Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s handling of matters relating to a House in Multiple Occupation in which he once lived. The Ombudsman will not investigate the complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council or injustice caused to Mr X to warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mrs Y, the representative for the complainant, who I refer to as Mr X, says the Council was at fault in how it dealt with the landlord/agent of a property rented out as a House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) once occupied by Mr X. She says Mr X was caused injustice because he lived in the property when it was unsafe and because the Council gave assurances work it required the landlord to carry out would be completed but it was not. She wants the Council to refund the £7,000 rent Mr X paid while living at the property.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

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

3. 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

4. In considering the complaint I spoke to Mrs Y and reviewed the information she and the Council provided. I gave Mrs Y the opportunity to comment on my draft decision and considered what she said.

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What I found

5. Mr X lived in an HMO between September 2016 and July 2017. In the last month of his occupation his mother, Mrs Y, wrote to the Council to complain about the poor and unsafe state of the property.
6. The Council inspected the property and drew up a schedule of works it required the landlord to complete and worked with the landlord to ensure the urgent works were completed while Mr X remained in the property. The Council says the additional works were completed after Mr X had vacated at the end of his tenancy. Mrs Y disagrees that the works were done.
7. At the end of July 2017 the Council responded to the complaint Mrs Y had made about the HMO and the Council’s actions in connection with it. Mrs Y was not satisfied with this stage 1 response made under its complaints procedure. The Council’s records show Mrs Y was asked if she wanted to escalate the matter to stage 2 but that she emailed to agree the matter could be resolved informally.
8. Due to an officer error, Mrs Y was not kept updated on the case as she had requested until she made contact with the Council in February 2018. There was no further contact from Mrs Y about the matter until February 2019 when she contacted the Council again. The Council dealt with this communication as a stage 2 request and responded to her numerous queries in some detail in its response sent in March 2019.
9. The Council did not uphold the complaint and confirmed it would not be paying compensation of an amount equivalent to the rent Mr X had paid during his tenancy.

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Assessment

10. Mrs Y says the property was in a poor state at the time Mr X moved in and that while she had pursued matters on his behalf with the landlord/agent, she did not contact the Council about it until the last month of his tenancy. She says she did not know earlier on that she could complain to the Council about the HMO.
11. The delay in bringing the matter to the Council’s attention was unfortunate because as soon as she did complain it inspected the property, drew up the schedule of works and worked with the landlord to get them completed.
12. I have seen no evidence to suggest there was fault by the Council in the way it dealt with matters once, in the last month of Mr X’s tenancy, it had been made aware of the problems. Mrs Y says there has been fault by the Council in relation to its handling of additional work at the property since the time Mr X left it. Not only does the time restriction highlighted at paragraph 3 of this statement apply to the complaint, and there is no evidence that there was fault by the Council, Mr X was no longer living in the property after July 2017.
13. Mrs Y says Mr X’s injustice continued after he vacated the property because the Council had made unfulfilled promises to him about the work to be done and these promises were not kept. However, regardless of whether this was the case or not, this injustice is not significant enough to warrant an investigation by the Ombudsman.

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Final decision

14. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council or injustice caused to Mr X to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman