A South London mum has won £1,000 after a local council was found to have raised her hopes about how soon she would be rehoused. Wandsworth Council apologised to the resident after a watchdog said it wrongly told her more than once she was second in the queue on the housing register, which led her to think she might be offered a property soon.
The woman, named Ms X in the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman report, lives in a one-bed council home with her child. The ombudsman found she should have been placed in band C on the tenant transfer queue on the housing register when she applied to join it in January 2021, but that none of its statements about her application were accurate before May 2023.
The council told Ms X she was in second position for a two-bed property in the social care queue on the housing register in April 2021, after she was given conflicting information about her priority. The social care queue is for people who have been identified as in urgent need of rehousing by social services.
The mum contacted her MP the following year as she had not received an offer. The council told the MP she was in band C on the general needs queue with 50 points in August 2022, which is for applicants who qualify to join the housing register and are not in any of the other queues. It later found Ms X’s application contained conflicting information and told her and the MP she was in second position for a two-bed property in band B on the social care queue.
The council reassessed Ms X’s application in May 2023. It told her she was in band C for a two-bed property on the tenant transfer queue with 100 points, which is for council tenants who need to move for reasons including overcrowding and medical need. The authority confirmed this was the correct priority for her application after a review and that it had put her on the social care queue by mistake.
The ombudsman found high demand for housing in Wandsworth means it is unlikely Ms X missed an offer as a result of the blunders. But the report said: “The council should have identified Ms X’s application was wrongly on the social care queue in April 2021 when she first told it about the conflicting information. This was an opportunity to identify that Ms X should not be on the general needs queue either.
“The council missed several further opportunities to correct the errors over the next two years. The council’s repeated failure to identify and correct its mistake was fault. This caused Ms X significant and avoidable uncertainty and distress for over two years. This is an injustice to Ms X.
“The council’s inaccurate information also avoidably raised Ms X’s expectations about her chances of rehousing and when this might happen. More than once it told her she was second in the queue. Ms X reasonably though this meant she might be offered a property soon. This is a further injustice to Ms X.”
The ombudsman told the council to apologise to Ms X and pay her £1,000 for the “avoidable distress, uncertainty and raised expectations” she was caused for more than two years.
A Wandsworth Council spokesperson said: “We accept that incorrect information was conveyed to the tenant and for this we are offering a sincere apology and an amount of compensation. However, as the ombudsman’s report concludes, there is no suggestion this led to any delay in offering the tenant a new property.”
