Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to act on Mrs X’s concerns about her neighbour and the condition of their garden. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council. We also cannot look at the Council’s actions when it is acting as a social housing provider.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains that the Council has not done enough to address the overgrown garden at a neighbouring property, which she says has caused a pest problem. She wants the Council to provide ongoing support to her neighbour to ensure the property and garden are properly maintained.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)
3. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. 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)
4. We cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
6. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. Mrs X owns a property next to a Council-owned home. She says the Council tenant has not properly maintained their property and that the overgrown garden attracts pests.
8. Mrs X says she has had to cut the hedges and maintain the garden of the neighbouring property for 25 years because of this issue. However, we can only consider events from October 2024 onwards because there is no good reason why Mrs X could not have complained to us earlier if she was unhappy with the Council’s actions before then.
9. In response to Mrs X’s complaint, the Council said it carried out several pest control visits and found no evidence of rats inside the property. Officers placed bait boxes outside and decided enforcement action was not necessary.
10. The Council said it warned the tenant about maintaining the garden, but inspections showed the garden’s condition did not meet the legal threshold for enforcement or amount to a statutory nuisance.
11. We cannot investigate any part of Mrs X’s complaint about how the Council manages the neighbouring property because we have no authority to consider complaints about a Council when it acts as a social housing landlord. This means we cannot require the Council to help the tenant maintain their garden, so we cannot achieve the outcome Mrs X wants.
12. We will not investigate this complaint. We are not an appeal body and cannot question a Council’s decision where there is not enough evidence of fault in the way it reached that decision. The Council considered Mrs X’s concerns, inspected the garden, and decided there was not enough evidence of a pest problem to justify further action. Although Mrs X disagrees with the outcome, the Council carried out an appropriate investigation. As there is not enough evidence of fault, we cannot question the decision.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council. We also cannot look at the Council’s actions when it is acting as a social housing provider.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman