Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s payments of housing benefit directly to a private landlord. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s failure to pay the full amount of housing benefit due to him following a rent increase on his property which he says was not met by the Council. His tenant fell into arrears and he says he should receive the difference in rent from April to September 2024.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council’s responses.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X is a private landlord and he says the Council failed to pay the correct amount of benefit for his tenant when he increased the rent. His tenant signed an agreement to pay a monthly rental of £1400 and Mr X was receiving this amount. He then increased the rental to £1700 and the Council agreed to pay the increased amount from November 2023. In April 2024 he further increased the rental to £2000 a month when a new tenancy period began.
6. The Council contacted him and the tenant for evidence that this amount had been notified and agreed legally. The tenant told the Council that he had not agreed to the increase and that he was in dispute over disrepair in the property. Mr X did not provide the Council with a copy of the new tenancy agreement from April when the latest increase applied.
7. In September 2024 Mr X’s bank re-possessed the property and served a County Court eviction notice on the tenant. The Council ended the housing benefit claim and Mr X was no longer entitled to direct payments because he was not a qualifying landlord.
8. The Council was not required to increase the tenant’s housing benefit payments on the word of Mr X alone. It was necessary for it to obtain a copy of the new tenancy agreement and evidence that the tenant had properly consented to the changes. No agreement was received and the tenant disputed the increase and the conditions of his previous agreement.
9. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s payments of housing benefit directly to a private landlord. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman