A pensioner living in sheltered accommodation run by Oxford City Council was overcharged rent by the authority for 10 years.

And it has emerged the council could have to pay £75,000 after it told the Oxford Mail 15 tenants living in other sheltered accommodation across the city had also been wrongly charged.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons but lives in sheltered housing in Marston, believed he was being overcharged and challenged the council.

At first council officers refused to acknowledge they were wrong. Now his case has highlighted failures in the way the Town Hall has charged some of its tenants.

Local government ombudsman Jerry White undertook a review of the city council's charging policy after the man complained.

Now Mr White has ordered the authority to carry out an urgent audit to ensure mistakes do not happen again and has recommended the tenant be awarded nearly £5,000.

In his report, which is published today, Mr White said the council had "not properly implemented" its rent charging system for the tenant's block of sheltered flats and, as a result, he had been overcharged for more than a decade.

The city council has acknowledged there was inconsistency in its application of the rent charging system and has vowed to rectify faults. The authority has also been told to conduct an interim audit of its sheltered housing rent charging structure.

The tenant complained the council had overcharged him for gas consumption and had wrongly applied its rent charging system because his home had not been modernised.

Weekly rents for sheltered accommodation vary between £40 for a bedsit with shared facilities to £70 for a two-bed self-contained flat.

City councillor Stuart Craft, leader of the Independent Working Class Association who took up the case, said: "The thing here is the council refused to admit it overcharged this poor fellow.

"He knew he had been overcharged and pressed the council but was passed from one department to another. Full credit to him for sticking with it because I don't know how many other pensioners would have let it go."

Mr White found "maladministration causing injustice" and recommended the council pay the overcharged tenant £1,000 for his time, trouble and frustration in pursuing his complaint.

He also recommended paying a further sum of about £4,000 as a refund of rent plus interest. Graham Stratford, the city council's housing manager, said: "After carrying out a detailed investigation we discovered we had been overcharging rent to a small number of residents.

"We apologise to those that have been involved and have taken immediate action to identify those affected and we will be reimbursing them."

The council has about 8,000 properties in its housing stock, but the waiting list is chronically over-subscribed.

More than 5,000 people are currently waiting for a council house or flat to become vacant but only a handful become free each year.