Summary: There was fault by the Council. It took too long to complete the sale of the leasehold interest to Miss B under the right to buy scheme. It sent wrongly dated letters and it failed to deal with her complaint in accordance with its complaints process. This caused Miss B distress and frustration and she had to renew her mortgage offer and pay more that she should have. The Council has apologised to Miss B and offered to pay her £10,495. It will also share this decision with its relevant officers reminding them that letters should be properly dated, and staff should follow the complaints process.

The complaint

1. Miss B complains the Council delayed in dealing with her purchase of the leasehold interest of her council flat under the right to buy scheme. As a result, Miss B had to borrow more money, and pay rent when she should have been paying towards the purchase of the flat.
2. The Council acknowledged that it delayed and offered to pay Miss B £10,495. I investigated the complaint further because Miss B complained that this remedy was not sufficient and because she says the Council backdated documents.
3. Miss B also complained the Council charged her too much for the water rates.

Back to top

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. 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’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. 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)
6. The law says we also cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
7. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

8. I have considered the information provided by the complainant and discussed the issues with her. I have considered the Council’s response to my enquiries and its file documents. I have also considered the law and procedure outlined below.
9. Both parties have had the opportunity to comment on a draft of this statement. The Council did not respond. Miss B sent me comments and further evidence and I have considered these before reaching a final decision.

Back to top

What I found

10. Section 119 of the Housing Act gives secure council tenants the right to buy the property they are living in at a set discount. There is a strict procedure for applications.
11. Once a council receives an application from a tenant to buy their property, it has four weeks to issue a notice confirming the applicants are eligible (RTB2). The council then has eight weeks to send the applicant a formal offer letter under Section 125 of the Act (RTB4). This is extended to 12 weeks if the tenant is buying the leasehold interest.
12. The tenant then has 12 weeks in which to decide whether to go ahead with the purchase. The tenant can at this stage ask the District Valuer to value the property. If she does, the 12 weeks to make a decision runs from the Valuer’s determination.
13. If a council fails to meet the timescales, the applicant may serve an initial notice of delay form (RTB6). If they receive no response to this within a month, they may send an ‘Operative Notice of Delay’ form (RTB8). Once the RTB8 form is sent, a council (as landlord) may need to refund rent paid during the period of delay.
14. The County Court may decide any dispute about the right to buy transaction, apart from disputes about valuations, which are referred to the District Valuer.

The Council’s complaints process

15. The Council’s complaints process has two stages. It will respond within 20 working days to a complaint at stage one. If the complainant remains dissatisfied, she asked the Council to consider this at stage two of its complaints procedure. This is a review by the Council’s complaints and information team. A senior officer will aim to respond within 20 working days of the stage two request. The complainant will then be referred to the Ombudsman.

My consideration of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction

16. I have exercised discretion to investigate this complaint.
17. The events complained about happened more than 12 months ago, but the complainant has been pursuing this with the Council since the delay first became apparent. The final impact on Miss B could only be known when the sale was complete.
18. Miss B had the right to serve notices on the Council and ultimately ask the court to remedy the delay. Again, I have exercised discretion to investigate this because this matter has been ongoing for some time and it is not clear the court would interfere now the transaction is complete.

What happened

19. Miss B submitted her application to buy the leasehold interest of her council owned flat. Her application was dated 16 May 2016. She attended a Right to Buy interview with the Council on 6 July and the flat was surveyed on 24 August. The Council received the valuers report on 30 August with a valuation price of £410,000.
20. On 6 September, Miss B received the Council’s decision (RTB2) that her application was denied because, it said, she had not attended the interview. The RTB2 was dated 17 June.
21. Miss B contacted the Council because she had attended the interview and expected the Council to accept her application. The Council says it sent another RTB2 accepting Miss B’s application on 29 September, but again this had the wrong date on it of 12 July. Miss B did not receive this until 3 November. The letter said that the property would be valued but this had already happened. The next step would be for the Council to send Miss B an offer letter setting out the valuation and the discount within 12 weeks of accepting that Miss B could buy her property on 12 July. However, this date had already passed. Miss B raised concerns that she was receiving official documents dated months earlier. The Council told her that letters were drafted but not sent for some time as there were awaiting approval.
22. Miss B received the Council’s offer notice on 7 November and exercised her right to arrange for the District Valuer to revalue the property. The valuation did not change, and the Council sent Miss B a second offer letter on 5 June. Miss B accepted the Council’s offer on 31 August 2017.
23. The Council passed the case to its legal team at the end of 23 October. It would usually take six weeks to deal with the legal paperwork and complete the transaction. But Miss B’s purchase was not completed until 4 June 2018. During this time, Miss B’s mortgage offer expired and she had to make urgent contact with her broker to arrange another mortgage.
24. Miss B says the delays means she paid more for the property, the stamp duty increased and so she had to borrow more money. She says she could not serve a notice of delay because she had thought the Council was dealing with the situation.
25. In response to my enquiries the Council says:
• It delayed in admitting Miss B’s application and in issuing the offer notice. This was because there were high volumes of right to buy applications.
• The Council usually checks its documents before sending. It accepts that it sent backdated documents in this case but said that this was not intentional. The papers were dated the day of printing and then awaited approval. There was a delay in these being approved and the date was not changed as it should have been.
• Miss B could have served delay notices on the Council; however, it has still offered her compensation for the delay.
• The Council now sends leaseholders information about their right to serve delay notices.
• Although the transaction took much longer to complete than expected, the Council says it is not clear that its legal team delayed. It sent Miss B’s solicitors the relevant paperwork but did not receive a response. On 16 January 2018, the Council issued a notice of delay on the solicitors requiring them to complete the purchase within 56 days. The solicitors advised the Council they had not received the legal paperwork and so the Council sent this again, with a suggested completion date of 21 May. The solicitors asked the Council to move the completion date for the sale to 4 June 2018.
26. Miss B complained to the Council on 20 December 2018. The Council responded on 28 January 2019. It acknowledged that it had delayed in admitting her application and making an offer. It said this amounted to 25 weeks of delay and so it offered her compensation of £2,900 representing 25 weeks of rent payments. This calculation was as though Miss B had served delay notices on the Council.
27. Miss B did not accept the Council’s offer. She asked the Council to reconsider its offer on 15 February. She said she had to pay stamp duty at a higher rate, and she could have borrowed less, ultimately paying less interest on her mortgage. The Council responded on 4 March, increasing its offer of compensation to £3,880 to take into account additional interest payable by Miss B.
28. Miss B confirmed that she would not accept the Council’s offer on 8 March. She said this concluded stage two of the Council’s complaints process. The Council telephoned Miss B and increased its offer to include a higher rate of interest and a £250 payment in recognition of the trouble its shortcomings had caused her. The Council put this offer totaling £5,083 in writing to Miss B calling this its final offer.
29. Miss B complained to the Ombudsman. Following my enquiries, the Council made an increased offer to Miss B of £10,495. This takes account of:
• 25 weeks delay by the Council’s right to buy team;
• a further 28 weeks more than the six weeks the legal department would usually take;
• the increased stamp duty payment and interest on the increased amount borrowed; and
• £250 in recognition of the time and trouble Miss B has been put to.

Was there fault by the Council causing an injustice to Miss B?

30. There was fault by the Council. It delayed in accepting the application, in making the formal offer, and in passing the matter to its legal team. This meant the whole transaction took longer than it should have done. This put Miss B to considerable time and trouble and caused her distress, as well as meaning she had to renew her mortgage offer and make rent payments when she otherwise should have been paying less in monthly mortgage repayments.
31. It is less clear whether the Council delayed further after it had referred the matter to its legal team. It took much longer than expected to complete the transaction. The Council says it sent the legal paperwork to Miss B’s solicitors in good time and served a delay notice requiring Miss B to complete the transaction. The solicitors say they did not receive the paperwork and so the delay was with the Council. On the information I have, I cannot tell whether the Council or the solicitors delayed or indeed whether the paperwork was sent but did not reach the solicitors. Miss B points to other cases where the Council has said it sent the legal paperwork, but it has not arrived. However, I do not intend to investigate this matter further. I am unlikely to be able to establish the facts, and more importantly, the Council has included the additional time the transaction took to complete in calculating the compensation, despite not accepting it was responsible for all of the delay.
32. The Council also sent backdated letters and notices. Even if we accept that this was not intentional and was a clerical error, the time between printing and sending the letters was far too long and the letters were dated wrongly. This was fault by the Council. The backdated letters caused concern, frustration and confusion.
33. Once Miss B complained to the Council, it failed to follow its complaints process. Miss B was not satisfied with the Council’s stage one response and it should have put this for a review by a senior officer at stage two of its process. I appreciate the Council was attempting to resolve the complaint and it made three further offers. But failing to consider the complaint at stage two of its process was fault and adds to delays and confusion, not least about when the complainant can bring the matter to the Ombudsman.
34. The Council has admitted that it caused delays and that it sent wrongly dated notices. It has apologised to Miss B and offered to pay her £10,495 in recognition of the impact on her. This is based on an overall delay of 53 weeks.
35. Miss B says the Council’s calculations do not follow the statutory process. It should calculate this by days and not weeks, and does not take account of the Council taking too long to refer the matter to its legal team to complete the transaction.
36. However, I have decided that the Council’s offer is reasonable. If Miss B wanted to use the statutory process to remedy the delays, then her solicitor could have served notices on the Council. I do not need to follow that process. A remedy recommended by the Ombudsman aims to put the complainant back in the position they would have been in had the Council not made mistakes. Having looked at the chronology as presented by Miss B, the Council took around 9 months or 40 weeks longer than it would have done had it not delayed. The Council’s offer is based on 53 weeks delay plus interest on the mortgage and a small payment in recognition of the distress and frustration it caused Miss B. My decision is that this is a reasonable way to settle this complaint.
37. I cannot say that the Council charged Miss B too much for the water rates. At that time, it was collecting these on behalf of the water company. It would not have been able to apply a single person’s tariff and Miss B has not shown me evidence that she asked it to. The Council can make a small charge for collecting the rates on behalf of the company and so Miss B and other tenants would pay more than had they paid the company direct. The Council has stopped collecting water rates on the water company’s behalf.

Agreed action

38. The Council will pay Miss B £10,495 as offered. This is a reasonable payment to remedy the complaint.
39. The Council has also improved the information it gives to leaseholders of their rights should the right to buy process take too long.
40. The Council will also share this decision with its staff and remind the relevant staff that the date of letters should be accurate, and that it should follow its complaints process.
41. The Council will send evidence to the Ombudsman that it has completed this remedy within one month of this decision.

Back to top

Final decision

42. I have completed my investigation. There was fault by the Council causing an injustice to Miss B.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman