Summary: We find the Council delayed moving Miss B and her family out of unsuitable temporary accommodation when they were homeless. It also failed to properly deal with Miss B’s request for a review of the accommodation's suitability, failed to tell her about her review rights and gave inaccurate complaint responses. These faults caused avoidable distress and frustration. The Council has agreed to apologise and make a payment to Miss B. It has also agreed to make service improvements.

The complaint

1. Miss B complains that the Council placed her and her family in unsuitable temporary accommodation when she was homeless, and then significantly delayed dealing with her request for a review of the accommodation’s suitability. Miss B says that, as a result, her family remained in unsuitable accommodation for 16 months, causing significant distress.
2. Miss B also says the Council failed to respond to her correspondence for around a year, and that its complaint responses contained factual inaccuracies. Miss B says these failings caused avoidable frustration, distress, unnecessary time and trouble pursuing the matter and have undermined her confidence in the Council.

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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 recommend 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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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered evidence provided by Miss B and the Council, as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
6. Miss B and the Council have had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

Homelessness

7. 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.

Interim accommodation

8. A council must secure accommodation for applicants and their household if it has reason to believe they may be homeless, eligible for assistance and have a priority need. This is called interim accommodation. (Housing Act 1996, section 188)

Relief duty

9. The relief duty applies when a council is satisfied that an applicant is homeless (rather than just threatened with homelessness) and eligible for assistance. The council has a duty to take reasonable steps to help the applicant secure accommodation that will be available for at least six months. (Housing Act 1996, section 189B and Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraph 13.2)
10. Where a council is satisfied that an applicant has a priority need and has become homeless unintentionally, the relief duty comes to an end after 56 days. (Housing Act 1996, section 189B and Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraph 14.16)

Main housing duty and temporary accommodation

11. If a council is satisfied an applicant is unintentionally homeless, eligible for assistance, and has a priority need, the council has a duty to secure that accommodation is available for their occupation. This is called the main housing duty. The accommodation a council provides until it can end this duty is called temporary accommodation. (Housing Act 1996, section 193)

Suitable accommodation

12. The law says councils must ensure all accommodation provided to homeless applicants is suitable for the needs of the applicant and members of their household. This duty applies to interim and temporary accommodation. (Housing Act 1996, section 206 and Homelessness Code of Guidance 17.2)
13. Accommodation that is suitable for a short period, for example accommodation used to discharge an interim duty pending enquiries under section 188, may not necessarily be suitable for a longer period, for example to discharge a duty under section 193(2). (Homelessness Code of Guidance 17.7)
14. Councils must have regard to Part 10 of the Housing Act 1985 (statutory overcrowding) when assessing the suitability of accommodation for an applicant. (Housing Act 1996, section 210(1), Homelessness Code of Guidance 17.11)

Suitability reviews

15. Interim and temporary accommodation can be the same physical property. What changes is the legal duty under which a council provides it. This is important because there is a statutory right to review the suitability of temporary accommodation. This then carries a right of appeal to county court on a point of law. There is no statutory right to review the suitability of interim accommodation.
16. All decision 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)
17. Councils must complete reviews of the suitability of accommodation within eight weeks of the date of the review request. (Housing Act 1996, section 204)

Statutory overcrowding

18. Part 10 of the Housing Act 1985 defines overcrowding. It says children under the age of 10 count as half a person when working out how many people live in a property. It also sets out how many people each bedroom can accommodate. A room with a floor area of less than 8.35 square metres is only large enough for one person. If there are more people living in the accommodation than the law allows, it is statutorily overcrowded.

Key events

19. Miss B approached the Council as homeless on 21 February 2024 after her landlord ended her tenancy.
20. The Council accepted the relief duty on 17 April 2024.
21. On 7 May 2024, the Council placed Miss B, her partner and their four children in self-contained interim accommodation. It had three bedrooms and no separate living room. At the time, the children were aged 6, 9, 12 and 16.
22. A request for a review of the suitability of the accommodation was made on Miss B's behalf on 26 July 2024.
23. The Council accepted the main housing duty on 31 July 2024. On the same day, the Council accepted Miss B onto the housing register and assessed the family as needing four-bedroom accommodation.
24. Following a complaint from Miss B, the Council carried out a suitability review on 15 August 2025. It obtained medical advice and decided one of the children needed a separate bedroom for medical reasons. It concluded the family required four-bedroom accommodation and the temporary accommodation was not suitable.
25. The Council moved the family to alternative temporary accommodation on 7 September 2025. They moved into permanent accommodation in March 2026.

Analysis

Temporary accommodation

26. The Council’s Temporary Accommodation Procurement & Placement Policy says that it will carry out a suitability assessment of all placements. There is no evidence that it did so before the placement began. This was fault.
27. The policy states that it will ensure interim accommodation has the appropriate number of bed spaces, but it does not apply the bedroom standard used for allocating housing to those waiting on the housing register. It says that when offering longer term temporary accommodation, it will ensure the accommodation offered complies with statutory room and space standards, in accordance with the Housing Act 1985.
28. I have considered the statutory room and space standards. The three bedrooms measured approximately 3.5 metres x 3 metres, 3 metres x 2.7 metres and 3 metres x 2.65 metres. Based on these measurements, one of the rooms could sleep two people, but the smaller two rooms could only sleep one person each.
29. At the time, the household counted as five people rather than six because two of the children were under the age of ten. As there was only enough space for four people, the accommodation was statutorily overcrowded.
30. The accommodation may have been suitable for a short-term emergency placement, but it was not suitable long-term. The family lived in accommodation that was statutorily overcrowded for 16 months. The Council failed to move the family to suitable long-term accommodation until September 2025. This was fault. The Council’s records contain no evidence of any efforts to move the family to more suitable accommodation before then.

Suitability review

31. A review of the suitability of the accommodation was requested on 26 July 2024.
32. The Council says Miss B was not entitled to a statutory review at that stage because it had not yet accepted the main housing duty. That is correct. However, the Council should have responded to the request and explained this. Had it done so, it is likely that Miss B would have made a further request once the main housing duty was accepted a few days later.
33. The Council accepted the main housing duty on 31 July 2024. From that date, Miss B had a statutory right to a review of the suitability of the accommodation. However, the Council’s decision letter did not tell her about this right. This was fault.
34. The Council also delayed deciding that it owed the main housing duty. Had it made that decision within the appropriate timescale, Miss B would have become entitled to a review on 12 June 2024, before the request was made on 26 July 2024.
35. The Council did not carry out a suitability review until August 2025.
36. Had there been no fault by the Council, I consider it would have accepted the main housing duty on 12 June 2024, and it would have completed a suitability review by 7 August 2024. On the balance of probabilities, I consider it likely that the Council would have found the accommodation unsuitable because of its size and it would have moved the family to suitable accommodation at that time.

Correspondence

37. Miss B says the Council failed to respond to her correspondence. Other than the review request made in July 2024, I have found no evidence that the Council failed to respond to correspondence from Miss B.

Complaint handling

38. The Council's complaint responses contained several factual errors. It incorrectly recorded the dates of both the review request and the acceptance of the main housing duty by one year. As a result, it wrongly concluded there had been no delay in dealing with the review request.
39. The Council also referred Miss B to an officer dealing with private rented accommodation rather than the temporary accommodation team.
40. These errors show the Council did not properly investigate the complaint before responding. This was fault.

Injustice

41. As a direct result of the failings identified, Miss B and her family lived in accommodation that was statutorily overcrowded for around 13 months longer than necessary. Miss B was also caused avoidable frustration by the Council’s failure to properly deal with her review request and its poor complaint responses.

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Action

42. The Council has agreed to take the following actions within four weeks of my final decision:
• Apologise to Miss B for the faults identified in this statement. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance when making the apology.
• Pay Miss B £3250 to recognise the distress caused to the family by living in unsuitable accommodation for around 13 months;
• Pay Miss B £250 to recognise the frustration caused by failing to properly deal with her review request, failing to tell her about her review rights and failing to properly investigate her complaint.
43. The Council has agreed to take the following actions within eight weeks of my final decision:
• Remind relevant officers that all requests for a review of the suitability of accommodation should receive a response, regardless of whether the applicant has a statutory right to a review.
• Remind relevant officers that they must carry out a suitability assessment before placing a homeless household in accommodation.
• Investigate why no efforts were made to move the family to suitable long-term accommodation sooner and take steps to ensure homeless households are not left in accommodation which is only considered suitable on a short-term basis.
• Ensure all decision letters accepting the main housing duty are dated and include the applicant's right to request a review of the suitability of their temporary accommodation.
• Remind relevant officers to carefully check complaint responses for factual accuracy before they are issued.
44. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

45. I have completed my investigation and uphold Miss B’s complaint. There was fault by the Council which caused injustice. The action the Council has agreed to take is sufficient to remedy that injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman