Summary: There was fault by the Council. It failed to engage properly with Miss B’s housing difficulties when her close neighbour harassed her, in breach of a court order. It also took too long to process her later housing application. This caused Miss B distress and uncertainty as her neighbour’s harassment made her very scared and reluctant to leave her flat. The Council has agreed to apologise to Miss B, make a payment to her, and review how it shares information between its teams.

The complaint

1. Miss B complains that the Council took too long to move her to another property. Miss B needed to move because she was being seriously harassed by her neighbour, another Council tenant.
2. Miss B has a number of medical conditions that require treatment. She says that the Council’s failures meant that she has spent too long in unsuitable accommodation and has developed post-traumatic stress disorder, agoraphobia, depression and anxiety.

Back to top

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 an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

5. I considered the information provided by Miss B and discussed the issues with her. I considered the information provided by the Council including its file documents. I also considered the law and guidance set out below. Both parties had the opportunity to comment on a draft of this statement.

Back to top

What I found

The scope of my investigation

6. 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)
7. Miss B’s complains about events from 2017. I have decided to exercise discretion to investigate the Council’s actions from 2017. This is because Miss B was suffering from harassment by her neighbour. We know that the harassment was significant because this has been proven in court and I am persuaded that the impact on Miss B’s mental health is likely to be such that she found it difficult to deal with her housing situation.

The law and guidance

8. Every local housing authority must publish an allocations scheme that sets out how it prioritises applicants, and its procedures for allocating housing. All allocations must be made in strict accordance with the published scheme. (Housing Act 1996, section 166A(1) & (14))
9. An allocations scheme must give reasonable preference to applicants in the following categories:
• homeless people;
• people in insanitary, overcrowded or unsatisfactory housing;
• people who need to move on medical or welfare grounds;
• people who need to move to avoid hardship to themselves or others.

(Housing Act 1996, section 166A(3))

10. We normally will not find fault with a council’s assessment of a housing applicant’s priority if it has carried this out in line with its published allocations scheme.

The Council’s allocations policy

11. The Council places applications in one of four bands. So far as it is relevant to this complaint, the policy says:
• Band 1 is for those with an exceptional housing need due to threat to life, domestic violence, emergency such as fire, referrals from the police due to threats.
• Band 2 is for those who need to move due to threat of domestic abuse, violence or harassment but who are not in immediate danger.
12. The policy does not stipulate how long it should take the Council to determine a housing application.

What happened

13. Miss B lived alone in a council flat. She suffered with a number of health problems including anxiety and depression, as well as a rare blood disorder that mimics cancer and for which she takes oral chemotherapy, resulting in fatigue. She was unable to work due to her ill health.
14. Miss B’s male neighbour, living in the flat directly below her became obsessed with her. In 2013 he acquired her phone number without permission and sent her disturbing messages. Miss B reported this to the Police. She did not want the Police to prosecute as she recognised that her neighbour had a mental illness. The Police asked him to apologise and delete Miss B’s number.
15. In 2015, Miss B’s neighbour again contacted her using multiple numbers. Miss B reported this to the Police and the Council. In 2016, Miss B’s neighbour posted an abusive letter through her letterbox, he confronted her and an elderly relative, verbally abused them both and kicked her door. The court granted a restraining order that said he could not contact Miss B. She asked the Council to move her. It did not move her but referred her to a victim support programme. Around that time, Miss B’s neighbour spent some time in residential psychiatric care.
16. Miss B tells me she asked the Council to move her 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 but it told her that it would only move him despite, her fears that he would still know where she lived. The Council did not move the neighbour.
17. Miss B tells me that the Council did not tell her he had been discharged from psychiatric care and was again living in the flat below her. In January 2017, the neighbour breached the restraining order. He had again knocked on her door. He tried to kick her door down in the early hours of the morning, damaging it. He shouted at her that he had warned her he would be back. The court gave the neighbour a six-month suspended sentence.
18. Miss B contacted the Council again asking it to move her. The Council’s Antisocial Behaviour Officer’s notes say that Miss B is clearly distressed. Its risk assessment says Miss B does not leave her home for fear of bumping into her neighbour and is as quiet as possible so that he does not realise that she is home.
19. Miss B made a housing application in early 2017. The Council told her that she was not eligible to join the housing register because she had rent arrears. Miss B tells me she had been paying those back regularly for some years.
20. The Council’s antisocial behaviour officer said the Council will refer her to victim support, and a private housing scheme. In March 2017, Miss B made another application to the Council for it to move her. The Council says this was incomplete and it closed the application automatically. The Council tells me that it telephoned Miss B in October 2017 and she did not mention her neighbour but said that she wanted to move and did not want to live in a high-rise block. Miss B says she always mentioned the harassment. The Council says it decided that Miss B had no housing need. The Council’s records show that Victim Support had sent it a letter in support of moving Miss B, due to the impact of the harassment by her neighbour.
21. Miss B applied to join the housing register again in 2018, but again this was closed. This time, the Council asked Miss B to resubmit her application. She had entered that she had rent arrears and a suspended possession order which would automatically bar her from the housing register, when its records showed the arrears had been cleared. Miss B telephone the Council and it was established that she still had rent arrears, albeit she was paying these off in regular instalments. Again, this meant she could not join the register. Miss B tells me that arrears were finally cleared in March 2020 and so she could make another housing application.
22. In March 2020, Miss B reported to the Police and the Council that the neighbour had vandalised her boyfriend’s car. The Police could not get evidence to show it was the neighbour who had done this. In April 2020, Miss B made another housing application. She sent evidence of her ill physical and mental health. The Council’s Housing team says this is the first time it knew that she was vulnerable. It said there was no record of her being distressed or frightened until that point.
23. The Council took until July 2020 to determine her housing application. By that time, Miss B’s neighbour had again breached the court order, sending her intimidating messages, trying to kick her door in and enter her flat. It placed her in Band Two on the basis that she was under the threat of violence, abuse or harassment but not in immediate danger. Miss B installed CCTV cameras as the Council told her that its own cameras in the communal areas did not work.
24. In July and August, Miss B’s neighbour breached the court order several times. Again kicking her door and trying to enter. She was able to capture this on her own CCTV. The court released him on bail and was then again admitted to psychiatric care. Miss B successfully bid on a property at the end of July. It was in disrepair but Miss B says she was desperate as she did not know when her neighbour would be discharged from hospital. Miss B accepted the property, but the Council did not make it ready for her until 21 September. Its records show that some of this delay was due to problems with the fuel suppliers and the property’s meter. Miss B says the flat was still in disrepair when she moved and she has since moved again.

Was there fault by the Council causing Miss B injustice?

25. There was fault by the Council. It failed to properly consider her housing situation in 2017 when her neighbour breached the court order. Its Antisocial Behaviour officer’s notes are clear that Miss B is very frightened and her neighbour’s behaviour is impacting significantly on her daily life. She is quite simply living in fear of him. The Council cannot claim that it did not realise she was vulnerable or distressed at that time.
26. I have taken into account that Miss B did not follow up the 2017 application in the way we might usually expect. But I also have to take account that her health was deteriorating, she was very scared and had lost faith in the Council’s will or ability to help her. The Council had at that time referred her to a private housing scheme that did not contact her until 2019; and it took seven weeks to refer her for victim support. In addition, Miss B understood she could not join the housing register with arrears despite that she was paying these regularly while not working.
27. The Council put Miss B in Band Two of its housing register with relatively high priority. There is no clear reason why it could not have done this in 2017. We cannot say for sure whether the Council would have moved Miss B, however, it left her in a situation that was having a serious impact on her daily life, and which had potentially serious consequences. The Council’s failure to properly share information about her welfare at that time between its Antisocial Behaviour and Housing Teams and the failure to properly engage with her, caused Miss B uncertainty and distress.
28. Miss B tells me that she had to postpone cardiac treatment, had treatment for post traumatic stress disorder, is unable to go out by herself and had to live in fear of her neighbour.
29. The Council also took too long to determine Miss B’s 2020 application. The law and guidance do not set out a timescale for processing applications. Nor does the Council’s allocations policy. However, we expect councils to deal with applications in a timely manner. Four to six weeks is what we consider an appropriate time to process applications.
30. The Council sent me details of suitable properties let between April and July 2020, and it is possible that a property would have been available and suitable for Miss B sooner had the Council not delayed in processing her application in 2020. However, the delay is not very significant.
31. The Council accepts that it has ongoing delays in processing housing applications. It has had unprecedented demand and did not have the resources to meet this. As of July 2021, the Council’s oldest housing application awaiting assessment was March 2021. Existing applications awaiting assessment following a change of circumstances dated back to September 2020.
32. The Council has undergone a full-scale restructure including extensive recruitment. It has agreed to submit to the Ombudsman its action plan to reduce application processing time so that it is between four to six weeks, and to review its housing allocations policy.

Back to top

Agreed action

33. The Council has agreed that it will within one month of the date of this decision, show the Ombudsman it has:
• Apologised to Miss B for the distress it caused her when it failed to properly engage with her housing circumstances in 2017; and
• Paid her £1,000 in recognition of this.
34. The Council will also within three months of the date of this decision, show the Ombudsman that it has reviewed how information is shared between its Antisocial Behaviour and Housing services.
35. Miss B has told me that she is grateful for an apology from the Council but the amount to be paid to her does not reflect the harm she has suffered. I appreciate that Miss B’s neighbour’s criminal actions were frightening and the impact on her was severe. She tells me that she felt unprotected by the Council and she believes that had it acted sooner, the problems would not have escalated. The Council is not responsible for her neighbour’s actions, but its shortcomings identified above did cause her distress. We will normally consider asking for a symbolic payment to acknowledge the avoidable distress caused. But our remedies are not intended to be punitive and we do not award compensation in the way that a court might.

Back to top

Final decision

36. I have completed my investigation. There was maladministration by the Council causing injustice.

Back to top

Parts of the complaint that I did not investigate

37. 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)
38. This means I have not investigated how the Council managed the tenancy of Miss B’s neighbour.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman