London Borough of Islington (202329050)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202329050

London Borough of Islington

11 September 2025

Our approach

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The Ombudsman must determine whether a complaint comes within their jurisdiction. The Ombudsman seeks to resolve disputes wherever possible but cannot investigate complaints that fall outside of this.

In deciding whether a complaint falls within their jurisdiction, the Ombudsman will carefully consider all the evidence provided by the parties and the circumstances of the case.

The complaint

1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s housing assignment application.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

2. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
3. After carefully considering all the evidence, we have determined that the complaint, as set out above, is not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Summary of events

4. The resident’s mother had a tenancy with the landlord, a local council. The resident lived in the property as a household member but paid the rent on his mother’s behalf due to her circumstances.
5. The resident lost his job. To claim benefits relating to housing, he needed the tenancy to be in his name. He has explained he, and his mother, applied to the landlord to have her tenancy assigned to him in late 2018. He said issues with his initial application meant he reapplied in January 2019. He chased the landlord about this in late 2020 but it said it never received his application.
6. The resident reapplied to have the tenancy assigned to him in December 2020. In March 2021, the landlord confirmed it had received his application. However, due to his mother being in rent arrears it had to put the application on hold until these were cleared. He chased the landlord for an update on his application in August 2023. Following this chaser, it agreed to assign the tenancy to him and this was completed on 2 October 2023.
7. The resident raised his stage 1 complaint to the landlord on 3 October 2023. He said it had lost his applications or provided the incorrect forms which led to delays in getting the tenancy assigned to him. These delays led to financial hardship as they had accrued rent arrears due to him not being able to claim housing related benefits. He wanted it to reimburse the rent payments he made while he was unemployed since 2019, which he calculated to be £4000.
8. The landlord issued it stage 1 response on 18 October 2023. It said there was no evidence showing it had lost the residents initial application. It said any delays caused to the resident’s application were due to rent arrears. It said its policy did not allow it to process assignments when a resident was in arrears. Therefore when it said it received his application in March 2023 it had to put it on hold until the arrears were cleared.
9. The resident escalated his complaint on 23 October 2023. It said it had lost an application he made to its offices in January 2019, when the rent account was in credit. He said this mistake had caused issues as without the tenancy being his name he could not claim benefits to cover the rent, which led to the arrears, and caused future applications to be put on hold.
10. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 20 November 2023. It maintained its stage 1 response was correct apart from several new failings it had discovered. It apologised and offered £100 compensation for the time and trouble he had taken to raise his complaint.
11. The resident brought his complaint to the service. He maintained the landlord’s delays since 2019 in assigning the tenancy had led to financial hardship and stress. He felt its complaint responses had not acknowledged all its mistakes. He also said £100 compensation did not reflect the impact on him.

Reasons

12. Paragraph 43.c of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme says the Ombudsman may not consider complaints, which in the Ombudsman’s opinion, were not brought to the attention on the member as a formal complaint within a reasonable period. This is normally within 12 months of the issue arising.
13. The resident said he initially applied to have the tenancy assigned to him in 2018 and again in January 2019. He did not raise a formal complaint about the landlord’s handling of the assignment until October 2023 despite having grounds to complain in 2019. He has not explained the delay making the complaint, and nothing in the evidence and information provided accounts for it.
14. There is no evidence to suggest the resident followed up the application with the landlord between January 2019 and December 2020. There was then a further period between March 2021 and August 2023 without contact until the resident made his complaint. His complaint to the Ombudsman centres on the 2019 application and the financial impact he claims flows from that period. Had a complaint been made in a reasonable timescale the impact would likely have been significantly reduced.
15. Poor availability of evidence is one of the reasons for time limits on what the Ombudsman will investigate. In this case no evidence has been provided of the 2019 application, and the landlord explained it had no record of it.
16. Accordingly, for the reasons given in this report, and in line with paragraph 42.c, this complaint is not in the Ombudsman’s remit to investigate.