South London council wrongly accuses man of vandalising house then refuses to let him move

Jun 19, 2023

At one point the council demanded he pay £1,700 to replace cupboards he didn't remove

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A man has won £1,000 from a South London council after it wrongly accused him of vandalising his kitchen then refused to let him move house over the false allegations. The Housing Ombudsman, which investigates complaints about council landlords, said it was 'concerning' that Southwark Council made serious accusations against the resident without proper evidence.

The council first accused the unnamed man of removing his kitchen cabinets in March 2022 after workers carried out an inspection of his home to see if it was in proper condition for a house swap he had requested. Officials rejected his application, saying he was responsible for replacing the cupboards before his property exchange could be approved.

The man appealed the decision, explaining that council contractors had removed the cupboards the month before while carrying out repairs to his kitchen floor. But the council replied saying it didn’t believe him and told him to pay £1,702 for the necessary repairs to take place. The man escalated his complaint but the council doubled down on its accusations and denied removing the kitchen itself.

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When the Housing Ombudsman reviewed the case, it found the council’s own repair records explicitly stated that kitchen units 'were removed' by workers and that 'no cupboards were put back'. An ombudsman report into the case dated February 15 reads: “It is concerning that the landlord made serious accusations without the necessary records to support its allegations. The impact on the resident was serious, as he was accused of a criminal act, asked to pay for repairs that were not his obligation and denied a mutual exchange of his home.”

The ombudsman ordered Southwark Council to pay the man £1,000 for its failures, replace his kitchen cabinets and reconsider his application for a house swap. The case was one of two involving severe failures by the council identified by the Housing Ombudsman.

In another incident, Southwark took three years to send a leaseholder details of a service charge bill after it completed works on his property. The ombudsman branded the delay 'completely unacceptable' and ordered the council to pay the man £900 in compensation for the inconvenience the delay caused him and its failures in handling his complaint.

Councillor Victor Chamberlain, leader of Southwark's Liberal Democrat opposition, said the Labour-led council was failing tenants. He said: "It is appalling that the Housing Ombudsman has had to step in yet again on behalf of council tenants in Southwark. Labour’s record as a landlord in this borough is simply not good enough. Both these cases show Labour’s inability to crack down on the complacency and disorganisation that is letting down council tenants far too often."

Southwark Council apologised for its failings in both cases and said staff would in the future look at repair records when considering house swap applications. The council added that it had increased monitoring of delays in sending out service charge bills and was reviewing its complaints process.

Cllr Stephanie Cryan, cabinet member for homes, said: “What these residents experienced was clearly unacceptable, and I am sorry that we did not respond appropriately, thoroughly or quickly enough to the concerns they raised. We agree with the Ombudsman that we could have dealt with this matter better and have put in place a number of actions in order to address this going forward.”

Richard Blakeway, housing ombudsman, said: “In both cases, the landlord failed to act within its own policies with life-impacting effects on two separate households. The landlord missed several opportunities in both cases to resolve the issue and in the case of the mutual exchange complaint, made matters worse by making accusations without evidence.”

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