Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the advice which the Council gave to Mr X’s tenants about their rights to remain in his property after a possession order was obtained. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X is a landlord who owns two properties where he has obtained a possession order against the tenants but they remain in the property. He says the tenants were given advice to remain until evicted by bailiffs which he says is contrary to government advice in the Homelessness Code of Guidance. He says the Council should rehouse his tenants so that he can recover his properties and re-use them.

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

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My assessment

5. Mr X says the Council has encouraged his tenants to remain in occupation of two properties which he owns contrary to the provisions government guidance for dealing with homeless applicants losing their accommodation. He says the Council has failed to re-house his tenants before he applied for a possession order and this is preventing him from recovering his properties to re-let.
6. When he complained to the Council it told him the advice was issued by the government and it had to advise tenants who may lose their homes as part of its duties under homelessness legislation. The Council refused to tell Mr X what the current status of his tenants is or even if they have made homeless/housing applications because it cannot divulge third party information under the restrictions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
7. Mr X says the Code of Guidance prevents councils from having blanket policies on advising tenants to remain after possession order have been granted. The Council says it does not have a blanket policy and each case is considered on its merits. However, it cannot divulge the merits of his tenants’ situations to him.
8. Mr X asked the Council to provide statistics about how many cases it gave such advice about because he believes it supports his allegations about a blanket policy. The Council says it will not deal with his requests through its complaints procedure because this would need to be submitted as a Freedom of Information request about data which it would need to collate.
9. Findings
10. The Council says it gave advice to Mr X’s tenants in keeping with its duty to advice persons threatened with homelessness. The evidence which Mr X has referred to is published in government guidance separate to the Code of Guidance on homelessness.
11. The Council has not told Mr X when or if it may accept his tenants for rehousing or if they have made an application. If the tenants believe they should have been accepted as homeless or offered accommodation earlier then could complain about this to the council or to us or they could challenge any negative homeless decisions by way of statutory review.
12. The tenants themselves were free to ask to be rehoused without Mr X seeking the Council to do so. We do not have the information about how the Council has dealt with any homeless applications or if it has a duty to provide accommodation and we would not be able to divulge this information to Mr X in any case.
13. It was reasonable for the Council to advise Mr X to make a Freedom of Information request for the statistic information he requires. There is no complaint about the information itself and there is a procedure for accessing what may be available to him.

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Final decision

14. We will not investigate this complaint about the advice which the Council gave to Mr X’s tenants about their rights to remain in his property after a possession order was obtained. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman