The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s handling of his reports of disrepair. The Council has accepted some fault, for which it has apologised and offered an appropriate symbolic payment. Further investigation by us would not lead to a different outcome.
The complaint
Mr X complained the Council: failed to respond to his reports of disrepair in April and May 2025; failed to recognise his deteriorating housing situation, which led to him becoming homeless for three days; delayed in applying a voluntary star to his housing register application sent a contradictory letter explaining he did not meet the criteria for medical priority on its housing register, but also say he had been awarded band 2; delayed in responding to his complaints, failed to properly record communications as complaints and did not explain how it had calculated the £175 offered to him to resolve his complaint.
Mr X said he suffered distress and felt unsupported. He said he was put to avoidable time and trouble pursuing the Council to
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
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 any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or it would be reasonable for the person to ask for a council review or appeal.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Mr X.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Reports of disrepair Mr X was a lodger. In April 2025, he reported disrepair in the property, including restrictions on the amount of hot water he could use and a broken lock on the bathroom door. He says, despite a further email in May, the Council did not respond. He has since moved from that property.
In its complaint response, the Council accepted his initial email had been directed to the incorrect team, for which it apologised. It said it had no record of the email Mr X said he sent in May. It added Mr X was already aware of the correct team to contact as he had made previous reports of disrepair in 2023. An apology is sufficient to remedy the injustice caused and further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
Homelessness Whilst Mr X said his landlord’s actions were intended to intimidate him so he left the property, disrepair would not usually mean a person is legally homeless as the expectation is that this can be addressed. In a call with the complaints team in early September, Mr X said his landlord had given him notice and he would leave at the end of the month. It is unclear whether he was advised he could make a homelessness application at that point, but the Council said he was aware he could do this because he had made a previous application in 2023. On that basis, there is insufficient evidence of fault causing sufficient injustice to justify investigating this further.
Housing register The Council accepted a delay in awarding the voluntary star and that it sent a contradictory letter about his medical priority because the officer had not removed some standard paragraphs that were not relevant. It apologised for those failings. In its stage 2 response, it confirmed the voluntary star has been awarded, the threshold for medical priority was not met and he remained in band 4.
If Mr X disagreed with the medical priority decision, he had an internal right of review, and it was reasonable for him to exercise his review rights.
Complaints handling We do not investigate complaints handling where we are not investigating the underlying complaints. That said, the report of disrepair in April 2025 was properly recorded as a service request and not a complaint at that stage. Whilst there was some delay in responding to his complaint at stage 2, this is not sufficient to justify further investigation. In any event the Council apologised and offered Mr X £175 to remedy the injustice caused by the failings it identified. I am satisfied this is in line with our guidance on remedies , which says symbolic payments for distress and for avoidable time and trouble would usually be up to £500. I am satisfied £175 is sufficient to remedy the injustice caused in this case.
Final decision
We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman