Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to issue a temporary notice for a selective licensing scheme. Further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained about the Council’s failure to issue her with a Temporary Exemption Notice from its selective licencing scheme for private landlords. She says she did not receive a notice from the Council and is unable to recover her rented home from current tenants. She says the Council has threatened to take enforcement action against her for not having a valid licence or notice under the Housing act 2004 provisions.

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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:

• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

(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’s responses.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mrs X says the Council claims it issued a temporary Exemption Notice from requiring a licence in April 2025. She says she applied in January and did not hear from the Council, when she made enquiries in July the Council told her the Notice had been emailed to her in April and had now expired. The Council told her that she was now in breach of the Housing Act 2004 requirements for her property to be licensed and that she should apply for a licence or risk receiving a penalty.
6. Mrs X says she did not receive the licence. The application was made in January and she did not hear anything until her enquiries in July. Given the amount of time which passed before she made enquiries it would have been reasonable for her to enquire before 6 months from applying. The Council is the enforcement authority and it has powers to apply financial penalties for unlicensed landlords within the selective licensing scheme.
7. 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

8. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to issue a temporary notice for a selective licensing scheme. Further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman