Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to provide reports on noise nuisance and fire safety to support her legal claim against her social housing landlord. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about the Council failing to provide her with reports of noise in a neighbouring property which she believes is anti-social noise and also failure to take action over lack of sound insulation and fire safety concerns.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Ms X says the Council failed to identify statutory nuisance from her neighbours whom she says are causing anti-social behaviour through noise nuisance,. It carried out investigations under the provisions of the Environmental protection Act 1990 and visited her and her neighbours on two occasions.
6. Council’s have a duty under the legislation to investigate complaints about noise nuisance. The Council carried out this duty and says that the noise is domestic noise, mainly related to the neighbour’s child and this is not statutory nuisance. If no statutory nuisance is identified it cannot issue an abatement notice. The Council says the neighbour has no floor coverings which is exacerbating sound transmission. This has since been resolved by the tenant following contact with the landlord.
7. The Council commented initially that the flats may lack adequate soundproofing. Ms X says she needs technical reports of this but the Council has not provided any. The Council checked the compliance of the property with the Building Regulations and says that it is compliant with the regulations of the time. They are not retrospective and cannot be applied to current regulation requirements. This means no reports could be produced to support Ms X’s action against her landlord.
8. Ms X expressed concerns about fire safety in her flat to the Council’s officers and says they did not pass these on to the Fire service. The Council says that if tenants are concerned about fire safety this is a landlord and tenant issue and they should contact the Fire Service about any concerns who then may investigate the claim and take it up with the landlord if necessary. Ms X has a social housing landlord and she could have pursued a complaint with the Housing Ombudsman Service if she believed they were breaching her contract.
9. Ms X is concerned that the Council is supposed to support her and it failed to do so. This is not the case. The Council had a duty to investigate the noise complaint but it must not favour the complainant or the alleged perpetrator. It must carry out a fair investigation and if no statutory nuisance is identified it cannot take further action under the legislation. It has explained its roe to Ms X and she must use her own evidence to support her case against her landlord.
10. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to provide reports on noise nuisance and fire safety to support her legal claim against her social housing landlord. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman