Cobalt Housing Limited (202335451)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202335451

Cobalt Housing Limited

16 April 2025

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice, or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman, and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

1. The complaint is about the landlord’s administration of the resident’s property pool plus (PPP) application and request it uploads supporting documents.

Background

2. The resident has lived in the property as an assured tenant since February 2020. The property is a 2-bedroom house.
3. The landlord is part of a group of landlords that uses the PPP scheme to help the local authority in its statutory duty to meet housing needs.
4. On 27 June 2023, the resident sent the landlord a letter from a hate crime support organisation. She said the organisation and police had told the landlord before about hate crime and harassment she was experiencing. She said she was in fear of violence and wanted the landlord to arrange a move.
5. The resident asked the landlord to urgently move her on 3 August 2023. She said she had sent letters supporting a move. On 4 August 2023 she asked the landlord to add evidence of threatening behaviour to her PPP application.
6. On 15 August 2023, the resident told the landlord she had checked the PPP, and it had not added the support letters. She wanted the landlord to explain why and add the letters to PPP.
7. The landlord told the resident on 25 August 2023 that it had support letters, but they did not show she was at risk. It said to change the resident’s housing priority it needed evidence showing she was at significant risk of harm.
8. The resident complained on 19 September 2023 that she had sent evidence of risk of harm, but the landlord had not added it to her PPP application. She wanted to know why the landlord had withheld evidence from her application.
9. In its complaint response on 3 October 2023, the landlord said it did not upload documents to PPP unless they affected a property offer. It said as the documents provided did not affect this, it had not uploaded them. It said as the resident wanted the documents uploaded, it would do this but could not upload police documents without their permission.
10. The resident escalated her complaint on 17 November 2023. She said the landlord had not uploaded the documents as it had promised.
11. In its final response on 22 December 2023, the landlord accepted it did not initially upload the documents but said they did not affect her rehousing priority. It said it had since uploaded the documents as agreed in its stage 1 response.
12. The resident escalated her complaint to the Ombudsman. She said the landlord did not add evidence of hate crime and abuse to her PPP application, which meant it did not consider the risks she faced. She wanted the landlord to ensure it considered the risks and give her a priority A banding.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

13. The resident told the Ombudsman that as an outcome she wanted the landlord to give her priority A banding. The Ombudsman cannot make decisions on a resident’s housing priority. Complaints about how a landlord considers an application for housing, including assessing priority, are matters for the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO). However, the Ombudsman can look at how the landlord communicated with the resident about the information she provided and whether it acted reasonably.
14. The Ombudsman has seen the resident communicated with the landlord about her PPP application before September 2022. This communication is outside the scope of this investigation. This is because under paragraph 42.c of the Scheme, the Ombudsman may not investigate matters the resident did not bring to the attention of the landlord as a formal complaint within a reasonable period. This would normally be within 12 months of the matter arising.

The landlord’s administration of the resident’s PPP application and request it uploads supporting documents

15. The landlord takes part in the PPP scheme, which helps the local authority in its duty to meet housing needs. The scheme ensures social housing in the area is “allocated fairly and objectively to those most in need”. The landlord acts as an administering scheme partner and is the point of contact responsible for registering, amending, and assessing applications, and dealing with reviews.
16. The scheme says landlords will assess applications to ensure people with the greatest housing need have an opportunity to move to more suitable accommodation. It will place applicants in a band according to their housing need and they may need to provide evidence to support their application.
17. The scheme says if an applicant’s circumstances change, it is their responsibility to tell the landlord so their application can be reassessed. Examples of changes include deterioration in health, threat of homelessness, and a change in local connection with an area. If an applicant makes changes to their application, the landlord says in most circumstances it needs supporting documents before it can do a review.
18. Records provided by the landlord show the resident contacted it on 27 June 2023 about her PPP application and sent a letter from a hate crime support organisation. She said the organisation and police had told the landlord in August 2022, November 2022, and March 2023 about hate crime she had experienced but she had not heard back from the landlord. She said this was negligent and wanted the landlord to arrange a managed move as she was in fear of violence.
19. On 25 July 2023, the landlord contacted the resident about an amendment to her priority relating to local connections. The resident replied on 27 July 2023 and said she had asked the landlord to amend her priority to band A and arrange a managed transfer. She said she had provided evidence from the police about hate crime incidents she had experienced. On 3 August 2023 the resident asked the landlord to urgently move her to another property. She said she had sent letters of support, including medical letters. On 4 August 2023 she asked the landlord to attach evidence of her neighbour behaving in a threatening manner and trespassing on her property.
20. The resident contacted the landlord on 15 August 2023 and said it had not added the support letters to her PPP application. She wanted the landlord to explain why and attach them without delay. She also wanted to know why the landlord had only attached part of a letter, which she said left out information about hate crime.
21. The landlord responded on 25 August 2023 and said the resident’s application remained at band B, but it could put it forward for review. It said to do this it needed supporting evidence showing the resident was at significant risk of harm. It said it had letters from a hate crime support organisation and a charity that helped vulnerable people, but these only supported a move. It said they did not show she was at risk. It said it could ask for a review on the evidence it had, or the resident could supply more evidence. The Ombudsman has found that it was reasonable for the landlord to make it clear that it needed supporting evidence to consider a review.
22. The resident sent the landlord a letter from the hate crime support organisation dated 21 June 2023, which the Ombudsman has seen. This said it received a referral from the police in August 2022 about a racially motivated offence the resident had been the victim of. It referred to other incidents and the effect on the resident. It asked the landlord to help the resident move to another property. While it is noted that the landlord received this letter it is not the Ombudsman’s role to assess whether this letter was relevant to a review of the resident’s housing priority.  
23. On 19 September 2023, the resident complained that she had sent “multiple” support letters and medical evidence, but the landlord had not added them to her PPP application. She wanted to know why the landlord had withheld evidence from her account, which she said included hate crimes and information showing her life was at risk.
24. In its complaint response on 3 October 2023 the landlord said it did not upload letters unless they affected the resident’s housing offer. It said as the letters provided did not affect the offer, it had not uploaded them. However, it said it would be happy to upload the documents but would exclude anything from the police as it was unable to share “their information” without their permission. It said it would upload the documents to PPP within the next 10 working days. The landlord also said there had “never been a request” from the resident to upload supporting documents. It said it would raise the resident’s concerns with other landlords in the scheme to discuss what should be best practise and it would adjust its procedures if needed.
25. The Ombudsman cannot comment on whether the supporting documents would have affected the resident’s housing priority, as this is outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. It was reasonable, however, for the landlord to respond to the resident’s concerns and arrange to upload the supporting documents and discuss the concerns with other landlords in the scheme.
26. However, the Ombudsman has found failings in other parts of the complaint response. The landlord said the resident never asked it to upload supporting documents. Records clearly show the resident asked the landlord to do this on 4 and 15 August 2023. The landlord also said it could not upload a letter from the police without their permission. It is not the Ombudsman’s role to determine whether the letter was relevant to the resident’s housing priority. However, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to ask the resident to contact the police for permission or contact the police directly. The Ombudsman has seen no evidence the landlord did this.
27. Records provided by the landlord to the Ombudsman in April 2025 show it uploaded 4 documents to PPP on 10 October 2023. The Ombudsman has not seen the content of the documents, but they appear to be medical evidence and support letters from the hate crime organisation and the charity.
28. The resident escalated her complaint on 17 November 2023. She said the landlord had not uploaded the documents as promised.
29. In its final response on 22 December 2023, the landlord accepted it did not initially upload the support letters but said it had now uploaded them as agreed in its stage 1 response. The landlord again said it did not upload letters unless they had a direct impact on a rehousing application.
30. The landlord has provided the Ombudsman with a copy of guidance for staff on PPP. This does not set out what documents it will upload to PPP. It does say if an applicant wants to change their application, in most circumstances it needs supporting documents before it can update PPP. It says applicants can provide all documents by emailing them.
31. It is clear the resident wanted to change her application. She emailed details of changes, in the form of support letters and medical evidence, to the landlord. It is clear the resident asked the landlord to add letters to her PPP application. The failure to do this caused frustration and inconvenience for the resident. In line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, the Ombudsman finds service failure when there has been a failure. Because of this the landlord must pay the resident £50 for the inconvenience caused.

Determination

32. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord on its administration of the resident’s PPP application and request it uploads supporting documents.

Orders and recommendations

Order

33. The landlord must pay the resident £50 compensation for the failures found in this report. It must pay this within 4 weeks of the date of the report. It must pay compensation directly to the resident and not offset it against any arrears.