Summary: Ms B complained the Council repeatedly failed to support her with re-housing as a victim of domestic abuse. We upheld the complaint, finding the Council at fault for how it responded to a series of contacts she made between 2022 and 2024. We could not say that this meant Ms B did not receive support with re-housing she should have received. But the resulting uncertainty caused Ms B an injustice as distress. The Council has accepted these findings and at the end of this statement we set out the action it has agreed to remedy that injustice.

The complaint

1. Ms B complained the Council repeatedly failed to support her with re-housing as a victim of domestic abuse. In particular that it had not considered her homeless and that until April 2025 it only gave the lowest priority to her housing application.
2. Ms B said as a result she continued to occupy a property in an another local authority area where she felt at risk of abuse from her ex-partner.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. 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)
4. 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)
5. 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)
6. 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(1), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

7. I considered evidence provided by Ms B and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
8. I gave Ms B and the Council opportunity to comment of a draft version of this draft decision and provide any further evidence they considered relevant to its content. I took account of their responses before finalising the statement.

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What I found

Relevant legal and administrative considerations

Homelessness and Domestic Abuse

9. 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. Someone is homeless if they have no accommodation or if they have accommodation, but it is not reasonable for them and anyone who lives with them, to continue to live there.
10. A person who experiences, or believes, they are at risk of domestic abuse, can approach any local housing authority to consider if they are homeless under the Housing Act 1996. Section 177 of the Act says it is not reasonable for a person to continue to occupy accommodation if it is probable that this will lead to violence or domestic abuse against them, or against a person who would normally or reasonably be expected to live with them. (Homelessness Code of Guidance, Chapter 21)
11. Government guidance says to decide if someone is homeless under this section of the Act, the council should try to get an account of their experience. It should then assess whether they have experienced abusive behaviour and whether they are at risk of domestic abuse if they continue to occupy their accommodation. The council must make an assessment based on the details of the case. (Homelessness Code of Guidance, Chapter 21)
12. If a council has reason to believe an applicant may be homeless because of domestic abuse, it should make interim accommodation available to the applicant immediately whilst it undertakes its investigations. (Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraph 21.25)
13. Guidance stresses a person can ask any council for help. The Code says, “households at risk of domestic abuse often have to leave their homes and the area where they have lived. There is a clear need for victims of abuse and their children to be able to travel to different areas in order for them to be safe from the perpetrator, and housing authorities should extend the same level of support to those from other areas as they do to their own residents.” (Homelessness Code of Guidance, Chapter 21)
14. After completing inquiries, the council must give the applicant a decision in writing. If it is an adverse decision, the letter must fully explain the reasons. All letters must include information about the right to request a review and the timescale for doing so. (Housing Act 1996, section 184, Homelessness Code of Guidance 18.30)
15. Homeless applicants may request a review within 21 days if a council finds they are not eligible for assistance.
16. The council then has eight weeks to complete the review (or longer if the applicant agrees in writing).
17. The council must also advise applicants of their right to appeal to the county court on a point of law, and of the period in which to appeal. Applicants can also appeal if the council takes more than eight weeks to complete a review. (Housing Act 1996, sections 202, 203 and 204)

Housing Allocations

18. Every local housing authority must publish an allocations scheme that sets out how it will allocate housing in its area. The scheme will explain who is eligible to join its housing register and how it will prioritise their application. Councils must allocate housing in strict accordance with their published schemes. (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(1) & (14))
19. Housing applicants can ask the council to review a wide range of decisions about their applications, including decisions about their housing priority.
20. Government guidance on housing allocation polices explains it has made Regulations to prevent councils disqualifying applicants from joining a housing register if they do not have a local connection, if they are or have been a victim of domestic abuse. It says, “these provisions recognise that such individuals often have to leave their local area for their own safety or to receive support” (see Allocation of accommodation: guidance for local housing authorities in England paragraphs 3.41 – 3.42).

Relevant Council policies

21. The Council has a ‘responding to domestic abuse’ policy. This explains that it uses the services of SEDAH, the South Essex Domestic Abuse Hub. However, during this investigation the Council told us that SEDAH disbanded in 2023. It was a partnership organisation formed by the Council, three other housing authorities in Essex and three charity or advice organisations supporting victims of domestic abuse. The policy described the role of SEDAH was to “provide advice and support to victims residing in Basildon [and the other housing authority areas] who are experiencing the signs of domestic abuse, including help to find safe accommodation”.
22. The Council told us SEDAH would carry out a triage of those who approached the Council for housing support because of domestic abuse. It would consider the “reasonableness of someone continuing to occupy their accommodation”. It said if SEDAH could not “identify domestic abuse and / or a risk associated with [an enquirer] remaining in their current accommodation” it would close their application.
23. Since SEDAH disbanded the Council has used its own team of domestic abuse advisers when it approached by a victim seeking housing support.
24. The Council’s housing allocation policy says in Section 9 that someone must have lived in the Borough for seven years to have a local connection. The Council will disregard periods of less than six months “if it has reasonable grounds for believing that such periods of absence were forced upon the applicant through no fault or choice of their own” (section 9.2). In addition, the Council will waive the local connection requirement for “victims of domestic abuse who have not been accepted as statutorily homeless by another local authority” (section 9.3.3).
25. The Council bands applicants who are successful in applying to go on to its housing register. For those without a local connection they receive a Band D priority if they lack one bedroom. They will receive Band C priority if they lack two or more bedrooms. Bedroom requirements consider the size of the applicant’s household, and the age and gender of any children as it will expect some children to share a bedroom.
26. Where a change of circumstance leads the Council to apply a higher banding to someone’s application, the ‘effective date’ of the application will change. It will be the date the applicant notified the Council of the change in circumstance leading to the higher banding.

Chronology

27. Ms B first contacted the Council in February 2022. At the time, and throughout the events covered by this complaint, she lived outside its area in another Council area (‘Council X’). Ms B had moved to Council X’s area after being a victim of domestic abuse while living in a third council area. She lived in a one-bed flat. At the time she had one child and was in a relationship with a new partner, ‘Mr C’, who lived in the Council’s area.
28. Ms B spoke to the SEDAH service to enquire about moving to the Council’s area. She did this after speaking to a social worker from Council X, who told Ms B she could approach another council for housing as a victim of domestic abuse. Ms B says she explained to the SEDAH adviser that she had been a victim of domestic abuse and that her ex-partner had last contacted her in November 2021. But that Mr C had received contact from her ex-partner in January 2022.
29. The SEDAH service kept no record of the call or the advice it gave Ms B. However, Ms B retained two emails sent by one of its advisers. In these, the SEDAH adviser told Ms B to contact her current landlord (a registered social landlord) and ask for a “management move”. They said the Council could provide refuge accommodation or emergency housing, but for a “permanent move” she needed to contact her landlord.
30. In June 2022 Ms B obtained a non-molestation order (NMO) against her ex-partner.
31. In July 2022 Ms B was pregnant with her second child. Mr C moved from the Council’s area to move in with Ms B and support her.
32. In September 2022 Ms B contacted SEDAH again. She set out the information summarised above explaining her circumstances. The adviser told Ms B the Council could provide refuge accommodation and may be able to help her with a move to private rented accommodation in its area. Ms B did not want refuge accommodation as she wanted accommodation with her current partner.
33. The SEDAH adviser also provided a link for Ms B to complete a housing register application which she went on to do. Later in September 2022 Ms B said she could not obtain an update on the status of her application, and the SEDAH adviser sought advice from a Council Housing Officer. It is unclear from the record when the Housing Officer replied to the SEDAH adviser, but the SEDAH adviser passed on their advice around a month after Ms B’s enquiry. They explained that Ms B had not properly completed the application, which she went on to do. Meaning the Council registered her housing application in late October 2022.
34. Next, Ms B provided it with more information (for which she has provided a copy of an email sent to the housing allocations service). The Council said it had no record of that email.
35. Then, at the start of December 2022, the Council closed the application. Its records say it did this Ms B requested closure of her application, something she has no record of herself. The Council has also provided comments Ms B made at the time it received the request which expressed dissatisfaction the Council was not providing her with more help. And she expressed frustration, feeling she was “passed pillar to post” when she got in touch with it.
36. In December 2022 Ms B got in contact with SEDAH again. By now, she had received contact at her home, from a close relative of her ex-partner. She therefore believed he also knew her address. She believed he may have hacked her email to find this, so Ms B began using another email address. She provided an email from her local police force which confirmed it was aware of this development and Ms B’s belief her ex-partner had hacked her email.
37. SEDAH repeated the advice given to Ms B in September 2022. It also suggested she speak to her current council to have more home security fitted.
38. The adviser completed a ‘triage’ form explaining the information provided by Ms B and advice given in response.
39. Next, Ms B completed a second application to join the Council’s housing register. The Council closed that application in January 2023 as Ms B did not provide a signed declaration and consent form (something she had provided with her October 2022 application). The Council says it sent notice of this decision to Ms B’s ‘safe’ email address.
40. Ms B completed a third housing application form in November 2023.
41. In April 2024 Ms B contacted the Council again, after speaking once more about her circumstances with officers who worked for Council X. They reiterated she had the right to apply to the Council to consider if it could support her as homeless. In response the Council left a voicemail for Ms B, which she kept. In this the Council told Ms B it had concerns about the advice she had received from Council X, saying it was that authority which had a duty to support her.
42. The Council then sent Ms B an email saying, “we do not have reason to believe you are homeless due to domestic abuse based on the evidence we hold”. It noted the close relative of Ms B’s ex-partner had visited her home and so accepted that he likely knew where she lived. But there was no evidence her ex-partner had breached the NMO, which had now expired and could not be renewed for that reason.
43. In June 2024 Ms B contacted the Council again, questioning the approach it took to her circumstances in 2022. She believed the Council had improperly closed her housing register application, saying it had sent the closure letter to her unsafe email address which she had stopped using around December 2022.
44. In September 2024, and in reply to her contact from June, the Council said it had “reactivated” her housing application. It awarded her application ‘Band D’ priority. It gave the “effective date” of the application as the end of November 2023, when she completed her third housing application form.
45. The Council said it could not award a higher priority as neither Ms B nor her partner had a local connection with its area. It could only make an exception in her partner’s case if he had left the area for less than six months “through no choice or fault” of his own.
46. In its letter the Council also defended the action taken by SEDAH in 2022, saying that it had not established “it was unsafe for you to live [at your current address]”.
47. Ms B went on to complain about the Council’s service in October 2024. In its replies the Council continued to defend the service provided by SEDAH and its housing allocation team. It confirmed that it considered it had properly prioritised Ms B’s housing application.
48. In April 2025 the Council increased the priority given to Ms B’s housing application to Band C. This followed the birth of her third child, meaning Ms B now needed a three-bed property and so lacked two bedrooms. The effective date of her application changed from November 2023 to April 2025 accordingly.

My findings

Is this a late complaint?

49. The first matter I considered was the extent to which we could investigate Ms B’s complaint given the passage of time. She first contacted us to complain in March 2025, meaning any complaint about events pre-dating March 2024 was potentially late.
50. However, I decided that Ms B’s complaint was not late. The date from when we calculate what is a late complaint, is the date from which the person complaining first knew they had cause to complain. This will not necessarily be the same date as when they first knew of the Council’s actions they want to complain about. It may only be later they learn information relevant to the Council’s decision that leads them to believe its actions were, in retrospect, wrong.
51. In this case I considered April 2024 a pivotal date. Because it was then, after speaking to officers from Council X, that Ms B sought to challenge the advice she had previously received from the Council understanding it may be wrong. I found this was the date therefore when Ms B first knew she had cause to complain. And as she went on to make her complaint to us within 12 months, it was not a late complaint.
52. But even if I considered Ms B could have complained to us sooner (and I recognise that April 2024 was not the first time she had spoken to an officer from Council X who gave her advice contradictory to the Council), I considered there were good reasons that would still have justified this investigation. The facts showed that in 2022 Ms B had repeatedly contact with the SEDAH service, which provided only limited information in writing explaining its approach towards Ms B’s potential homelessness.
53. Consequently, Ms B received no explanation of the law, Government guidance or the Council’s application of the same. She received no decision offering a right of review of the Council’s position. I considered it clear from the legal framework I set out above that Ms B should have had that opportunity (I also expand on this below). I considered it would be unfair for us to penalise Ms B for not challenging the Council’s actions sooner given it did not invite her to do so at the time.
54. It was clearly arguable Ms B had more notice of the Council’s decision making around her applying to join its housing register. In particular, I noted the letter the Council sent in January 2023 closing Ms B’s second application. Ms B believed this went to her old email address which had become unsafe. However, the Council said it went to a safe email address which Ms B put on her application form. While I lacked proof, I had no reason to doubt the Council’s statement. I worked on the basis therefore, that Ms B had the chance to challenge its decision at the time.
55. However, I also took account of the context in which Ms B made applications to join the Council’s housing register. In 2022 all her contacts with the Council focused on the same matter. Which was whether it could support her with rehousing based on her circumstances. She did not pursue her application in isolation therefore from her contacts made or directed to SEDAH. It was not clear to me Ms B understood there were two separate processes for considering her housing need running alongside each other (something illustrated by the content of her message to the Council in December 2022 which led it close her first application). In addition, those processes were not independent of one another. Because where the Council accepts a household is homeless that will have an impact on the priority afforded to their rehousing under the allocation scheme.
56. As well as this interplay between the two schemes, I also took account there was no evidence the Council told Ms B it had closed her first application. I therefore did not consider it reasonable to exclude consideration of the housing allocation decisions from my investigation into events from 2022.

Was the Council at fault?

57. I considered first the Council’s approach to its duties under homelessness legislation. I found the law clear that where someone who has been a victim of domestic abuse seeks to move to another council area either to escape that abuse, or out of fear of such abuse, the Council must consider if it owes a duty to rehouse them under Section 177 of the Housing Act. That does not mean the Council is necessarily under a duty to provide accommodation to them. But where there is an arguable case it may owe the duty, then it must make sufficient enquiries to come to a reasoned decision and put that decision in writing.
58. That did not happen here. In exploring why, I noted the Council had delegated responsibility for assessing the housing needs of domestic abuse victims to the SEDAH service in the first instance. There was no inherent fault in that as SEDAH’s officers would have had specialist skills and experience in supporting victims of domestic abuse. I also accepted that as part of the advice the service offered, SEDAH may sometimes have wanted to limit the expectations of those who contacted it. But in doing so, it had to be mindful of the law and the Council’s responsibilities as set out above.
59. In this case I found the SEDAH service went beyond giving general advice to Ms B and effectively assessed the merits of her housing need under Section 177 of the Act. On all three occasions Ms B contacted the service in 2022 I found she presented an arguable case that the Council may have owed a duty to her under Section 177. Because on each occasion Ms B made clear she was a past victim of domestic abuse and she had an ongoing fear her ex-partner would cause her further harm. And on each occasion, Ms B advanced evidence for why she held that fear. Successively Ms B told the Council about his contacts with her after she left the home she shared with him, his contacts with Mr C and that a close relative had learnt her address. Ms B believed this latter event could only have resulted from her ex-partner hacking her email, and her local police force provided her with an email making the Council aware she had contacted it about that matter.
60. The Council, whether through using the services of SEDAH or otherwise, should have made proper enquiries to establish therefore Ms B’s risk of harm. This could have included completing a ‘DASH’ assessment, which is a standard tool used by organisations to assess the risk of harm to victims of domestic abuse. It should also have properly considered if it needed to offer interim accommodation to Ms B, which could not simply be refuge accommodation after July 2022 when there were the needs of Mr C to consider. Not doing so was a fault.
61. The SEDAH service also did not ensure Ms B received a lawful decision under Section 184 of the Housing Act 1996. It effectively blocked Ms B’s access to the Council itself, which would make that decision. That too was a fault.
62. The Council then repeated those failings when Ms B contacted it again in April 2024, this time dealing directly with one of its officers and not the SEDAH service.
63. In considering the consequences of these faults I could not come to a view on whether the Council did or did not owe a duty to Ms B under Section 177. I accepted that after making enquiries the Council may have decided it did not owe any duty to Ms B. But if so, it needed to make a reasoned decision in writing which it did not do here. That in turn would have given Ms B a right to seek a review of its decision, including to the County Court on a point of law. The actions of the Council and SEDAH denied Ms B that fundamental right. That was an injustice to her.
64. So, Ms B would never know if the outcome of her contacts might have been different but for the Council’s fault. That uncertainty was a source of distress to her, and so also caused her injustice. And the Council further added to that distress through failing to deal properly with repeated contacts from Ms B, which could only have added to her frustration. I recommended actions I wanted the Council to take to remedy that injustice, which it accepted and I set those out later in this statement.
65. Next, I considered the Council’s handling of Ms B’s repeated applications to join its housing register. I noted here that Ms B did not apply to join until October 2022 (having begun that application the previous month). It is unfortunate that she received no advice about joining the housing register in February 2022. However, I lacked evidence that SEDAH should have offered such signposting and noted that at the time, Ms B’s household did not include Mr C with his links to the Council’s area.
66. It took Ms B three, or possibly four, attempts to successfully gain inclusion on to the register which did not happen until April 2024, eighteen months after she completed her first application. I had concerns about the circumstances in which the Council closed Ms B’s first application in November 2022. I could not say it was directly at fault for doing so as I lacked evidence to contradict its account that this followed Ms B requesting closure of her application. However, in reading the comments Ms B made alongside her request, I thought these were a clear expression of dissatisfaction and frustration with the Council’s service. I considered the Council should therefore still have tried to engage with her to explain its housing allocation policy and consideration of homelessness were not one and the same and that she could challenge its position that it did not consider her homeless. I considered this failure to offer advice was still a fault.
67. I found it harder to come to a view on Ms B’s second application, which the Council closed in January 2023. I understood a new application would require the applicant to sign a new declaration and consent form and I could find no fault in that. I also recognised the Council wrote in clear terms to Ms B that it had closed the application and why that was.
68. However, I considered the second application may have been unnecessary with better handling of Ms B’s expression of dissatisfaction in December 2022.
69. I also considered the Council at fault for the delay in ‘activating’ her third application of November 2023.
70. I considered if these faults could have made any practical difference to Ms B’s housing priority. As when the Council activated Ms B’s application in April 2024 it gave it the lowest priority in Band D. On the facts in April 2024 this was correct as Ms B and Mr C lived outside the Council’s area and so had no obvious local connection. Their application could not receive a higher priority.
71. But I considered the question of priority was not necessarily straightforward. I noted the allocations policy gave two exemptions to the usual local connection rules, both of which had possible relevance to Ms B’s case. The first concerned the Council’s waiver of the local connection rules in some circumstances, to someone who leaves its area temporarily for less than six months. This was a circumstance that may have applied around the time of Ms B’s first application. As in October 2022 Mr C had lived away from the Council’s area for less than six months.
72. I had some difficulty with the exemption only applying where someone was ‘forced’ to move away for a time. I considered there could be many scenarios where someone may have understandable reasons for being away from the Borough for a time, including to provide care as in Mr C’s case. But having an understandable reason to leave the Borough for a time, was not the same as being forced to do so.
73. I therefore considered carefully if we could find fault with this exemption. However, I found nothing in national guidance or case law which suggested the Council could not apply this stringent policy. There is a passage in the Code of Guidance on homelessness which suggests a local connection may continue for up to six months after someone leaves one housing authority’s area and moves to another. But I did not find that persuasive given the advice is not specific to allocations schemes and makes clear that councils retain discretion.
74. On balance therefore, I did not find the exemption would have been applicable to Ms B’s application made in October 2022.
75. The other exemption of relevance was that the Council applies to victims of domestic abuse. The Council has explained how it interprets this in the following terms, that the applicant’s need to move must connect to the abuse they have experienced. If it considers a person lives in safe, settled accommodation it does not apply it. The Council told me it considered the abuse experienced by Ms B “historic” and that she was at no risk, being “safe and settled” where she was.
76. The difficulty I had with this response was the Council framed it in the present tense, as it viewed Ms B’s circumstances in late 2025. But that was not necessarily how the picture would have presented had it properly applied itself to this part of its policy in 2022.
77. I found I could come to no view as to what the Council may have decided on this point in late 2022. As with the question of Ms B’s potential homelessness, I could see an argument might be made either way about whether this exemption applied to her circumstances then. That potentially created more uncertainty for Ms B but I did not have grounds to find the Council should have treated Ms B’s application with a higher priority.

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Agreed Action

78. In order to remedy the injustice caused to Ms B, the Council agreed that within 20 working days of this decision, it would:
1. apologise to her, accepting the findings of this investigation. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council agreed to consider this guidance in making its apology;
2. make a symbolic payment to her of £600. It agreed to pay £500 for the injustice caused to Ms B by the distress resulting from its fault in dealing with her contacts raising her potential homelessness and £100 for that arising from the faults in its handling of her application to join the housing register;
3. reconsider whether it owed her any duty under Section 177 of the Housing Act 1996 and commit to putting that decision in writing under Section 184 and offering her a right of review – giving Ms B details of who she should contact to pursue this and how she should make such contact.
79. I recommended the action agreed at 76c) on the understanding the Council can only decide what duty it may owe to Ms B on the facts as they are at the time it makes its decision. In other words, it cannot make a retrospective decision based on Ms B’s circumstances at any earlier time.
80. I agreed with the Council that with the SEDAH service no longer existing, there were no service improvements it could make to avoid a repeat of its mistakes. But the Council said it had circulated findings from the investigation internally to ensure better handling of similar cases in the future.
81. The Council agreed to send us evidence when it had complied with the actions set out in paragraph 78.

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Final Decision

82. For reasons set out above I upheld this complaint finding fault by the Council caused injustice to Ms B. The Council accepted this finding and agreed action that I considered would remedy the injustice. Consequently, I completed my investigation satisfied with its response.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman