Ombudsman calls on London borough to pay £7,700 to resident and her family left in unsuitable accommodation since 2021

The council had originally offered just £2,000 but this amount was considered not to be suitable by the Ombudsman.

The complaint came from a woman whose family were allocated unsuitable accommodation (Property A) in late 2021 following a homelessness application. The property required repairs, which led to the family being relocated in late summer 2022 to another property (Property B) which was also unsuitable for the family’s needs.

The complainant said the accommodation had impacted both her health and that of one of her sons.

The family – comprising the complainant and her four children – are living in Property A, where there is a steep slope to access the property

Her young son suffers from a multitude of health problems, including significant issues with his breathing. This means he has significant problems climbing any stairs. Property B was on the third floor and lacked a lift.

When the family returned to Property A, which has damp problems in the bedrooms and black mould, the required repairs had not been completed.

Kensington & Chelsea acknowledged that it had failed to provide the complainant with suitable accommodation, and apologised for that. However, it stated that it could not increase the complainant’s priority as there were other families who were in greater need than hers.

Since the draft decision was issued, the council has offered the complainant a suitable property.

The Ombudsman said the council accepted its main housing duty and was therefore providing the family with temporary accommodation. Providing an unsuitable accommodation was in breach of the council's s.206 duty, it added. This was fault.

The investigation also found that the council accepted that the family required a single-story ground floor property in October 2023, but Property B did not meet these requirements.

The Ombudsman reported that Kensington & Chelsea did not take proactive steps to relocate the family to suitable accommodation until May 2024.

The report said the complainant had provided the council with evidence of her son’s significant health issues and of the impact the property was having and would continue to have on him. She said her son was particularly vulnerable to the impact of this due to numerous respiratory conditions, and that he had been exposed to significant risk to his health.

In addition to this, the family had been put to the distress and inconvenience of moving to another property, which was unsuitable. The family then suffered the disappointment of finding that the purpose of displacing them had not even been achieved.

The impact on this family was therefore significant, the Ombudsman said.

As well as the impact on her son’s health, the complainant had shown her own mental and physical health had been impacted by their living conditions.

In its response to the original complaint, Kensington & Chelsea accepted it had failed to provide the family with suitable accommodation and offered a payment of £2,000.

The Ombudsman considered this remedy unsuitable, taking into account the individual circumstances of the case. In particular:

• the length of time the complainant and her family remained in unsuitable accommodation;
• moving the complainant and her family to Property B, which was unsuitable;
• the council’s failure to complete all the repairs to Property A, which was the reason for moving the family out of this property;
• significant impact of the unsuitable property on the complainant and her son’s health.

The Ombudsman recommended that, to remedy the fault identified, the council should, within one month of the decision:

• apologise to the complainant for the impact the fault had had on her and her family – the apology should adhere to the Ombudsman’s “Guidance on Remedies”;
• make a payment of £350 for every month the family had been in unsuitable accommodation, so £7,700 to date instead of the council’s offer of £2000.

Within three months of the decision, the council should:

• evidence it has considered how it decided Property A had been sufficiently repaired before moving the family back, and how it missed the outstanding issues;
• evidence it has put a process in place to ensure this is not repeated.

Finally, the council should provide the Ombudsman with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

Harry Rodd