Summary: Miss D said the Council was at fault for housing her in unsuitable accommodation and for allowing her possessions to be removed from that accommodation and lost. The Council was at fault for a failure to provide housing for Miss D between September and November 2021 and for allowing her possessions to be disposed of. These faults caused Miss D injustice. She had nowhere to live and lost possessions. The Council has agreed to pay Miss D a sum in recognition of the injustice found.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Miss D, says the Council was at fault for:
1. Housing her in unsuitable accommodation, and
2. Losing her possessions or allowing them to be lost when it emptied a property she had been living in.
2. Miss D said this caused her injustice because the move caused her distress and inconvenience and the loss of her possessions caused her financial loss.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

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’. 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)
5. When considering complaints, if there is a conflict of evidence, we make findings based on the balance of probabilities. This means that we will weigh up the available relevant evidence and base our findings on what we think was more likely to have happened.
6. 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)
7. 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(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

8. I spoke to Miss D. I wrote an enquiry letter to the Council. I considered all the information I had gathered and wrote a draft decision.
9. Miss D and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

What should happen

Interim accommodation

10. As soon as a Council has reason to believe someone is eligible for housing, homeless and in priority need, it will owe that person the “interim duty to accommodate”. (S.188 Housing Act 1996)
11. There is no right to request a review of the suitability of interim accommodation other than through the courts.

Temporary accommodation

12. If a council is satisfied an applicant is 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 known as the “main housing duty”. (Housing Act 1996, section 193 and Homelessness Code of Guidance 15.39)
13. The law says councils must ensure all accommodation provided to homeless applicants is suitable for the needs of the applicant and members of his or her household. This duty applies to interim accommodation and accommodation provided under the main homelessness duty. (Housing Act 1996, section 206 and (from 3 April 2018) Homelessness Code of Guidance 17.2)
14. As the duty to provide suitable accommodation is a continuing obligation, councils must keep the issue of suitability of accommodation under review. If there is a change of circumstances, the council must reconsider whether the accommodation remains suitable. ((Homelessness Code of Guidance for Councils 2006, section 17.8)
15. There is limited permanent accommodation available so people must wait, sometimes for years, for permanent housing. Therefore, while someone waits, they must be housed in suitable temporary accommodation. (s.193, Housing Act 1996)
16. If a council offers someone to whom it owes the main housing duty accommodation which they do not consider to be suitable, they must accept it or the housing duty will be “discharged” and the Council will no longer have to house them. However, they have a right to request a review of the suitability of that accommodation. (s.202, Housing Act 1996)
17. Councils should avoid using bed and breakfast accommodation. They should use it only as a last resort and then for the shortest time possible. (Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraph 17.24 and from 3 April 2018 17.30)
18. Where a council owes or has owed certain housing duties to an applicant, it must protect the applicant’s personal property if there is a risk it may be lost or damaged. A council may make a reasonable charge for storage and reserve the right to dispose of the property if it loses contact with the applicant. (Housing Act 1996, section 211, Homelessness Code of Guidance chapter 20)

What happened

19. Miss D is a mother. The Council accepted it owed her the main housing duty some years ago. She lived in temporary accommodation, a flat sourced by the Council, Flat A, for several years. In August 2021, she had a second baby. She says she was in hospital for a month after the birth. She then returned to Flat A.
20. A few days later, Miss D’s, there was a flood in her building and, Flat A and other flats in the same building began to develop mould and became unsuitable.
21. As a result, the Council moved Miss D into bed and breakfast (B&B) accommodation at a hotel in mid-August 2021. The Council says this was “interim accommodation” and so it did not have to offer Miss D a review of its suitability.
22. Miss D signed an agreement requiring her to pay a proportion of the cost. The agreement stated, among other things, that Miss D had to live at the B&B.
23. Miss D says the B&B accommodation was unsuitable as it was a single room with nowhere to prepare food for her baby and no bed for her elder child. As a result, she says, she had to spend a lot of time staying with her mother and friends. She says she also frequently slept at her office. However, she says, the room was her base and so she left her belongings there.
24. The Council says that, in early September 2021, the hotel became unavailable as another organisation took it over for another purpose. The Council says hotel staff put notes under the doors of those staying to tell them to be out by 5 September 2021. Miss D says she was not aware of this as she was not there. The Council says hotel staff emptied her room and, after 40 days, disposed of her belongings.
25. The Council says that, in late September 2021, Miss D’s mother told a housing officer that Miss D was staying with her.
26. Miss D went back to the hotel in late October 2021 to find that her room was empty and her property had gone. Miss D’s representative wrote to the Council on 1 November 2021 to complain on Miss D’s behalf. She said, among other things:
1. The Council placed Miss D in B&B accommodation in mid-August 2021. Her health visitor had written to the Council informing it that the accommodation was unsuitable,
2. Miss D had never received any notice to vacate her room and had returned to find all her property had gone, and
3. Miss D, who had two children, was living in her office.
27. Three days later, in early November 2021, the Council offered Miss D a flat, Flat B. Miss D did not consider this flat to be suitable but accepted it and asked for a review. On 8 November 2021, the Council offered Miss D another flat, Flat C, which she considered suitable and accepted.
28. Two weeks later, Miss D’s MP wrote to the Council on Miss D’s behalf saying Miss D had lost over £7,000 worth of property when her room was emptied.
29. The Council issued a stage two complaint response and also wrote to Miss D’s MP in mid-January 2022. In both letters, it said:
1. Miss D had moved into the B&B on 13 August 2021. On 27 September 2021, her mother had told the Council that she had moved out and moved in with her.
2. The hotel had put notes under all doors telling residents that they must leave by 5 September 2021.
3. When Miss D returned to the hotel in late October 2021, this was the first time the Council learned that she had left belongings at the hotel. Unfortunately, the hotel had kept items for 40 days and then disposed of them.
4. The hotel said there were only a few items of clothing and baby equipment worth around £200 left in Miss D’s room. Miss D, on the other hand, says there was nearly £8,000 worth of clothing, baby equipment and other goods. The Council agreed that it would pay for the items on the hotel’s inventory.
5. On discovering that Miss D was living in her office in early November 2021, the Council had housed her in a hotel and offered her Flat B within three days. It later offered her Flat C which she accepted.
30. Miss D was not satisfied with the Council’s responses and came to the Ombudsman.

Was there fault causing injustice?

Housing Miss D in unsuitable accommodation

31. The Council owed Miss D the main housing duty. When Flat A became uninhabitable, it therefore had a duty to provide her alternative temporary accommodation. It did so in B&B accommodation in a hotel.
32. The Homelessness Code of Guidance says councils should not use B&B accommodation unless there is no other alternative available. In any event, it should not be used for over six weeks. In this case, the Council says there was no alternative. Therefore, I do not find the Council at fault for offering the B&B accommodation for a short period.

Failure to offer review

33. However, the Council should have offered Miss D a review of the suitability of that accommodation. It was not interim accommodation. It was temporary accommodation offered under the main housing duty. The failure to inform Miss D of her right to a review was fault. This fault caused injustice as Miss D did not request a review of accommodation which was, on the evidence, unsuitable for her needs. She had two children including a baby. The B&B accommodation was one room with one bed, no cooking facilities and no changing table.
34. Miss D says her health visitor informed the Council that the B&B was unsuitable. The Council, again, failed to offer her a review at this point.

Failure to house

35. The Council also says it did not take steps to house Miss D in alternative accommodation when the hotel told it that the room would become unavailable because the hotel had told the Council that she was not resident there at the time.
36. However, the Council also accepts that Miss D left £200 worth of property in her room which shows that, while she might not have been present there every day, she had not abandoned her room.
37. The Council says that, if Miss D had been at the hotel, she would have seen the note put under her door. While this is true, in my view, the Council did not take sufficient steps to ensure that Miss D had suitable accommodation when the B&B was withdrawn. It had a duty to house Miss D. Following on from that it would have made sense to have made sure Miss D knew of the impending eviction and had somewhere else to go.
38. While Miss D may not have been at the hotel all the time, I accept there were reasons for this. It would have been challenging for her family to live there. The fact that she left belongings there shows that, as Miss D claimed, she still used the room as her base.
39. The Council says Miss D’s mother told it that Miss D was living with her so it did not know she was homeless. However, Miss D’s mother did not tell the Council Miss D was living with her until late September 2021, three weeks after the hotel emptied Miss D’s room.
40. Further, when the Council was informed Miss D was staying at her mother’s, it should have contacted Miss D to confirm this.
41. The Council says that, when it discovered, at the beginning of November 2021, that Miss D was sleeping in her office, it immediately offered her accommodation.
42. However, in my view, the Council was at fault for the fact that Miss D did not have accommodation, suitable or otherwise, from 5 September 2021 until she accepted suitable accommodation on 8 November 2021. The Council’s acceptance that it owes some recompense to Miss D for the loss of her possessions is illustrative of the fact that it is aware it failed Miss D during this period. It was at fault and this caused injustice for which I have recommended a remedy below.
43. I have recommended a financial remedy at the higher end of the range of our guidance to acknowledge the injustice caused in this case. I have taken into account the fact that Miss D had a baby and young daughter.

Loss of property

44. The Council accepts that it should pay Miss D compensation for the items the hotel listed in its inventory of goods left in Miss D’s room. It does not accept that Miss D had nearly £8,000 in lost property as she claims.
45. Miss D has sent me evidence which she says shows that she possessed the items that were lost. Having looked at this evidence, in my view, this is not a matter which I can reach a view on. Miss D has an alternative remedy. She can make a claim against the Council’s insurance. The Local Government Act 1974 says we cannot normally investigate in such circumstances.
46. I have, however, recommended that the Council should pay Miss D a sum in recognition of the distress caused by the loss of the items which the Council agreed were lost.

Council record keeping

47. In investigating this complaint, I have looked at Council records, which provide a confused picture of these events. It is clear that Miss D was living in the B&B accommodation on 5 September 2021 and that the Council had a relationship with the hotel so would have known that she would have been affected when the hotel became unavailable to the Council.
48. Nonetheless, it said in its final complaint response to Miss D’s representative that it had not thought Miss D was affected by the hotel withdrawing her room because she was living with her mother. However, later in the same letter, it says that it did not find out that Miss D was living with her mother until late September 2021, when the hotel had already withdrawn the room.
49. There are other documents which provide various conflicting dates for certain key events.
50. I am therefore making a recommendation that the Council should take steps to improve its record keeping.

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Agreed action

51. The Council has agreed that, within four weeks of the date of this decision, it will:
1. Write to Miss D and apologise to her for the fault found, and
2. Pay her £1,200 in recognition of the injustice caused. (£1000 for a lack of housing and £200 for the distress of learning her property was gone).
52. The Council has agreed that, within eight weeks of the date of this decision, it will:
1. complete an audit of internal housing record keeping and consider making improvements to its systems, and
2. Provide training to all staff to ensure that they understand the duties owed under the interim and main housing duties.
53. The Council has agreed that it will then write to the Ombudsman setting out the steps it has taken to improve its record keeping and to provide relevant training.

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Final decision

54. I have found the Council at fault. I recommended remedies and improvements which the Council has accepted. I have closed my investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman