he moved from the home. The Council took all of the information into account when considering Mr B’s wife’s health conditions and the impact of these on their housing need. It made a decision on their housing priority on this basis and properly dealt with his requests to review this.
58. The Council did not deal with Mr B’s complaints properly. The information it gave was not accurate when it said that he had no housing application, and that he was not at risk of homelessness. The Council also failed to deal with the stage two complaint properly. It was correct that Mr B had been rehoused by then, but he was complaining about how the Council had dealt with the situation to that point and it should have addressed his complaint. The Council’s failure to do so put Mr B to time and trouble pursuing the issues he had raised,

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Action

59. The Council has agreed that within one month of this decision it will:
• Apologise to Mr B. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The organisation should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings.
• Make a symbolic payment to Mr B of £250 in recognition of the distress and uncertainty it caused him when it failed to notify him of its decisions, communicate with him properly, or properly consider whether it was reasonable for his family to stay in the privately rented house.
• Make a symbolic payment to Mr B of £100 in recognition of the time and trouble it put him too when it failed to deal with his complaints properly.
• Share this decision with the relevant staff and remind them that they must communicate decisions on homelessness in writing.
60. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

61. I find fault causing injustice. The Council has agreed actions to remedy injustice.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman