Summary: We cannot investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of Ms X’s mother’s tenancy. The law does not allow us to investigate the Council’s actions as a landlord of social housing. We will not investigate her complaint about homelessness. Ms X had review and appeal rights to challenge the Council’s decision about her homeless which it was reasonable for her to use.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained that the Council wrongly ended her mother’s council tenancy without consulting her. She says the Council refused to allow her to join the housing register and failed to take a homeless application.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)
3. 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)
4. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• it would be reasonable for the person to ask for a council review or appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. We cannot investigate the actions of a Council when it is acting as a registered provider of social housing. This means we cannot investigate Ms X’s complaint about how the Council ended her mother’s tenancy.
8. We will not investigate her complaint about its handling of her homelessness. The Council issued Ms X with a formal decision in January 2025 that she was not homeless. Ms X had a statutory right to ask for a review of that decision if she disagreed. She would then have had a right to appeal to court. There is no good reason she could not have used these rights.
9. The Council decided Ms X did not qualify to join its housing register because she had moved out of the Council’s area after leaving her mother’s address. We will not investigate this complaint because it is unlikely an investigation would find fault with the Council’s actions. It must follow its published allocations policy which says applicants must currently live in the area and have done so for the last three years.
10. Ms X also complained about delays in the Council’s complaint process. We will not investigate this part of the complaint. It is not a proportionate use of public money to investigate complaint handling if we cannot or will not investigate the substantive issues complained about.

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Final decision

11. We cannot investigate Ms X’s complaint because the law says we cannot investigate the Council when it is acting as a social housing landlord. We will not investigate the rest of the complaint because Ms X had review and appeal rights and its unlikely an investigation would find fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman