Summary: Mr X complained about the Council’s poor handling of his homelessness application and failure to provide suitable temporary accommodation. We found the Council to be at fault. It failed to properly consider his priority need and this led to him being denied temporary accommodation for several months. It also incorrectly closed his application and did not carry out suitability assessments for three temporary properties he was offered. To remedy the injustice to Mr X, the Council has agreed to apologise, make a payment to Mr X and take action to improve its service. We did not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s decision to discharge the main housing duty. This was because he had a right to challenge this decision in court.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s handling of his homelessness application. Specifically, he complains about the Council:
1. failing to provide interim accommodation when he first made an application in 2022;
2. closing his application prematurely and without notice in 2023.
3. repeatedly offering unsuitable temporary accommodation in 2023/2024; and
4. discharging the main housing duty because he refused an offer of suitable accommodation.
2. He says this caused significant distress, frustration and a decline in his mental and physical health. He was forced to sleep in his car and “sofa surf” for over a year.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
4. 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.
5. 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)
6. 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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What I have and have not investigated

7. I have not investigated the Council’s decision to end the main housing duty, including the suitability of the offer of accommodation to discharge the main housing duty (1(d) above). I consider it would have been reasonable to expect him to appeal to the county court as it is the specific way provided by the law to challenge the Council’s decision. Mr X could have sought advice from housing charities such as Shelter and he may have been able to obtain help with legal fees. I therefore do not consider it is appropriate to exercise discretion to investigate this aspect of Mr X’s complaint.

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How I considered this complaint

8. I discussed the complaint with Mr X and reviewed the evidence he sent me.
9. I made enquiries of the Council and considered its written responses and information it provided.
10. I considered the relevant law and guidance, as set out below.
11. Mr X and the Council had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered their comments before making a final decision.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

Homelessness – Housing Act 1996

12. Part 7 of the 1996 Act sets out the powers and duties of housing authorities where people apply to them for accommodation or assistance in obtaining accommodation in cases of homelessness or threatened homelessness.

Assessments, the prevention duty and personalised housing plans

13. Councils must complete an assessment if they are satisfied an applicant is homeless or threatened with homelessness. This is known as the prevention duty. Councils should work with applicants to identify practical and reasonable steps for the council and the applicant to take to help the applicant keep or secure suitable accommodation. These steps should be tailored to the household, and follow from the findings of the assessment, and must be provided to the applicant in writing as their personalised housing plan (PHP). (Housing Act 1996, section 189A and Homelessness Code of Guidance paragraphs 11.6 and 11.18)

The relief duty

If a council is satisfied someone is homeless and eligible for assistance it must take reasonable steps to secure accommodation for any eligible homeless person. This is called the relief duty. When a council decides this duty has come to an end (usually after 56 days), it must notify the applicant in writing. (Housing Act 1996, section 189B)

The main housing duty

14. At the end of the relief stage, the council must decide if it owes the person the main housing duty. If a council is satisfied an applicant is unintentionally homeless, eligible for assistance, and has a priority need the council has a duty to ensure that accommodation is available for their occupation. This is called the main housing duty. (Housing Act 1996, section 193)
15. But councils will not owe the main housing duty to applicants who have turned down a suitable final accommodation offer or a Housing Act Part 6 offer made during the relief stage (Housing Act 1996, section 193 and Homelessness Code of Guidance 15.39)

Priority need

16. Applicants with medical conditions may be in priority need. The courts have decided councils do not have to be certain an applicant does not have a priority need, just that they may have. This is a low threshold.

Interim/temporary accommodation

17. There are two types of accommodation councils provide to certain homeless applicants: interim accommodation and temporary accommodation.

• 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 interim accommodation. (Housing Act 1996, section 188)
• If a council finds 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, known as the main housing duty. The accommodation then provided until it can end this duty is temporary accommodation. (Housing Act 1996, section 193)

18. In deciding what accommodation is to be secured, housing authorities will need to consider whether the applicant has any support needs, as identified in their personalised housing plan, and taking in to account any additional information available from health or social care services, or from other agencies providing services to them.
19. Housing authorities should have regard to any advice from medical professionals, social services or current providers of care and support. In cases where there is doubt as to the extent of any vulnerability authorities may also consider seeking a clinical opinion. However, the final decision on the question of vulnerability will rest with the housing authority.
20. Homeless applicants may request a review of the suitability of temporary accommodation. They must do so within 21 days of the Council’s decision to accept the main housing duty. There is no equivalent right to request a review of the suitability of interim accommodation.
21. If an applicant requests a review of the suitability of their temporary accommodation, then in its response the council must advise them of their right to appeal. This is to the county court on a point of law. (Housing Act 1996, sections 202, 203 and 204)

Suitability of temporary accommodation

22. 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)

Decisions and reviews

23. Housing authorities must provide written notifications to applicants when they reach certain decisions about their case, and the reasons behind any decisions that are against the applicant’s interests. Applicants can ask the housing authority to review most aspects of their decisions, and, if still dissatisfied, can appeal to the county court on a point of law.

What happened

24. This decision statement sets out the key events and is not intended to be a full account of everything that happened.
25. In October 2022, Mr X made a homelessness application to the Council.
26. He had been living with his parents but due to overcrowding, they asked him to leave. The Council accepted the Relief Duty and provided a PHP.
27. Mr X has long standing health conditions. He claims disability related state benefits because he is unable to work. Mr X says he provided the Council with information about his medical conditions.
28. In late November 2022, Mr X was told by his case worker (Officer B) that he was not considered to be in priority need and the Council would not provide interim accommodation. Mr X asked the Council to provide confirmation of this decision as he wanted to appeal. Despite not receiving this letter, in mid-December 2022, Mr X asked the Council to review this decision.
29. In response, Officer B told Mr X his case had been referred his case to its external medical adviser (Now Medical) for advice.
30. Mr X heard nothing further from the Council. Because he had nowhere to live, he says he was forced to either sleep in his car or “sofa surf”. He says this caused significant distress and adversely affected both his physical and mental health.
31. In July 2023, the Council closed his case because it says it had not heard from Mr X.
32. In October 2023, Mr X contacted the Council again. He says he had been waiting for the Council to respond to his review request.
33. Mr X was asked to provide updated medical information and details of his where he had been living for the past ten months. Mr X again asked the Council to provide interim accommodation whilst the Council made its enquiries.
34. As before, the Council refused. It said it had no reason to believe he was in priority need and asked Mr X to provide evidence to support his position. Based on this information, Mr X was told, “we have no reason to believe you have a priority need”.
35. Nevertheless, it referred Mr X’s case to the Now Medical for a recommendation on the issue.
36. On 3 November 2023, Mr X asked the Council for a letter confirming this decision, as well as the decision letter he was still waiting to receive from December 2022. He was told it would be sent the following week. No letter was sent.
37. On 8 November 2023, based on the recommendation from Now Medical, the Council told Mr X it accepted he was in priority need and agreed to provide interim accommodation. Now Medical recommended this should be, “ground floor/lift assisted accommodation”.
38. The records show was offered Property A. The next day Mr X told the Councill it was unsuitable. On the evidence provided to the Ombudsman, it is unclear whether Mr X actually moved into Property A.
39. Mr X raised a formal complaint to the Council.
40. In January 2024, the Council accepted the main housing duty (section 193). Property A became temporary (as opposed to interim) accommodation. Mr X requested a suitability review. This review determined Property A was unsuitable.
41. Between 15 February 2024 and 24 May 2024, Mr X was offered a further 5 properties, all of which Mr X said were unsuitable because of his disability. The Council agreed and either withdrew the offer or offered an alternative.
42. On 24 May 2024, Mr X was offered Property B. Mr X refused to move in, again saying it was unsuitable. He explained he needed a two-bedroom property because he had night time care needs and required a carer to stay overnight. The Council asked Mr X to provide information from his occupation therapist in support of this request. His housing officer also contact the Council’s social services department. In response, he was told Mr X did not have a current support plan and had not been assessed as needing overnight care.
43. Because Mr X had refused an offer of suitable accommodation, the Council discharged the main housing duty in July 2024.
44. Mr X requested a review of this decision. He provided a letter of support from his GP. The Council was concerned about this letter because it was not on headed paper and had unusual content. In response to the Council’s enquiry about this concern, the GP said the letter had been produced under duress from Mr X and its contents should be disregarded.
45. The Council issued its review decision in July 2024. It upheld it previous decisions.
46. Disappointed by the Council’s handling of his application since 2022, Mr X brought his complaint to the Ombudsman.

The Council’s position

47. In response to Mr X’s complaint and the Ombudsman’s enquiries, the Council’s position is as follows.
48. It accepts it acted with fault because:

• it did not provide Mr X with interim accommodation between 1 and 9 November 2023;
• following Officer B’s preliminary decision “on face value”, that Mr X did not have priority need in October 2022, she did not refer his case to Now Medical or make further contact with Mr X; and
• there were substantial delays and lack of accuracy in the Council’s communications with Mr X.

49. To remedy the injustice caused to Mr X by these faults, the Council apologised and offered Mr X £1000.
50. The Council has also said:

• Mr X did not provide any information to support his claim to have priority need until 15 December 2022. Officer B had no reason to believe Mr X was a vulnerable person when she made her decision but conceded she did not complete a vulnerability assessment of get a second opinion from Now Medical;
• in 2023, Officer B based her preliminary on priority need on information provided by Mr X. This was his medical record issue in March 2021 (that referred to a knee operation in 2019, and pain medication) and his “Not fit to work (indefinite) – Knee Pain – post surgical complications awaiting review” certificate, issued in October 2021;
• it cannot say whether it should have offered Mr X interim accommodation in November 2022 because the records upon which this decision was based (including any information from Now Medical) were not available. The Council accepted this lack of information amounts to fault;
• it is possible, based on medical information provided by Mr X in November 2023, that it may have meant he should have been assessed as having a priority need in 2022;
• the chronic shortage of temporary accommodation means interim accommodation may not always be ideal but is a short term measure;
• Mr X’s lack of contact with the Council between January and October 2023 contributed towards the delay in providing interim accommodation;
• it did not carry out a suitability assessment on three of the properties offered to Mr X in 2024; and
• as part of the suitability review of Property B minimal weight was attached to the GP’s letter because it was signed under duress.

Analysis

Failure to provide interim accommodation in 2022

51. Mr X strongly believes the Council acted with fault when it failed to provide him with interim accommodation in 2022, when Officer B decided he did not have priority need status and failed to make the referral.
52. The law says the Council only has to be satisfied there is “reason to believe” an applicant may be in priority need at the time of making a decision whether to provide interim accommodation. Case law has established this is relatively low threshold.
53. Disappointingly, there is a lack of information from either Mr X or the Council about what information Officer B had available to her when making her initial assessment in October 2022 that Mr X did not have priority need. There is no reference to it in the PHP and the Council has been unable to produce the letter to Mr X confirming the Relief Duty was owed to him. As the Council has already accepted, this was fault.
54. I have several other concerns about the Council’s handling of Mr X’s homelessness application in 2002.

• The Council failed to notify Mr X of its reasons for Officer B’s decision that he was not in priority need, despite several requests from Mr X. When deciding that someone is not entitled to interim accommodation, we expect councils to explain its rational to the applicant. Mr X had told the Council he was disabled, and this should have prompted an assessment of his vulnerability. The Council has accepted there are no records of such an assessment having taken place by Officer B. Bearing in mind the low threshold for establishing whether someone may have a priority need, I would expect to have seen at the very least, some evidence as to how Officer B formed the view that Mr X’s disability was not enough to establish a priority need.
• The Council failed to notify Mr X of his right to request a review of this decision, despite several requests from him.
• The Council failed to refer his case to Now Medical, despite Officer B telling his she had already done so.
• The Council failed to contact him at all after 21 December 2022.

55. Having established fault, I must now decide what injustice this caused, specifically whether Mr X was denied an offer of interim accommodation.
56. The Council has already accepted the poor record keeping in this case makes it difficult to determine whether Officer B was justified in reaching the decision she did at that time. The Council had also acknowledged, based on the information considered by Now Medical in 2023, it is possible he would have had a priority need in 2022.
57. Taking into consideration the low threshold for determining priority need and the information that was provided by Mr X in 2022 (medical records and certificate confirming he was indefinitely not fit to work), I am satisfied, it is more probable than not, that Mr X would have been assessed by Now Medical as having priority need in December 2022 and so was denied being offered interim accommodation from this time.

Closure of Mr X’s homelessness application in 2023

58. The Council has accepted it failed to contact Mr X after December 2022. The onus should not be on the applicant to chase the outcome of review decision. However, I do accept Mr X could have mitigated the injustice caused by this fault by being more proactive. This is reflected in my recommendation below.
59. In July 2023, the Council should have realised the mistakes made by Officer B in December 2022 and sought to rectify them immediately. It acted with fault when it did not do so, but instead closed the case.
60. The Council should have had procedures in place to ensure dormant cases are reviewed and only closed when satisfied there is no outstanding action.

Repeated offers of unsuitable accommodation

61. The Ombudsman expects councils to be able to demonstrate they have considered the applicant’s individual circumstances when making an offer of accommodation. In this case, Now Medical had recommended that Mr X needed ground floor/lift assisted accommodation.
62. Based on the records I have seen, between November 2023 and May 2024 Mr X was offered seven properties. In response to my enquiries, the Council has accepted it did not carry out a suitability assessment in respect of three of these properties. Failure to do so was fault. I am satisfied these unsuitable offers caused unnecessary delay and Mr X inconvenience and frustration.
63. However, I do not find fault in respect of other offers made to the Council.
64. From the records I have seen, one property offered to Mr X in April 2024 with withdrawn because Mr X said he need a parking space in close proximity to his accommodation because he was awaiting surgery and access to his car was essential. Because the need for close parking was not included in the medical recommendation, I do not find fault for the Council not taking this into c=account before making the offer
65. In addition, property A was deemed unsuitable after the Council carried out a suitability review. I have seen no evidence its unsuitability was apparent at the time the offer was made to Mr X, rather the decision about suitability was a response to Mr X’s specific concerns rather than a medical recommendation.

Injustice and remedy

66. The Council has already offered Mr X £1000 to in acknowledgement the distress/frustration caused by its poor case handling in 2022/23. I do not consider this adequate to reflect the several areas of fault in this case over a prolonged period of time, including the failure to provide Mr X with interim accommodation.
67. On balance, I have found Mr X should have been provided with interim accommodation in December 2022, when the issue should have been considered by Now Medical. This lack of accommodation, compounded by the Council’s failure to process his homelessness application, left him without a settled home for an extended period of time.
68. The Council did not offer Mr X suitable temporary accommodation until late May 2024 (property B).
69. Our published guidance on remedies says where a complainant has been deprived of suitable accommodation during what would inevitably have been a stressful period in their life, our recommendation for financial redress is likely to be in the range of £150 to £350 a month. In this case, Mr X spent 17 months sleeping in his car/sofa surfing, without a final decision having been made on his homelessness application or an offer or suitable temporary accommodation (Property B).
70. But in reaching my decision about injustice/remedy, I cannot ignore:

• the decision to discharge the main housing duty towards Mr X in July 2024, was, in part, informed by lack of evidence about the severity of Mr X’s medical conditions because the GP letter was obtained under duress;
• Mr X did not make any contact with the Council between January and October 2023. It is fair to assume, if his personal situation was so intolerable, he would have contacted the Council sooner than he did; and
• it is highly unlikely Mr X would have accepted any accommodation that was offered to him in 2022. I say this because, Mr X rejected several offers of accommodation in 2023/2024 and latterly told the Council he wanted a two-bedroom property to accommodate his parental responsibilities and need for an overnight carer. In my view this was an unrealistic and unachievable demand because there was no evidence an additional bedroom was needed for either purpose. The Ombudsman also acknowledges the chronic shortage of temporary accommodation in London means applicants may have to accept property that is not ideal for their preferences.

71. Taking this into consideration, I consider a suitable figure is £100 per month for the 17 months Mr X was not provided with temporary accommodation.
72. When we recommend a payment for distress or time and trouble, we only take account of avoidable distress that is the result of fault by the Council. A remedy payment for distress is often a moderate sum of between £100 and £300.

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Agreed action

73. Within four weeks from the date of my final decision, the Council had agreed to take the following action.
1. Apologise to Mr X.
2. Pay Mr X £1700 in recognition of the 17 months the Council failed to make an offer of suitable temporary accommodation. If the Council has already paid Mr X £1000 offered during its complaints process, this figure should be reduced to £700.
3. Pay Mr X a further £300 to acknowledge his distress and frustration caused by the Council’s failure to carry out suitability assessments on three properties in 2024 as well as the overall delay and poor communication and case handling.
4. Reflect on the issues raised in this decision statement and identify any areas of service improvement, specifically around vulnerability assessments, case progression and suitability assessments. The Council should prepare a short report setting out what the Council intends to do to ensure similar problems do not reoccur. This report should be sent to the Ombudsman.
74. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Final decision

75. I found the Council to be at fault and the Council has agreed with my recommendations. On this basis, I have completed my investigation.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman