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Housing sales/leaseholds Maladministration causing injustice
29 August 2006
‘Mrs French’ and her partner, ‘Mr Rendell’ (not their real names for legal reasons) lived in a council house. The couple tried on two occasions to exercise a right to buy their home. There was a problem because Mrs French was joint tenant with her husband who had disappeared several years earlier. The Council rightly saw this as an issue but failed to advise the couple about a possible way ahead. In the event the house had about doubled in value by the time the sale was eventually achieved in October 2004.
The Ombudsman found maladministration by the Council causing injustice. She found that the Council had generally been unhelpful and had, in effect, obstructed the couple in exercising their rights. It had not given proper advice and had been too rigid in the application of its policy on what to do when a joint tenancy was ended. The result of this was that the couple were prevented from buying their home significantly sooner than they did, and at a much lower price.
To remedy the injustice, the Ombudsman recommends that the Council should establish the value of the house in October 2002 using an independent valuer. It should then refund the difference between that valuation and what the couple actually paid.
Date Updated: 16/01/09
are in .pdf format. To view these files you will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader software. It can be downloaded below free of charge. Click To Download