Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mrs B’s complaint that the Council admitted her right to buy her home in 2016 but subsequently denied it in 2018. This is because we cannot achieve the outcome Mrs B is seeking.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mrs B, complained that the Council admitted her right to buy her home in 2016 but subsequently denied it when she re-applied in 2018 although nothing had changed. Mrs B told us this has caused her stress, significantly affected her health and her husband cannot use the money he transferred from his pension fund for the purpose of buying their home.

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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)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I have considered the information Mrs B provided and given her an opportunity to comment on my draft decision.

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What I found

4. Mrs B is a council tenant. In 2013 the Council agreed adaptations to the bathroom of her home to meet her needs.
5. In 2016 Mrs B applied for the right to buy her home. The Council admitted her right to buy at a discount and sent her details of the purchase price for the property. Mrs B says she did not have the funds available to go ahead with the purchase at that time. The Council told her she could re-apply in the future. But it gave no guarantee such an application would be successful.
6. In 2018 Mrs B’s husband accessed his pension fund to provide the money for buying the property and Mrs B re-applied for the right to buy. But this time the Council denied she had the right to buy. This was on the basis her home is substantially different from other properties and it is one of a group of properties designed or adapted for use by disabled people.
7. The view of the council officer who replied to Mrs B’s complaint at the final stage of the Council’s complaint process was the Council should not have admitted her right to buy in 2016.
8. Mrs B wants the Council to honour its decision on her first application. She said it should have denied her application then, not after her husband had raised the funds for the purchase leaving him with no guaranteed income in later life.
9. There is no basis for us to call on the Council to provide the remedy Mrs B is seeking. That is because, had the Council taken the approach in 2016 which it took in 2018, it would not have admitted the right to buy. Mrs B would not have been able to go ahead with the purchase.
10. When Mrs B re-applied for the right to buy almost two years after her first application, there was no guarantee the Council would accept it. The Council had to make a new decision. It considered the relevant legislation and made a decision it was legitimate to make. There is no evidence of fault in the way the Council reached its decision in 2018. We must consider if the injustice Mrs B has described is a direct result of the Council’s actions. Until the Council reached a decision on Mrs B’s application, there was always a risk the outcome would not be as Mrs B would have wished. There is not a clear enough link between the injustice Mrs B has described and the Council’s actions.

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Final decision

11. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot achieve the outcome the complainant is seeking.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman