Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to take enforcement action over a reported noise and neighbour nuisance. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Ms X complained about the Council failing to take action against her neighbour who she says has been causing noise nuisance for years. She says the Council should have served an abatement notice for the noise and have taken action to evict her neighbour for tenancy breaches.

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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.

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

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)

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

5. Ms X is a leaseholder in a block which is owned by the Council. She says her neighbour has caused nuisance for a number of years and she has reported the noise matters to the Council’s environmental services and the behaviour to the Council landlord. She says the Council’s environmental health officers investigated her noise complaints but made subjective views on the extent of the nuisance and told her that in their opinion the noise was not something which would be a statutory nuisance to the average person.
6. Ms X says she considers this to be insulting to her by insinuate that she was not an average person. She thinks the test was subjective and not supporting of her concern and rights to quiet enjoyment.
7. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 places a duty on councils to investigate reports of nuisance and to take reasonable steps to investigate any complaints of statutory nuisance that it receives. The task of detecting statutory nuisances is usually delegated to Environmental Health Officers. They are the recognised experts and their professional judgement is very important – if they consider that a nuisance is being caused a Magistrate will normally accept their view.
8. There is no legal definition of statutory nuisance, this is what the officers have to determine. If the Council had considered the issue to be a statutory nuisance it would be required to serve an abatement notice. There is no duty to serve a notice if the Council decides there is no statutory nuisance, as in this case.
9. The Council explained the way in which the law works and why it would not take further action. Councils only have a duty to investigate complaints about statutory nuisance, there is no duty to serve a notice unless it is decided that a nuisance exists.
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.
11. Ms X also complained about the Failure of the Council housing landlord to take action over a tenant whom she says has breached her tenancy conditions. The Council has not divulged what action it is taking for data protection reasons. We cannot investigate complaints about the management of tenancies by social housing landlords. Ms X is a leaseholder with the Council and she could submit a complaint to the Housing Ombudsman service which is the body responsible for investigating complaints about social housing landlords.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s failure to take enforcement action over a reported noise and neighbour nuisance. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman