FOI Requests in Housing Cases: What They Are, How to Use Them, and What to Expect

This guide is factual information about how the Freedom of Information process works. It is not legal advice. If you are considering legal action or a tribunal, you should seek independent legal advice.

Most leaseholders eventually discover that asking for information and getting it are two very different things.

What FOI actually does

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives you the right to request recorded information held by public authorities, including your local council. Under section 10, the authority must respond within 20 working days.

That is the law. What happens in practice can be different.

FOI does not fix housing problems. It does not force anyone to act. What it does is make the council show you what it knows, what it decided, and when. That information can be powerful, but only if you know what you are looking for, and only if you are prepared to follow through when the response is incomplete, late, or does not arrive at all.

This is not an easy process. It is not short. Do not expect miracles. FOI is part of a longer game, one that rewards patience, precision, and persistence.

Making a valid FOI request

A valid FOI request requires three things: it must be in writing, it must include your name, and it must describe the information you want. That is it.

You do not need to use legal language. You do not need to explain why you are asking. You do not need to provide a home address. Requests submitted without a name are usually rejected. Everything else is optional.

Email is usually the best method. It creates a timestamped record you can refer back to, and it removes any ambiguity about when the request was received. Keep a copy of exactly what you sent.

Using WhatDoTheyKnow

You can also submit requests through WhatDoTheyKnow, a public platform that publishes FOI requests and responses online.

This matters. A request made through WhatDoTheyKnow creates a public, timestamped, independently hosted record. The council cannot later claim the request was never received, or that it responded within the statutory deadline when it did not. If the response contains errors or gaps, those are visible too.

That visibility is useful. But it comes with responsibility. Reading other people’s requests does not mean the same approach will work for your situation. Every request needs to be thought through on its own terms. Before using a public platform, consider whether you are comfortable with the request and response being permanently visible online.

Dealing with delays and missing responses

The law says 20 working days. The ICO treats this as a backstop, not a target, authorities are expected to respond “promptly.”

Islington Council’s own strategy document, Islington Together 2030, states:

“We will ensure that residents are at the heart of decision-making about their homes and communities.”

Islington Together 2030, Islington Council, p.12

In practice, responses to housing-related FOI requests are frequently late. They may be incomplete. Key documents may be missing without explanation. In some cases, requests go unanswered for months.

Here is a documented example. A leaseholder on a large estate submitted an FOI request relating to a water pressure failure that had been affecting a large number of homes for several months. The council had already upheld a Stage 1 complaint about its handling of the issue, acknowledging a service failure. Despite that, the FOI request received no response. After six months, the request remained unanswered.

During the same complaints process, a contractor was named in an official response. The leaseholder, thinking forensically, attempted to verify the contractor’s details on Companies House and other public registers. No matching record could be found. A follow-up FOI request asking the council to provide full details of this contractor also went unanswered.

That second request matters. When a council names a contractor in an official response, and that contractor cannot be independently verified, that raises questions. FOI is not just about asking for documents. It is about checking what you have already been told, and following the trail when something does not add up.

Watch for reclassification

The Fifth Nolan Principle of Public Life requires that:

“Holders of public office should act and take decisions in an open and transparent manner.”

The Seven Principles of Public Life (Nolan Principles), Principle 5: Openness

One thing to be aware of: some councils reclassify FOI requests as complaints. Your request goes in under the Freedom of Information Act. It comes back, if it comes back at all, handled under the council’s complaints procedure, with a different reference number and a different set of rules.

This matters because FOI and complaints are governed by different legislation, different timescales, and different oversight bodies. An FOI request that has been reclassified as a complaint is no longer subject to the 20-working-day statutory deadline. It is no longer enforceable through the Information Commissioner. The council has, in effect, moved your request out of a framework where it is legally accountable and into one where it controls the process.

If this happens to you, write back immediately. State clearly that your request was submitted under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, that you expect it to be handled as such, and that you are aware of your right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if it is not.

Other reasons your request may be refused

Even if your request is valid, specific, and submitted correctly, the council can still refuse it. Two of the most common grounds are cost and vexatiousness. Both are legitimate provisions in the Act. Both can also be misapplied.

Cost limit (section 12)

A public authority can refuse a request if it estimates that complying would exceed the appropriate cost limit. For local authorities, that limit is £450, calculated at a flat rate of £25 per hour, which means 18 hours of staff time. The cost limit is set out in section 12 of the Act.

The council can include time spent finding, retrieving, and extracting the information. It cannot include time spent considering whether exemptions apply or time spent redacting documents.

If your request is refused on cost grounds, you have options. You can narrow the scope, reduce the time period, limit it to specific document types, or break it into smaller requests. The council has a duty under section 16 of the Act to advise and assist you in doing this. If it refuses on cost grounds and offers no guidance on how to reframe the request, that is a failure of its own obligations.

Vexatious requests (section 14)

Section 14 allows a public authority to refuse a request it considers “vexatious.” The ICO defines this as a request likely to cause a disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption, irritation, or distress.

What section 14 does not mean is “persistent.” A leaseholder who submits follow-up requests because previous ones went unanswered is not being vexatious. The ICO has been clear that the history and context of a request matter, and that a request should not be treated as vexatious simply because the authority finds the subject matter uncomfortable or the requester difficult.

If your request is refused as vexatious, you can request an internal review, and then complain to the ICO. Keep records of every request, every response (or non-response), and the factual basis for each request. A clear, documented trail is the best defence against a vexatious refusal.

Before you submit: a practical checklist

• Be clear about which housing problem you are trying to understand. Not the emotion, the specific issue.
• Be clear about what recorded information would help: reports, emails, meeting minutes, inspection records, cost breakdowns, contractor details.
• Write down what you already know, dates, reference numbers, departments, case numbers from previous complaints. The more specific you are, the harder it is for the council to claim the request is too broad.
• Decide the time period. “All records relating to repairs” will be refused as too broad. “All inspection reports for [estate name] between March and September 2025” is specific and answerable.
• If the information may later be used for a legal case or tribunal, be careful about precision and record-keeping from the start.

If they do not respond

Under the Act, the council must respond within 20 working days. If it does not:

• Send a follow-up, citing the date of your original request and the statutory deadline.
• If there is still no response, request an internal review.
• If the internal review fails or is not completed within a reasonable time (the ICO considers 20 further working days reasonable), complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office using its online complaint process.

The ICO can issue decision notices and, in serious cases, enforcement notices requiring compliance. In 2023, the ICO issued an enforcement notice to the Ministry of Defence for hundreds of unanswered requests, some dating back to 2018. Councils are not immune from the same scrutiny.

The right mindset

FOI works best when you treat it as part of a longer process, not a single action. The first request rarely gives you everything. It gives you a starting point, and often, it tells you what questions to ask next.

The difference between people who burn out and those who manage the process effectively is usually discipline: knowing what you are looking for, recording what you find, and not reacting to gaps until you understand them. FOI is the mechanism that lets you test whether a council’s published commitments to transparency are real.