London Borough of Ealing (202315949)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202315949

London Borough of Ealing

31 July 2024

 

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about how the landlord handled the applicant’s complaint regarding his discretionary tenancy application.

Background

  1. The landlord’s records show the applicant moved in to his grandmother’s (the resident) two bedroom flat in 2018 as her carer, although the applicant’s representative suggested he moved in two years earlier. The applicant has mental health conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and anxiety as well as other conditions such as temporomandibular joint disorder which the landlord was aware of.
  2. In 2020, the applicant’s grandmother moved out of the property and into a care home, but the applicant remained in the property as an unauthorised occupant. The applicant could not make a succession application at the material time as his grandmother was still alive, and therefore he sought a discretionary tenancy from the local authority on 7 December 2021.
  3. The local authority carried out a telephone housing interview on 13 January 2022 in regards to the application for a new tenancy.
  4. On 16 March 2022, an assessment was carried out on by a medical adviser for the local authority as the applicant had stated he had health conditions. The advisor stated that as the applicant did not require medication, and was not under psychiatric care, they could not find anything to indicate that the applicant’s daily activities were significantly impeded. They concluded that the specific medical issues the applicant had, did not render him significantly vulnerable and therefore there was no medical need for him to reside at the current property.
  5. On 30 March 2022, the local authority made a decision not to grant a discretionary tenancy to the applicant following his application as it was satisfied that the applicant’s housing needs could be reasonably met in the private housing sector.
  6. On 11 April 2022, the applicant informed the local authority that he did not agree with its decision, as he felt that his circumstances met the criteria. He asked for the decision to be reviewed.
  7. The applicant provided a letter to the local authority dated 6 May 2022 from his GP on 9 May 2022, which said that the applicant had a long history of anxiety and OCD. The letter stated that if the applicant became homeless then this could have a detrimental effect on his mental health. On the same date, the applicant also provided a GP patient summary report and an email from adult social care as supporting documents.
  8. The local authority obtained further information about the care that the applicant provided to his grandmother on 20 February 2023. On the following day the applicant provided an email also explaining his care duties in more detail.
  9. The applicant gave the local authority an account of how his conditions affected him on 9 March 2023. The local authority requested that the applicant obtain further information from his GP on 16 March 2023 about his OCD, but the applicant did not provide this information.
  10. The local authority issued its review of its decision not to grant a discretionary tenancy on 5 June 2023. It said it had regard to all the information the applicant had provided including a summary medical report and the letter from the GP. The local authority was satisfied that the applicant was a carer and was eligible to be considered for an allocation, however, after taking into account factors such as age and priority of need (vulnerability), it upheld the decision not to grant a new tenancy or other allocation of social housing.
  11. On 26 June 2023, the applicant’s representative complained to the landlord about the decision made on 5 June 2023 and gave a detailed account of what she felt was incorrect about the decision and why her son should be given a new tenancy. In particular, she asked that the applicant’s GP be contacted for a full medical report of his mental health conditions and how they affected his life as this had not been sought, for him not to be made homeless as this could lead to suicidal thoughts and asked that he be given a one bedroom ground floor flat and that his vulnerabilities be re-evaluated.
  12. The applicant’s representative contacted the Ombudsman Service as they had not received a response from the landlord. On 2 October 2023, the Ombudsman wrote to the landlord asking it to respond to the applicant’s complaint.
  13. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 16 October 2023. It said:
    1. It had taken into account the GP letter and the applicant’s comments about how his condition affected him. The information did not indicate that the applicant would be significantly vulnerable if homeless, as he had coped without medication.
    2. The applicant had contacted his GP and obtained further information himself which was assessed during the review. The local authority had asked the applicant to obtain more information from his GP about his OCD as he had volunteered to get more information if needed. The applicant did not provide this information, but the local authority said that it had enough information to assess his vulnerability and so it completed its review.
    3. Although it appreciated that the applicant’s OCD had a long-term impact on his daily activities, this did not necessarily make him disabled as it depended on the level of impact the OCD had on him. It said that being disabled did not necessarily mean that a person would be vulnerable.
    4. After reviewing the information from the applicant’s representative and the correspondence from the local authority, it could not uphold the applicant’s complaint.
  14. The applicant’s complaint was escalated to stage 2 as he disagreed with the stage 1 response for not reopening his review, as he believed the local authority had not properly considered his vulnerabilities and mental health. He was also not happy about the review officer not contacting his GP for further information.
  15. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 4 December 2023. It said:
    1. The local authority had sufficient information about the applicant’s medical conditions to be able to decide if the applicant would likely be a priority need if he became homeless. It said that contacting the applicant’s GP for further information would unlikely have made a difference to the outcome of the review. It also said that no new information had been provided that suggested that the review decision was wrong.
    2. The local authorities medical adviser was an experienced medical professional who was qualified to look at the medical reports and provide advice on the effects of those conditions. The medical adviser’s opinion was considered alongside the other information and the landlord was satisfied that the review decision was correct.

Assessment and findings

  1. This assessment will focus on the landlord’s handling of the applicant’s complaint regarding his application for a discretionary tenancy and not the handling of his actual application. This is because a council’s assessment of housing needs and allocation of property is normally carried out in their capacity as a provider of public services which comes under the remit of the Local Government & Social Care Ombudsman (LGCSO). The landlord has stated that the decision not to grant a discretionary tenancy was made by the council’s Applications and Allocations Team in line with its allocations policy. Therefore, it is not within the Housing Ombudsman’s remit to assess the decision not to grant the tenancy or how this process was handled. If the resident wishes to complain about the decision not to award him the discretionary tenancy, he should take that complaint to the LGCSO.
  2. In 2020, the applicant’s grandmother, who was the tenant, moved out of the property and the landlord issued a ‘notice to quit’. The applicant had applied to succeed his grandmother’s tenancy and remain in the property, but the landlord informed him that as his grandmother had not passed away then there could be no succession. On the landlord’s advice, the applicant then applied for a discretional tenancy from the local authority in 2021.
  3. The landlord’s succession policy states that for a family member to succeed the policy, then they ‘must have been living at the property as their only or principal home 12 months prior to the tenant’s death’. Therefore, the landlord acted reasonably and appropriately in accordance with its succession policy by telling the applicant that he could not succeed his grandmother as a tenant because she was still alive and succession could only happen if the resident had passed away. The landlord then acted fairly in trying to support the resident’s wish to stay at the property by advising the applicant that he could make a separate application to the local authority for a discretionary tenancy.
  4. The applicant’s representative made a formal complaint on the applicant’s behalf to the landlord about the ‘review’ decision made by the local authority on 26 June 2023. The complaint said that the applicant did not agree with the decision or the fact that his GP was not contacted for further information regarding his vulnerabilities. The landlord responded after a prompt from the Ombudsman Service on 2 October 2023 by providing its stage 1 response on 16 October 2023. The landlord’s complaints policy states that it would respond at stage 1 within 10 working days from the complaint being acknowledged. It was inappropriate that the landlord did not follow its policy and provided the stage 1 response several months’ late. It was also unreasonable that the landlord did not attempt to explain or apologise for the response being late.
  5. The stage 1 response gave a detailed account of why the local authority had made its decision and it confirmed that the council had enough information to assess the applicant’s vulnerability and complete its review. The landlord reviewed all the information provided by the local authority and the applicant and made its decision not to uphold the complaint. The Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code states that the ‘landlord must address all points raised in the complaint definition and provide clear reasons for any decisions, referencing relevant policy, law and good practice where appropriate’. It’s clear that the landlord looked into the applicant’s complaint and provided a response which addressed the complaint points and providing detailed reasons for its decision not to uphold the complaint as was required by the Code. There was no evidence to show that the landlord had not sufficiently looked into the matter and provided an adequate response.
  6. It was not clear exactly when the applicant or his representative escalated the complaint to stage 2, but the landlord provided its stage 2 response on 4 December 2023. The landlord’s policy states that a stage 2 response would be provided within 20 working days from the complaint being acknowledged and there was no evidence of any delays in the landlord providing the stage 2 response.
  7. There was no evidence of new information provided by the resident when the complaint was escalated to stage 2, instead only a reiteration of the points that had been made throughout the complaints process. The landlord responded to say that no new information had been provided and that the local authority had sufficient information about the applicant’s medical conditions to make its decision. The landlord assured the applicant that a medical advisor’s opinion had been taken into consideration with all the other information and it was satisfied that the local authority had made the correct decision. There was no evidence to suggest that the landlord had not followed its complaints policy or acted unreasonably when reaching its stage 2 decision not to uphold the applicant’s complaint.
  8. In summary, the landlord handled the complaint in accordance with the requirements set out in the Code and it’s complaint’s policy except for the delay to respond at stage 1 of its process. This delay will have caused distress and inconvenience to the resident and unnecessarily delayed resolution of his complaint. An order will be made to reflect the landlord’s service failure in this matter.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, the Ombudsman finds service failure with the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint about his discretionary tenancy application.

Orders and recommendations

  1. The landlord is ordered to write to the applicant within four weeks of the date of this report to apologise for the service failure identified in this report.
  2. The landlord is ordered to pay the applicant £50 compensation within four weeks of the date of this report for the inconvenience caused to him for the delays with his complaint.
  3. The landlord should reply to this Service with evidence of compliance within the timescales set out above.