Council ordered to pay £4,000 to disabled woman over housing failures

Ombudsman ruled the woman was left in unsuitable accommodation because of mistakes made by Haringey Council, reports Simon Allin, Local Democracy Reporter

A disabled woman suffered “significant frustration and distress” after being left in an unsuitable home because of a string of mistakes by Haringey Council, a watchdog has found.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman told the council to pay more than £4,000 to the resident after she spent 19 months in the home because it wrongly stopped her from bidding for properties and failed to carry out a medical assessment.

A report by the ombudsman, which investigates complaints against councils, reveals the woman and her family were placed in temporary accommodation after applying to the council for housing in 2006. She also joined the borough’s housing register, which allows residents to bid for homes.

In March 2015, the council offered her a permanent home that she felt was unsuitable. The authority decided it was suitable after carrying out a review, but this was overturned by a judge after the resident appealed to the county court.

More than two years later, in September 2017, the council placed her in its highest priority band for housing. Under its policies, the council can offer a ‘direct let’ for people in this band when it decides this provides a better chance of securing a move than by bidding for a home.

Council records showed that since then, the resident had only bid on one property. She claims to have bid on other homes but would often find her account was suspended, and she would have to ask the council to bid on her behalf.

In February 2021, the council told the woman she did not need to bid because she was in a high position on the direct offer list. She says she did not know before then that she had been put on the list.

The council accepted giving the resident inconsistent information about whether she could bid for homes and offered her £700 in compensation after admitting this had led to her transfer being delayed.

The ombudsman found it was likely that the council had wrongly stopped her from bidding for properties. If she had been able to bid, she could have secured a home by September 2021, meaning that since then she has been “living in accommodation unsuitable for her medical and physical needs”.

In July 2021, the woman told the council that she only needed a two-bedroom property because her circumstances had changed, but the authority failed to update its records.

In December, after complaining about her long wait for a property, she discovered the council had only been looking for three-bedroom homes in the west of the borough. She also asked for a medical assessment, but the council failed to carry one out and instead relied on an assessment from 2017.

When the council finally offered her a home in February 2022, the property was not ready to let because it was undergoing refurbishment. Its mistake meant she was not eligible for any other direct lets until August.

The resident turned down two further housing offers made in November and December because she said the homes were not suitable for her medical and physical needs. The report says the council could have found her a suitable home in October 2021 if it had carried out the medical assessment she requested the previous year.

The ombudsman told the council to apologise and pay the resident £3,800 for the 19 months she had spent in an unsuitable home, along with a further £500 in recognition of the distress and frustration it had caused her. The council also agreed to pay her £200 for each full month from May this year until she is offered a suitable property.

Sarah Williams, the council’s cabinet member for housing services, private renters and planning, said: “We will absolutely learn lessons from the ombudsman’s findings and recommendations to ensure similar situations are not repeated.

“The council has already apologised for the mistakes we made in this case and have taken steps to fix them, including an overhaul of our procedures and better communication between services. We fully recognise that the resident was not given the correct advice and compensation has been paid.

“We will continue to work with the family until we can find accommodation in line with their needs, and they are happy with.”

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