Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the suitability of accommodation the Council offered to relieve Mrs X’s homelessness. Mrs X could reasonably have used her court appeal right.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council gave her unsuitable accommodation when she was homeless and failed to deal properly with her complaint about the matter.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. The Council offered Mrs X accommodation to relieve her homelessness. Mrs X says the accommodation is unsuitable, especially because of its distance from her work and her children’s schools.
7. Mrs X used her right to have the Council review the accommodation’s suitability. The Council’s review decision in February 2025 upheld the decision the accommodation was suitable. Mrs X then had the right to appeal to the county court on a point of law within 21 days. (Housing Act 1996, section 204) Whether a council has properly considered the concept of suitability of accommodation, as legally defined, is a point of law. Therefore the restriction in paragraph 2 applies.
8. The law expressly provides this appeal right for disputes about the suitability of temporary accommodation, so we normally expect people to use this right. The court could overturn the Council’s position and make a binding order if it sees fit, which the Ombudsman could not. The Council’s review decision told Mrs X about the appeal right, so Mrs X knew about it at the relevant time. Mrs X could reasonably have sought help with using appeal rights if she wished, for example, from an advice agency, law centre or solicitor. Mrs X had been able to seek legal help with the review. There is a possible cost implication with court action. However, help with legal costs might have been available. Also, the potential cost of court action is not in itself automatically a reason for the Ombudsman to investigate instead. I appreciate Mrs X has some health problems and has been busy with lengthy travel times to work and her children’s schools. However, I am not persuaded those points would actually have prevented Mrs X using her appeal right. Overall, I consider it is reasonable in the circumstances to expect Mrs X to have appealed to the court when she had the right.
9. Mrs X is also unhappy the Council refused to use its complaint procedure to consider her concerns about the property’s suitability and about the Council’s review of the matter. There was no fault in the Council saying arguments about suitability were for the statutory review procedure, not for the complaint procedure. Once the Council sent its review decision, the way to challenge that was in the county court, not the complaint procedure. Also, as paragraph 3 explained, it would be disproportionate for us to investigate the complaint-handling when we are not investigating the substantive matter (the accommodation’s suitability).

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint. It is reasonable to expect Mrs X to have appealed to the county court about the accommodation’s suitability. In that context, it would be disproportionate for us to investigate the Council’s complaint-handling by itself.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman