Summary: Miss F complained the Council did not take effective action to resolve anti-social behaviour she was experiencing from a neighbouring property. The Council was at fault, because it misunderstood its legal jurisdiction on several relevant points, which caused uncertainty. The Council should apologise and offer to pay Miss F a financial remedy to reflect this, and implement improvements to its service.

The complaint

1. I will refer to the complainant as Miss F.
2. Miss F complains the Council has not taken effective action to resolve the anti-social behaviour of her neighbours, which includes noise and threatening behaviour towards her and her husband. Miss F says the neighbours’ behaviour has left them in fear for their safety, caused them to lose sleep and be unable to relax, and had an impact on their mental health.
3. Miss F believes the Council should issue the neighbours with a community protection notice warning letter, requiring them to moderate their behaviour, and also that it should contact the neighbours’ landlord, as she considers the landlord’s failure to intervene to represent a breach of their licence.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
5. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
6. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a tribunal about the same matter. We also cannot investigate a complaint if in doing so we would overlap with the role of a tribunal to decide something which has been or could have been referred to it to resolve using its own powers. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)

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What I have and have not investigated

7. I have investigated Miss F’s complaint as set out at paragraphs 2 and 3.
8. In her complaint to the Ombudsman, Miss F raised an additional point, concerning an alleged failure by the Council to consider whether its powers and duties under the housing health and safety rating system (HHSRS) were relevant. However, this point did not form part of Miss F’s formal complaint to the Council, and is therefore not something we can consider in this investigation.

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How I considered this complaint

9. I considered evidence provided by Miss F and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
10. I also shared a draft copy of this decision with each party for their comments.

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What I found

11. The following chronology will give an overview of key events relevant to this complaint. It is not intended to provide a detailed account of everything that has happened.
12. In mid-2023 Miss F and her husband purchased and moved into a flat in the Council’s area. The flat is one of two created by splitting a larger property, with a communal hallway and front door. The other flat is privately rented.
13. On 11 November Miss F made an online report to the Council’s out-of-hours noise team that the neighbouring tenants were creating a nuisance, consisting of loud music and conversation. The Council says it tried to call Miss F back but could not contact her.
14. Miss F made a similar report on 2 December. The Council sent a warning letter to the neighbours, asking them to be considerate of the noise they were creating. Miss F then logged a third report on 3 December, but the Council says it again could not contact her to arrange a visit. However, it told her that it could not treat the type of domestic noise she was reporting as a statutory nuisance.
15. On 5 January 2024, the Council contacted Miss F to check in. She said the issue with music had been resolved, and that they had installed soundproofing and spoken to the neighbours’ landlord. The Council told Miss F it would therefore close the case.
16. Miss F made a new report of nuisance on 14 January. Again the Council says it could not contact her to arrange a visit, but it did visit Miss F on 28 January after a further report. The Council noted the neighbours were playing music and talking but that it was at a low volume. The Council explained its powers and duties to Miss F and said she was able to take her own action, but afterwards sent a second warning letter to the neighbours. Miss F says the neighbours were verbally abusive towards her after receiving this letter.
17. In March Miss F had an exchange of emails with her local councillor about the ASB. The Councillor referred the matter to the Council’s private sector housing (PSH) team, to investigate as a possible breach of the landlord’s licence conditions.
18. On 8 April Miss F contacted the Council to request an ASB case review.
19. On 25 April Miss F provided a brief noise recording, which the Council says was indistinct and not usable for evidence. On 27 April, the Council’s noise officer contacted its private sector housing team to seek information about the neighbours and their landlord. It also sent another warning letter (which the Council’s notes describe as the ‘second’ letter) to the neighbours.
20. On 20 May the PSH team visited the neighbouring property.
21. On 23 May the Council wrote to Miss F to say it had not identified an actionable noise nuisance or ASB from the evidence she had provided. It said it would review the matter again in four weeks.
22. On 25 May Miss F made another report to the out-of-hours team. The Council said it tried to call Miss F back but got no response.
23. After a further out-of-hours report from Miss F on 8 June, the Council visited her property. It said it identified “faintly audible” voices from the neighbouring property during the visit, but this did not amount to a statutory nuisance. The Council explained to Miss F her right to take private action under section 82 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990.
24. Miss F made another out-of-hours report on 15 June, but again the Council says it could not contact her in response.
25. The Council wrote to the landlord of the neighbouring property on 27 June, asking them to contact it to discuss the alleged ASB. The following day the Council contacted Miss F to discuss the case. It says Miss F asked for the case to be closed because “this would trigger other action from Private Sector Housing and the ASB Team”.
26. On 28 June Miss F applied for an ASB case review.
27. On 4 July Miss F submitted a stage 1 complaint. She said:

• she had made repeated complaints about the neighbours’ ASB. The Council visited twice and sent warning letters to the neighbours, but these had simply triggered verbal abuse from them;
• the Council’s PSH team had visited the neighbours but had not properly investigated what she believed to be the landlord’s breaches. She said the PSH officer had told her the ASB team should transfer the case to them, but another officer had since told her this “[did not] make sense”;
• the ASB was having a significant impact on her mental and physical health and that of her husband. She had sent evidence of the neighbours’ behaviour to their landlord several times, but they had either ignored her or referred her to the Council;
• the landlord was in breach of their legal responsibilities. Miss F complained the Council had granted the landlord a licence, despite being aware of her complaints, and that she had lodged an appeal against this with the first-tier tribunal; and
• that the ASB and PSH teams were not working together properly on the case, and she did not believe the ASB team was sharing with the PSH team the evidence she had submitted.

28. On 5 July the Council spoke to the neighbours’ landlord and arranged a visit from the noise and PSH teams.
29. On 7 July officers from the noise team visited Miss F’s property. They noted Miss F had reported loud music and “people noise”, but said they had heard faintly audible music for approximately five minutes after their arrival. The officers remained in the property for 50 minutes and did not witness any more disturbance. They told Miss F the noise was of insufficient volume and duration to justify enforcement action.
30. The Council responded to Miss F’s stage 1 complaint on 24 July. It explained the PSH team needed to receive adequate evidence from the noise team, to take action against the landlord for a breach of their licence, and provided a chronology showing how the noise team had investigated Miss F’s complaints. It also said:

• it was in the process of arranging a joint meeting between the landlord, noise and PSH teams;
• the noise and PSH teams had been working together to progress the case;
• despite several visits, and a review of the evidence Miss F had provided, the noise team had not identified a statutory nuisance. The Council said officers had to witness such a nuisance in person and could not rely on recordings;
• the Council only had power to deal with ASB where the perpetrator and/or complainant were council tenants. Miss F should therefore report incidents of ASB and harassment to the police;
• the noise it had witnessed was not intrusive or unreasonable enough to warrant a community protection notice (CPN) warning;
• it expected the landlord to send written warnings to the neighbours if their behaviour was unacceptable.

31. The noise and PSH teams met the neighbours’ landlord on 25 July. The landlord said they had taken action to tackle Miss F’s complaints, including speaking to the neighbours and putting up signs in the shared hallway, to remind them to be considerate, replacing the door to the neighbours’ property to prevent it slamming, and making changes to external lighting.
32. On 26 July Miss F lodged a stage 2 complaint. She said:

• the neighbours’ behaviour did not have to reach threshold of ASB for it to represent a breach of the landlord’s licence conditions;
• the Council’s record of the visits of 8 June and 7 July misrepresented the level of noise, and officers had not used any equipment to measure the noise level;
• the licence holder for the neighbouring property was not the actual landlord;
• the Council had said it could only investigate loud music as a noise nuisance, but this meant the neighbours could behave rowdily without any consequence. The Council has also failed to consider the frequency of the neighbours’ gatherings in deciding whether it amounted to a nuisance;
• the Council was wrong to say it could only investigate ASB where either the alleged perpetrator or victim was a council tenant;
• the Council had not considered the full range of the neighbours’ behaviour in deciding whether it could issue a CPN warning;
• the Council could issue a CPN where there was unreasonable behaviour which did not amount to a statutory nuisance, and the Council could rely on a complainant’s evidence to do so;
• she had not received a decision on her ASB case review application.

33. The Council responded to Miss F’s ASB case review application on 24 August. It gave a detailed analysis of the evidence Miss F had provided to date, and commented that the neighbours’ behaviour appeared to be largely prompted by the positioning of Miss F’s video doorbell, which they found intrusive, and the complaints she had made. The Council reiterated it had not found evidence to support the existence of an actionable nuisance or ASB.
34. The Council said the eligibility criteria for an ASB case review included that the relevant authority had not responded to a person’s reports of ASB. As the Council had responded in this case, Miss F did not meet the eligibility criteria for a review.
35. The Council responded to Miss F’s stage 2 complaint on 3 September. It said:

• the PSH team needed to be satisfied there was a breach of the licence conditions before it could take enforcement action. The Council confirmed it was the licence holder, and not the actual landlord, which was accountable for any breaches;
• the noise team would investigate any type of noise, not simply music, and in doing so would consider all relevant factors, including frequency and duration. However, the noise team was not satisfied the evidence supported the service of an abatement notice or CPN warning;
• Miss F should continue to report out-of-hours incidents to the out-of-hours team.

36. On 4 September Miss F referred her complaint to the Ombudsman.
37. In January 2025, before we had made a decision on her complaint, Miss F sold her property and moved out.

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Legislative background

Statutory nuisances

38. Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 (EPA), councils have a duty to take reasonable steps to investigate potential ‘statutory nuisances’. Activities a council might decide are a statutory nuisance include noise from premises.
39. For the issue to count as a statutory nuisance, it must:

• unreasonably and substantially interfere with the use or enjoyment of a home or other property; and/or
• injure health or be likely to injure health.

40. There is no fixed point at which something becomes a statutory nuisance. Councils rely on suitably qualified officers to gather evidence. Officers may, for example, ask the complainant to complete diary sheets, fit noise-monitoring equipment, or make site visits. Councils will sometimes offer an ‘out-of-hours’ service for people to contact, if a nuisance occurs outside normal working time.
41. Once evidence gathering is complete, a council will assess the evidence. It will consider matters such as the timing, duration, and intensity of the alleged nuisance. Officers will use their professional judgement to decide whether a statutory nuisance exists.
42. If a council is satisfied a statutory nuisance is happening, has happened or will happen in the future, it must serve an abatement notice. If the nuisance is noise from premises, the council may delay issuing an abatement notice for a short period, to try to address the problem informally.
43. An abatement notice requires the person or people responsible to stop or limit the activity causing the nuisance. Failure to comply with an abatement notice is an offence, which can lead to prosecution and a fine.
44. A member of the public can also take private action against an alleged nuisance in the magistrates’ court, under section 82 of the EPA. If the court decides they are suffering a statutory nuisance, it can order the person or people responsible to take action to stop or limit it.

Anti-social behaviour

45. Councils have a general duty to tackle anti-social behaviour (ASB). But ASB can take many different forms; and when someone reports a problem, councils should decide which of their powers is most suitable.
46. For example, they may approach a complaint as an environmental health issue, where the complaint is about noise or pollution, and/or using their powers under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.
47. Councils and the police can issue community protection notices (CPN) to prevent anti-social behaviour which is unreasonable and having a negative effect on the community's quality of life. A CPN requires the behaviour to stop and, where appropriate, require the recipient to take reasonable steps to stop it happening again. Not complying is an offence and may result in a fine or a fixed penalty notice.
48. Councils must issue a written warning in advance of a CPN. The council should decide how long after the written warning to wait before serving a CPN. A person can appeal a CPN in the magistrates' court within 21 days of receiving it if they disagree with the council’s decision.
49. In some instances, antisocial behaviour may cause a statutory nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act. In such cases councils can serve both a CPN and an abatement notice on the perpetrator, if they consider it necessary.
50. The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 introduced a way to review the handling of complaints of anti-social behaviour (ASB). This is the anti-social behaviour case review, which was previously known as the ‘Community Trigger’.
51. When a person asks for a review, relevant bodies (which may include the council, police and others) should decide whether it meets the local threshold. Relevant local bodies should agree their review threshold, but the ASB statutory guidance says this should be, at a maximum, that a complainant has made three reports of ASB within six months.
52. If the threshold is met, the relevant bodies should carry out the review. They should share information, consider what action has already been taken, decide whether more should be done, and then tell the complainant the outcome. If they decide to take more action, they should create an action plan.
53. Asking for an ASB case review is not the same as making a formal complaint against a council for how it has handled reports of ASB.

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Analysis

54. The Ombudsman’s role is to review how councils have made decisions, in the course of performing their duties. We may criticise a council if, for example, it has not followed an appropriate procedure, not considered relevant evidence, or not properly explained the reason it has made a decision. We call this ‘fault’, and, where we find it, we can consider the consequence of the fault and ask the council to address this.
55. But we do not provide a right of appeal against a council’s decisions, and we cannot make operational or policy decisions on a council’s behalf. If a council has acted without fault, then we cannot criticise it, even if a complainant feels strongly that its decision is wrong. We cannot uphold a complaint simply because someone disagrees with what a council has done.
56. In a case such as this, that means it is not for us to make our own decision whether a person is experiencing actionable noise nuisance or ASB, or precisely what powers the Council should use to enforce against it. Regardless of my findings, these remain decisions for the Council to make.
57. Despite this, I have several concerns about the way the Council has investigated Miss F’s reports of ASB. For ease of understanding, I will address these points under separate sub-headings.

The Council’s jurisdiction on ASB

58. In its response to Miss F’s stage 1 complaint, the Council said it only has power to investigate ASB where either the alleged perpetrator or victim is a council tenant. There is in fact no such limitation on the Council’s ASB powers – it can investigate, and, where appropriate, take enforcement action against ASB by any person, regardless of their relationship with the Council.
59. I asked the Council for its comments on this. It replied:

“We acknowledge that our response to [Miss F] at Stage 1 incorrectly stated that the Council only has the power to investigate ASB if either the complainant or the alleged perpetrator is a Council tenant. We sincerely apologise for this incorrect statement and any confusion or distress it may have caused.

“Haringey Council has a statutory duty and the necessary powers to investigate ASB complaints, regardless of the housing status of those involved. However, our approach is to prioritise cases in line with our enforcement policies and resources. In this instance, [Miss F] was advised to report matters of harassment and intimidation to the police, as these may be criminal offences best handled by them. While this advice was appropriate in relation to criminal matters, we recognise that our response did not fully reflect the Council’s wider role in investigating ASB complaints.”

60. The Council also explained it had implemented several service improvements to address this issue, including providing training for officers.
61. It is positive the Council has recognised its fault here and taken proactive steps to prevent a recurrence. However, this does not address the way this fault has affected its investigation of Miss F’s case. And I note, in particular, the Council’s stage 1 response was not the only time in this case it wrongly described its jurisdiction on ASB – the case officer from the noise team made a very similar comment in an email to Miss F on 3 May 2024.
62. I am conscious that, despite this fault, in July 2024 the Council did ask an ASB officer to review the evidence Miss F had provided, as part of its consideration of her ASB case review application. However, the officer’s review appears to have been limited to the videos from Miss F’s doorbell, which recorded the neighbours making obscene gestures and comments as they passed by. The officer’s conclusion was that the neighbours were simply reacting to what they considered to be the intrusive placement of a camera.
63. The officer was entitled to draw this conclusion and I do not consider there is any fault in this, in isolation – but his review did nothing to consider the wider elements of Miss F’s complaint, about the noise from rowdy gatherings the neighbours would frequently convene. While the Council made several visits to investigate these as a potential noise nuisance, such complaints clearly meet the definition of ASB, and the Council should have given considered them under its ASB powers as well.
64. This is not simply a question of semantics. The statutory nuisance regime can be quite restrictive, in that it requires a council to objectively demonstrate a nuisance reaches the ‘statutory’ threshold before it has any power to enforce against it. Councils’ ASB powers, on the other hand, can apply to a much broader set of circumstances, and can be used to tackle behaviour which it generally considers unacceptable, even if it does not seem to reach any technical threshold. So failing to treat a situation as ASB, when it should, can wrongly limit the powers a council has to deal with it.
65. I must reiterate, at this point, it is not for me to determine whether the problems Miss F described amounted to actionable ASB. But, by failing to properly consider this, it is possible the Council has missed an opportunity to deal with it. This creates significant uncertainty, which is an injustice to Miss F. I will consider what the Council should do to remedy this injustice at a later point in this decision statement.

The Council’s consideration of this as a potential noise nuisance

66. In the narrow sense, and notwithstanding my criticism of the ASB aspect, I consider the Council responded well to Miss F’s complaints of noise nuisance. It responded promptly to her various out-of-hours reports, and, where possible, visited her property to investigate. In doing so officers witnessed the noise she was complaining about on several occasions.
67. I understand Miss F does not agree with the officers’ assessment of the noise. While she is entitled to do so, again, it is not for me to make my own judgement on whether a noise amounts to a statutory nuisance. Her disagreement with the officers does not provide evidence of fault.
68. However, in response to Miss F’s stage 1 complaint, the Council said that, in order to substantiate a statutory nuisance, officers must witness the alleged nuisance in person, and could not rely on the evidence of recordings.
69. This is not true. There is nothing in law which says officers must witness a nuisance in person – the legislation simply requires that officers are “satisfied” that a statutory nuisance exists, at which point they must serve an abatement notice. Officers can use electronic evidence, such as recordings from noise monitoring equipment, to support such a finding, even if they have been unable to experience it in person.
70. This is an important point in Miss F’s case, because I note she made a series of recordings via the Noise App (smartphone-based software which allows a person to submit recordings direct to a council), but I cannot see from the Council’s notes or correspondence that it then gave these recordings any detailed analysis – in fact I have seen very little reference to the recordings in any of the evidence the Council has provided. This implies the Council did not give proper consideration to them as possible evidence of a statutory nuisance, and I assume this is because it wrongly believed it could not rely on them to support taking enforcement action.
71. Again, I cannot make my own finding whether the evidence Miss F submitted was adequate to substantiate a statutory nuisance, and in any case I have not heard the recordings myself. But I remain concerned the Council has wrongly limited the way it has considered the possibility of a statutory nuisance, which again creates an uncertainty.

The Council’s consideration of the licensing issue

72. I do not have a complete set of evidence concerning the PSH team’s investigation. Miss F’s stage 1 complaint implies the landlord did not originally have a licence to let the neighbouring property, but the Council granted them one upon application. Miss F complained about this decision, but the Council did not actually address this point in its response.
73. Without further information I am unable to make any more of this. Either way though, I note Miss F says she appealed to the first-tier tribunal against the Council’s decision to grant the licence; and this being so, it means we no longer have jurisdiction to investigate it. For that reason I will not consider it any further.
74. In the more general sense, I do not consider there is any separate fault in the way the Council has addressed Miss F’s reports as a potential breach of the landlord’s licence. It has investigated, including carrying out a visit to the property, and held a meeting with the landlord. In doing so it drew the conclusion that, in the absence of any compelling evidence of a breach, it could not take any action to enforce the conditions of the licence.
75. Miss F says the neighbours’ behaviour does not have to reach the threshold set out in the Council’s ASB policy to represent a breach of the licence (by the landlord, in failing to address it). I appreciate Miss F’s point, but I consider this is just a technicality. There is no practical distinction which can be made here – if the Council did not consider behaviour to amount to actionable ASB in the general sense, it would be illogical to expect the Council to consider it to amount to actionable ASB for the purpose of the licensing scheme.
76. However, the faults I have identified in the Council’s consideration of the ASB and noise nuisance aspects are also applicable to this point. Those faults mean it is uncertain whether the Council could or should have done more under its ASB and nuisance powers. Given the Council relied on the same decisions to justify not taking action under the licensing scheme, it gives rise to similar injustice in this respect.

The Council’s consideration of Miss F’s ASB case review application

77. The Council’s records show Miss F first requested an ASB case review on 8 April 2024. There does not appear to be any further reference to this in the records and so I do not know what came of it.
78. On 28 June Miss F submitted a formal application for a review. On 15 August, in a follow-up email to her stage 2 complaint, she said the Council had not given her a decision on her application, despite the commitment on its website to do so in five working days. The Council then responded formally to the request on 24 August, to say it did not qualify for a review.
79. Putting the Council’s delayed response to one side, in correspondence with Miss F, the Council said the eligibility criteria for the ASB case review process are that:

• the complainant has reported ASB to the council, police and/or registered housing provider three times in the last six months; and
• no action has been taken; and
• their case has been closed (if it is still open they must wait for the outcome).

80. The eligibility criteria for the ASB case review process, as set out in law, are simply that a person has met the local threshold for the number and timeliness of their reports of ASB. The ‘maximum’ threshold, which most authorities (including the Council) have adopted, is that a person should have made three reports of ASB to a relevant body in the previous six months, and that they have made each report within a month of the incident in question. If so, the threshold is met, and a review must be held.
81. However, the Council has included two further criteria in its scheme, that “no action” has been taken in response to the reports, and that the case has been closed. The law does not permit the Council to include these additional stipulations. Including irrelevant criteria in the case review policy is a form of gatekeeping, which is fault; and in fact we highlighted this particular issue when we published our focus report on ASB (‘Out of order’) in August 2023.
82. The Council should therefore have accepted Miss F’s application and held a review, which causes further injustice to her.

Conclusions and remedy

83. I find the Council to be at fault because:

• it misunderstood its jurisdiction on ASB, and failed to give proper consideration to Miss F’s reports as a result;
• it wrongly believed officers must witness nuisance in person to take enforcement action, and did not properly consider recordings Miss F had provided;
• its investigation of the licensing aspect may have been affected consequentially by these faults; and
• the Council applied the wrong legal test to Miss F’s ASB case review application and rejected it as a result.

84. These faults all caused Miss F an injustice, because of the uncertainty about what might have happened if the Council had investigated properly.
85. To remedy this, and in line with our published guidance on remedies, I consider the Council should offer Miss F £300, and to write a formal letter of apology, acknowledging these faults and the impact they have had on her.
86. In my draft decision on Miss F’s complaint, I recommended the Council now undertake an ASB case review, as it should have done when she applied for it. In doing so, I said this would provide the Council an opportunity to consider what actions its ASB and noise teams should take to address the faults I have identified with their investigations.
87. However, in response to my draft decision, Miss F confirmed she has now sold and moved out of the property in question. While this does not address the injustice she experienced from the Council’s faults while she was living there, it does mean she is no longer experiencing the ASB itself, and so there is no longer any purpose to the Council carrying out an review of this particular case. I have therefore withdrawn this recommendation.
88. I have already noted the Council has taken proactive steps to implement service improvements, concerning its misapprehension of its jurisdiction on ASB. However, the Council should also take similar steps to address the other faults I have identified here, by:

• circulating guidance to relevant staff, to highlight that officers do not need to witness a nuisance in person to substantiate that it amounts to a statutory nuisance; and
• reviewing and amending its published ASB case review criteria to ensure it is adherent to the law, and circulating a notice to relevant staff to highlight this change.

I make recommendations to this effect.

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Action

89. Within one month of the date of my final decision, the Council has agreed to:

• offer to pay Miss F £300, to reflect her distress and frustration caused by the uncertainty arising from the Council’s fault;
• write a formal letter of apology to acknowledge the same injustice. We publish guidance on remedies which sets out our expectations for how organisations should apologise effectively to remedy injustice. The Council should consider this guidance in making the apology I have recommended in my findings;
• circulate guidance to relevant staff, to highlight that officers do not need to witness a nuisance in person to substantiate that it amounts to a statutory nuisance; and
• review and amending its published ASB case review criteria to ensure it is adherent to the law, and circulate a notice to relevant staff to highlight this change.

90. The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.

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Decision

91. I find fault causing injustice.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman