Summary: Ms X complained about the Council’s handling of her relative’s homelessness case. We found fault because the Council failed to organise temporary accommodation for Mr Y in June 2025 and did not do so until September 2025. The Council also failed to appropriately handle Ms X’s complaint. This caused Ms X and Mr Y avoidable distress and frustration. The Council has already suggested a remedy for its poor complaint handling. To remedy the injustice caused, the Council has agreed to complete this, apologise to Ms X and Mr Y and make payments to them both.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains about the Council’s actions related to her relative, Mr Y’s, homelessness. She complains the Council failed to properly consider its homelessness duties when Mr Y was imprisoned and failed to organise accommodation for him when he was released.
2. Ms X says this caused Mr Y avoidable distress, frustration and uncertainty and meant accommodation was not organised for him when it should have been. Ms X says matters have affected both her and Mr Y’s quality of life and mental 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(1), as amended)

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What I have and have not investigated

5. My investigation will begin when Mr Y was no longer able to reside in his temporary homeless accommodation at the end of August 2024.
6. My investigation will end when the Council sent its stage two final complaint response to Ms X on 1 September 2025.

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How I considered this complaint

7. I have considered all the information Ms X provided. I have also asked the Council questions and requested information, and in turn have considered the Council’s response.
8. Ms X and the Council had the opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I have taken any comments received into consideration before reaching my final decision.

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What I found

Legislation and statutory guidance

9. Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 (the Act) and the Homelessness Code of Guidance for Local Authorities (the Code) set out councils’ powers and duties to people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness.
10. 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. (Housing Act 1996, Section 175)

The main housing duty

11. If a council is satisfied an applicant is homeless, eligible for assistance, and has a priority need, the council has a duty (main duty) to make accommodation available (unless it refers the application to another housing authority under section 198). This is called temporary accommodation (TA).

What happened

12. I have set out below a summary of the key events. This is not meant to show everything that happened.
13. The Council had organised TA for Mr Y in summer 2021 under its main duty for homelessness. This was at a hotel, Hotel A. Mr Y was still at Hotel A at the beginning of my investigation in August 2024.
14. Late in August 2024, police attended Hotel A. Police later arrested Mr Y. Due to the nature of police activity and his arrest, Hotel A advised the Council it was cancelling his placement there and said it would not allow him to return. Mr Y was later sent to prison.

2025

15. At the beginning of May 2025, Ms X complained to the Council about historic matters related to Mr Y’s housing and unrelated to this complaint.
16. At the beginning of June, the Council emailed Ms X. It advised it was treating her contact as a service request but would deal with it at stage one of its complaints process if she wished. Ms X emailed back to complain the Council was already over its published timescale for either a service request or a stage one response to be sent. She said she wanted matters dealt with as a formal complaint.
17. The Council responded on 17 June to say it had considered her complaint at service level but that it needed more information. Ms X replied the next day again expressing her unhappiness the Council had not treated her contact as a complaint and its response so far was inadequate.
18. In her email, Ms X also told the Council Mr Y had been released from prison and was currently staying with her. Ms X said the Council needed to provide him with immediate suitable accommodation or he would then be without accommodation and in breach of the terms of his release. Ms X said that as a prison leaver, she believed the Council should accommodate Mr Y and that it should have acted before he was released.
19. After further communication, the Council sent Ms X its stage one complaint response early in July. This said:
• Mr Y’s previous TA was cancelled as he breached the terms of his accommodation;
• it appeared Mr Y had made himself intentionally homeless by his actions;
• that it could not find any record of Mr Y contacting it about his accommodation after the TA booking was closed in August 2024;
• he was welcome to make a fresh homelessness application to the Council; and
• Mr Y’s case needed to be reassessed to decide if he was still owed a housing duty and someone would be in touch.
20. Ms X escalated her complaint to stage two of the Council’s process. She said the Council had never formally ended Mr Y’s main housing duty and therefore he had no review rights linked to the decision to end the main duty.
21. At the end of July, the Council emailed Mr Y to say it was formally ending the main duty previously owed to him and explained why it was doing so.
22. At the beginning of September, the Council sent its stage two final complaint response. It said:
• it had made a decision on 31 July 2025 to discharge the main housing duty owed to Mr Y after Hotel A was cancelled in August 2024;
• it had reviewed the file and had decided to reinstate the duty initially accepted in August 2021; and
• it would soon be in touch to formally advise him of the decision and to arrange new TA.
23. The Council signposted Ms X to us.

After the period of my investigation

24. The Council offered Mr Y new TA at the beginning of October 2025.
25. The Council offered Mr Y different TA in November 2025, but by this time Mr Y’s circumstances meant he was unable to accept the offer. Ms X later declined it on his behalf.
26. The Council formally discharged its homelessness duty to him in mid-December 2025.

Analysis

Accommodation

27. Ms X believed the Council had been informed about Mr Y’s release from prison when it happened. In response to my enquiries, the Council said it was first aware of this when Ms X mentioned it in her stage two escalation on 18 June 2025.
28. In response to my enquiries, the Council also said it realised it had not formally discharged its main duty to Mr Y when Hotel A cancelled his placement. It said this was an error and it had therefore done this when evaluating the case in July 2025. It said it should have sent him a letter to advise why he had breached the rules of his occupation, but that a formal discharge letter was not needed as he was seen to be intentionally homeless.
29. The Council confirmed that it had made the decision to reinstate Mr Y’s main duty when the case was reviewed at stage two of its complaint process and it realised things had been mishandled.
30. On the basis that the Council decided to reinstate the main duty backdated to August 2021, I am satisfied it owed Mr Y a duty to provide him with accommodation when it first became aware he had been released from prison in mid-June 2025. Not doing so was fault. This caused Ms X avoidable distress and uncertainty. It meant Mr Y was not accommodated as he should have been. I have made a recommendation below to remedy this injustice.
31. In response to my enquiries, the Council said it had recently reviewed all of its discharge of duty procedures, provided fresh guidance to officers and designed new decision letter templates. I welcome this and have made a related recommendation below. I do not intend to make further service improvement recommendations linked to the fault on this complaint.

Complaint handling and remedy offer

32. In response to my enquiries, the Council said it acknowledged the handling of Ms X’s complaint fell below the standard it expected. It said:
• communication should have been clearer and more frequent;
• it should have logged her initial complaint at stage one earlier than it did;
• that this should have been addressed in the stage one response; and
• although it had apologised for the late stage two response it had not offered any financial remedy for overall poor complaint handling at that time.
33. In recognition of this, the Council suggested it apologise and offer Ms X £200 for the time and trouble in progressing her complaint and the issues with how it was handled.
34. I agree with the Council’s assessment. Not progressing the complaint as per its policy was fault. It caused Ms X avoidable distress and frustration. I am satisfied the suggested remedy is appropriate for the injustice caused and in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies. I have made a suggestion related to this injustice below.
35. The Council said that its housing services team had already revised its procedures to ensure that it started the formal complaint process at the point a complaint is received. With this in mind, I do not intend to make any service improvement recommendation.

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Agreed action

36. To remedy the injustice caused by the faults I have identified, the Council has agreed to take the following action within four weeks of the date of my final decision:
• apologise to Ms X and Mr Y for the identified injustice;
• pay Mr Y £375 to recognise the lack of accommodation from 18 June to 1 September 2025. This is two and a half months at £150 per month;
• pay Ms X £200 to recognise complaint related issues, as per its suggested remedy; and
• provide evidence to us of its procedural changes and improvements related to discharge of its housing duty which it has already carried out and is referenced at paragraph 31.
37. The apology written should be in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies on making an effective apology.
38. Payments made are in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies.
39. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

40. I have now completed my investigation. I uphold this complaint with a finding of fault causing an injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman