Summary: we stopped investigating some parts of Mr X’s complaint because it is reasonable to expect him to have used his review and appeal rights to challenge the suitability of the temporary accommodation the Council placed him in. There was fault in the way the Council managed the renewal of hotel room bookings for Mr X. This caused him some inconvenience and the Council has agreed to provide a suitable remedy for this injustice.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained that the Council:
1. placed him in unsuitable temporary accommodation with no access to cooking facilities. He says the Council took far too long to accept this accommodation was not suitable for his needs as a disabled person. It has not explained what led it to change its mind in September 2022 and decide it was unsuitable;
2. did not take into account the extra expenses he incurred while he lived in this property due to the lack of cooking facilities when it offered £500 in its final response to his complaint;
3. placed him in unsuitable hotels for more than two months after he was moved out of this temporary accommodation. He says the Council often left it until the last minute to extend the booking for the hotel rooms. As a result he often had to leave his hotel room for five or six hours until the booking was confirmed and he was given permission to re-enter his room.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. The Ombudsman usually expect homeless applicants to use their review and appeal rights, subject to any exceptional circumstances. We may consider exercising discretion to investigate the authority’s decision-making in exceptional cases. For instance, this could be where the complainant has not been able to pursue an appeal due to ill health, some other vulnerability or a personal crisis.
4. 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)
    
5. 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

6. I have spoken to Mr X and considered the Council’s response to my enquiries and the relevant housing records.
7. I gave Mr X and the Council 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

Suitability of temporary accommodation and review rights

8. Part 7 of the Housing Act 1996 and the Homelessness Code of Guidance for Local Authorities sets out councils’ powers and duties to people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness.
9. If a council is satisfied an applicant is homeless, eligible for assistance, and has a priority need it has a duty to secure that accommodation is available for their occupation. This is called the main housing duty. (Housing Act 1996, section 193)
10. 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 to temporary accommodation provided under the main housing duty. (Housing Act 1996, section 206 and Homelessness Code of Guidance 17.2)
11. Homeless applicants may request a review within 21 days about the suitability of any temporary accommodation provided after the Council has accepted the main housing duty. If they wish to challenge the suitability review decision on a point of law, they have 21 days in which to appeal to the county court.(Housing Act 1996, section 204)

Background

12. Mr X is homeless and the Council owes him the main housing duty. He has been living in temporary accommodation since June 2016.
13. Mr X has complained to the Ombudsman before about the unsuitability of his former temporary accommodation. I shall refer to it as Property 1 in this statement. Mr X said Property 1 was unsuitable for his needs and had no cooking facilities.
14. Our investigation of Mr X’s previous complaint examined what happened between March 2020 and October 2021. We made a final decision on that complaint in early November 2021.
15. We cannot re-examine matters the Ombudsman has already investigated. So this investigation focuses on Mr X’s complaint about events since November 2021.

What happened

16. Mr X’s solicitor requested a review of the suitability of the temporary accommodation at Property 1.
17. Mr X had a self-contained unit in a bungalow which was converted to provide four units of temporary accommodation. Mr X had a bedroom and his own bathroom. The solicitor requested a review on the grounds that his accommodation:
• lacked suitable cooking facilities;
• was in disrepair with black mould and damp in the bathroom and bedroom. She sent photographs showing mould on the walls and some other defects;
• was not affordable for Mr X.
18. Mr X told us there was a small cooker in his room which had a hob and grill. It was positioned on a worktop just below chest height. Mr X told us he can only manage to lift light objects, up to waist height, due to a nerve injury in one arm. He also has a chronic problem which affects his other shoulder and for which he has had surgery. For these reasons he could not use the small cooker and had to buy takeaway meals.
19. In late December 2021 the Council’s Review Officer sent Mr X’s solicitor the review decision letter. She responded to the solicitor’s representations as follows:
• She considered the cooking facilities in the studio flat were suitable for Mr X because the cooker was portable so it could be moved to a lower level table to make it easier for Mr X to use it;
• She had considered Mr X’s weekly income, the accommodation charge, and the net amount Mr X was left to pay after Housing Benefit was awarded. She considered the accommodation was affordable;
• She said the bedsit was a suitable size for a single person. It was located within a reasonable distance of local shops and GP surgeries and it was on a bus route.
20. The letter did not address the solicitor’s representations about disrepair, damp and mould in Mr X’s room. It explained Mr X had the right of appeal on a point of law to the County Court within 21 days. It included contact details for the officer in the Legal Service to notify of any appeal.
21. The Council says it received no further correspondence from Mr X or his solicitor about an appeal.
22. Mr X told me he could not appeal to the County Court at the time because he:
• could not get Legal Help funding for an appeal;
• could not pursue an appeal himself without legal advice and assistance; and
• had emergency surgery to his shoulder in 2022.
23. I asked Mr X for further details about the timing of his surgery and his solicitor’s advice about funding for a section 204 appeal to the County Court and his prospects of success. Mr X did not respond to my requests for this information.
24. On 19 August 2022 an independent contractor inspected Property 1. This seems to have been arranged by the Council as a regular annual inspection of the temporary accommodation. In his report, the inspector said the basic cooking facilities he had seen in the room during his last inspection had been removed. He confirmed there were no communal cooking facilities.
25. The contractor identified the following hazards:
• Category 1 hazard: no cooking facilities in three of the four units (including Mr X’s room) – he said this should be remedied by 31 August 2022;
• Category 2 hazards were found in the other units but not in Mr X’s room. There was also a Category 2 hazard in the rear garden due to the fall in levels between the patio and garden.
26. The inspection report did not mention any damp or mould in Mr X’s room.
27. The Council says its decision to move Mr X to alternative temporary accommodation was based on the inspector’s finding that the lack of cooking facilities in his room was a Category 1 hazard.
28. On 7 September 2022 an officer completed a form to record Mr X’s housing needs and medical conditions so the Council could decide what would be suitable accommodation for him. She decided he needed a ground floor one bedroom property with level access. She put Mr X on the urgent transfer list.
29. In response to my recent enquiries, the Council said the lack of cooking facilities should not have been assessed as a Category 1 hazard by the inspector.
30. While it looked for suitable alternative temporary accommodation, the Council placed Mr X in two different hotels in Enfield between 13 September and 28 November 2022. Mr X moved to the second hotel on 27 September. The Council says the temporary accommodation team did not keep records of the floor level of Mr X’s rooms in these hotels but they both had lifts. Mr X had his own bathroom but there were no cooking facilities.
31. Mr X said he had to wait for more than five hours outside the hotels on at least three occasions until the Council renewed his room booking. Each time he was told he had to leave the hotel by 11:00 and then had to wait until later in the day to get access to his room.
32. The Council’s records show it extended Mr X’s booking in the first hotel twice. It extended the booking in the second hotel six times. It accepts there may have been a delay in booking Mr X’s room on the day he moved to the second hotel due to the unavailability of rooms. It says this was beyond its control. It also accepted there had been delays in the past when insufficient funds were held in the account to renew room bookings. It has now changed its procedures to streamline the process and prevent delays in applicants getting access to their rooms when bookings are extended.
33. The Council sent us a copy of the licence agreement Mr X signed for the first hotel he occupied from 13 September. It included information about his right to request a review of the suitability of the temporary accommodation as someone who was owed the main housing duty. It gave details of how to make a review request.
34. Mr X moved to a ground floor self-contained studio flat on 29 November 2022. This is also temporary accommodation. He told us this property is suitable for his needs.
35. In late January 2023 the Council partially upheld Mr X’s complaint at the final stage of its investigation. It offered to pay him £500 because it recognised he did not have accessible cooking facilities at his former temporary accommodation (Property 1). It did not explain how it had assessed this sum or what period it was intended to cover.

My analysis

Complaint a) – unsuitable accommodation with no cooking facilities in Property 1

36. Mr X’s solicitor requested a review of the suitability of this accommodation on a number of grounds, including the lack of cooking facilities.
37. In December 2021 the reviewing officer decided the room was suitable for Mr X’s needs. She responded to the solicitor’s point about the cooking facilities. The decision letter gave reasons for the decision and included information about Mr X’s right of appeal to the County Court on a point of law.
38. Mr X told me he did not appeal then because he could not get Legal Help funding. He said he also had surgery around this time.
39. The evidence shows the Council informed Mr X of his right of appeal on a point of law to the County Court in the review decision letter. It could have been argued that the reviewing officer’s failure to address the solicitor’s points about damp and mould in Mr X’s room in the review decision letter raised a point of law. I must decide whether there are good reasons for the Ombudsman to exercise discretion to investigate this complaint when Mr X could have appealed to the County Court.
40. To help me consider this, I asked Mr X for more information about the timing of his surgery in 2022 and the advice given by his solicitor after she received the review decision. Specifically I wanted to know what she had told him about Legal Help funding for an appeal and his prospects of success. Mr X has not responded to my requests. I have therefore reached a decision based on the evidence currently available. I have stopped investigating this part of the complaint because Mr X has not shown he had good reasons not to appeal to the County Court.

Complaint b) – the Council’s offer of £500 did not take account of the extra cost of buying takeaway food due to the lack of cooking facilities while Mr X lived in Property 1

41. Mr X lived in Property 1 for several years. However this investigation is limited to what happened between November 2021 and September 2022 because we cannot re-examine events covered in the Ombudsman’s previous investigation.
42. There is some confusion and conflicting evidence about the cooking facilities in Mr X’s room. He told us he had no cooking facilities at all for some years. After a mini cooker was provided in 2020, he says it was removed by the property manager shortly after each property inspection. But when his solicitor made the review request she said a mini cooker was provided following a visit by a Council officer in August 2020. She did not say it had subsequently been removed.
43. Overall the evidence suggests there was a small plug-in cooker with a hob and grill in Mr X’s room at Property 1 for at least some of the period covered by this investigation. Mr X says that due to his disability he could not use it because it was at chest height on a countertop. Mr X has not commented on the reviewing officer’s suggestion that the cooker could have been moved to make it more accessible. At the time of the August 2022 property inspection, the inspector said there were no cooking facilities in his room.
44. There is a significant overlap between this part of the complaint and Mr X’s complaint that Property 1 was not suitable for his needs. His solicitor had argued in her review request that the lack of cooking facilities was one of the reasons the property was unsuitable for Mr X. So Mr X could have raised this if he had appealed to the County Court on a point of law.
45. As Mr X could reasonably have used his appeal rights, I will not decide whether the lack of cooking facilities made the accommodation unsuitable for Mr X. This could have been raised in the appeal. I am also unlikely to find sufficient evidence to establish exactly how long Mr X had no cooking facilities, or an inaccessible cooker he could not use, in Property 1 between November 2021 and September 2022. For these reasons, I cannot question the Council’s offer of £500 as a financial remedy for the extra costs incurred due to the lack of accessible cooking facilities in Property 1 in this period.

Complaint c) – the Council placed him in unsuitable hotel accommodation for two months after he left Property 1 and issues with hotel room bookings

46. Mr X did not request a review of the suitability of his accommodation when he was placed in the two hotels between September and November 2022. I am satisfied the Council informed him of his right to request a review in the licence agreement for the first hotel. I also consider it would have been reasonable to expect Mr X to have requested a review of the suitability of his new accommodation.
47. I took into account that Mr X had previously instructed a solicitor to use the review procedure to challenge the suitability of Property 1 so he knew he had this option. It would have been reasonable for Mr X to have requested a further review of the suitability of the hotel accommodation. I have therefore stopped investigating this part of the complaint because Mr X could have used his right to request a review while he was staying in the hotels. I see no good reason to exercise our discretion to investigate.
48. The second part of this complaint falls outside the scope of the review procedure because it is about the administrative arrangements for hotel bookings. Mr X told us he had to wait more than five hours outside hotels on at least three occasions until the Council renewed his room bookings. He said each time he was told to leave the hotel at 11:00 am. He waited five or six hours until the Council sorted out a new booking. Mr X was never left without accommodation overnight.
49. The Council accepts there were shortcomings in its system for renewing hotel bookings for homeless clients because insufficient funds were held in the account. It has now put this right. It cannot say how often this happened with Mr X’s bookings. But it accepts there was likely to have been a delay on the day he moved to the second hotel. On the balance of probabilities, I accept Mr X's account of events. I consider the Council was at fault due to failings in its process for renewing hotel bookings. This inconvenienced Mr X, who is disabled, because he did not have access to his room for several hours.

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Agreed action

50. Within one month of my final decision, the Council will apologise to Mr X and pay £100 to remedy the distress and inconvenience caused by the delay in extending his hotel room bookings. It will also reinstate the offer made in its final response to his complaint to pay £500 for the lack of accessible cooking facilities in Property 1.

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Final decision

51. I stopped investigating two parts of Mr X’s complaint because he could reasonably been expected to use his review and appeal rights to challenge the suitability of his temporary accommodation in Property 1 and the hotels. I found fault in the way the Council managed the renewal of Mr X’s hotel bookings. The Council has agreed to provide a suitable remedy for the injustice this caused.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman