Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council providing insufficient information about ending its homelessness prevention duty when Miss X found accommodation. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained about the Council ending its homelessness duty in 2023 when she found accommodation. She says she believed she had accepted temporary accommodation and that this later proved to be unsuitable. She also says the Council should have inspected the accommodation which she says had sound insulation defects.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. Miss X says she was accepted under the homelessness prevention duty by the Council in 2023. The duty involves the Council giving advice on how to retain current accommodation and seeking alternative accommodation without a duty to provide temporary accommodation.
6. The Council says it provided Miss X with information about the prevention duty and a personalised housing plan in September 2023. In November Miss X asked the Council for assistance with a deposit to secure a property she had viewed. The Council provided some assistance and she signed the tenancy of a housing association property in November. Because she was no longer threatened with homelessness the Council ended the prevention duty and two weeks later notified her of the end of the duty.
7. In 2024 Miss X asked the Council to accept a new application to the housing register which had also ended when she was housed. The Council refused to accept her application because it says she is adequately housed. This was the subject of a separate complaint to us ref. 24010256.
8. Miss X says she believed that she was signing a tenancy for temporary accommodation under the main housing duty and that she would be subsequently rehoused by the Council. She says the accommodation was not inspected by the council before she accepted the tenancy and later found sound insulation problems.
9. There is no evidence to suggest that Miss X was accepted for anything other than the prevention duty and that when she found accommodation in 2023 the Council informed her the prevention duty had ended. There is no obligation for a council to inspect accommodation secured privately by an applicant under the prevention duty. The duty is to assist obtaining alternative accommodation if the current housing tenure cannot be maintained.
10. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council providing insufficient information about ending its homelessness prevention duty when Miss X found accommodation. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman