Lewes Council Apologises To Family Of Seven Made Homeless

An ombudsman has told Lewes District Council to apologise and pay compensation to a family of seven for its handling of their homelessness case.

The family involved — made up of the complainant Mrs Y, her husband Mr Y and their five children — had approached the council for help after being served a ‘no fault’ eviction notice in November 2021. 

They were initially asked to leave the property by May 2022, but ended up staying for several months beyond this date, acting on the council’s guidance. They ultimately secured another rental property themselves. 

In a recently-published decision, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman found the council had caused the family ‘injustice’; citing poor communication and failures to help the family secure suitable alternative accommodation.

In all, the ombudsman told the council to pay Mrs Y £850 in recognition of the distress, anxiety, and inconvenience it had caused.

When they first approached the council, the family had been asked to leave their home of several years as their landlord wished to sell the property. 

In her initial homelessness application, Mrs Y had told the council about her family’s special circumstances. This included her role as a full-time carer for her eldest child, who has several disabilities. 

Despite this, when the family was eventually offered emergency accommodation in June 2022, it was for two separate, but neighbouring properties. The council had proposed that Mrs Y live in one of the homes with three of the children, while Mr Y lived in the other property with the remaining two children.

The family did not take this property, saying it was unsuitable as they needed a self-contained accommodation. The ombudsman and council both agreed with this assessment.

This was partly because Mr Y’s job as a delivery driver meant he often had to work late into the night. The arrangement proposed by the council would therefore see two of the children left alone and unsupervised. 

Moreover, Mrs Y said she required the support of Mr Y throughout the night to provide her eldest child with suitable care. She said this would be impossible if the family were split between two properties.

In their report, the ombudsman said:

“The council failed to arrange suitable interim accommodation for Mrs Y and her family from June until September, when Mrs Y found private rented accommodation. This is fault. 

“This caused Mrs Y and her family an injustice because they had no other option than to remain living in accommodation that the council had accepted it was not reasonable for them to occupy.

“During this period, the council made two offers of interim accommodation to Mrs Y. Both these offers were for two separate, but neighbouring, properties that would require Mrs Y and Mr Y to live separately between the properties with their children split between them. 

“The council told me that, after learning that Mr Y worked late, splitting the family in this way was not suitable because some of the children would be left unsupervised while Mr Y was working.

“But, in my view, the Council failed to consider whether the interim accommodation was suitable for Mrs Y and the family before offering this. This is fault.”

The ombudsman also found fault with the level of the information the council had provided to Mrs Y at several stages of the process. This, the ombudsman said, had caused ‘stress and frustration’, which could have been avoided. 

Mrs Y had also complained about ‘poor communication’ with the council, saying her messages had often been ignored and that she frequently had to chase for information.

Through its own complaints procedure, the council had accepted that Mrs Y did not always receive timely responses to their communications. However, it said Mrs Y’s housing advisor had been absent for some of the dates mentioned in the inital complaint. 

The council said, because of Mrs Y’s complaint, it would make sure to add autoreply emails to staff email accounts for when officers were not working. 

It apologised for the stress the lack of timely contact had caused and told the ombudsman that the housing advisor had been consistently in touch with Mrs Y since returning to work. The ombudsman noted how the housing advisor had separately apologised to Mrs Y. 

The council had offered Mrs Y £100 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by this. This is included in the £850 compensation requested by the ombudsman.

A Lewes District Council spokesman said:

“We have apologised to Mrs Y and accepted the ombudsman’s findings and recommendations in full. 

“We are also pleased that the ombudsman has recognised the steps we have taken to put right the issues identified in the complaint.”