Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about valuations of Mr X’s home. This is because Mr X could have gone to the district valuer, part of the complaint is late, and Mr X need not accept the Council’s offer to buy his property.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council wrongly valued his home when selling it to him and when he later offered to sell it back to the Council. He suggests this was due to racial discrimination, which the Council denies. Mr X says the matters complained of made him stressed, confused and worried.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide there is another body better placed to consider this complaint. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))
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. I considered information provided by the complainant.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

6. If someone buys their home from the Council under the ‘right to buy’ and decides to sell the home within certain timescales, they must first offer it to the Council before offering it for sale on the open market.
7. The district valuer, who is independent of the Council, can decide any question about the value of a house being sold under the ‘right to buy’ or being offered back to the Council after the right to buy. We expect people to go to the district valuer because that is the route the law provides, the district valuer has the relevant expertise and can make binding decisions.
8. Mr X bought his home from the Council in 2017. The Council says Mr X sought a redetermination of the Council’s valuation at that time, but then changed his position and accepted the Council’s value. Mr X now suggets the property was too expensive when the Council sold it to him.
9. Mr X could have taken advice about the value in 2017 and he had the right to go to the district valuer about the matter then. That was the proper route. It is not appropriate for the Ombudsman now to try to establish what the correct valuation should have been four years ago. Also, Mr X knew about this matter in 2017 so the restriction in paragraph 3 applies. I do not see good reason for us to accept this late complaint now.
10. More recently, Mr X sought to sell his home so offered it to the Council first. The Council valued it at £15,000 less than Mr X had bought it for. Mr X argues that is too low as a year earlier the Council valued a comparable property at £5,000 less than it is offering him and he believes prices have risen since then.
11. Mr X could have taken advice on the Council’s offer if he was concerned about it. He had the right to go to the district valuer for an independent decision on the value the Council should pay if it wanted to buy the property back. For the reasons given above, I consider that would have been the appropriate action to take to resolve this dispute. Again, it is not appropriate for the Ombudsman to try to establish a property’s value. Also, the Council has pointed out Mr X is not obliged to sell the property to the Council if he is unhappy with the Council’s offer; he can offer the property on the open market instead.
12. The valuations are the central point of Mr X’s complaint. For the reasons I have given, it is not appropriate for us to investigate the valuations. In that context, there are not strong enough grounds for us to investigate possible reasons for the Council’s valuations, including the allegation of discrimination.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because: the district valuer, not the Ombudsman, is the appropriate forum for deciding valuation disputes; part of the complaint is late; and Mr X need not accept the Council’s offer to buy his property.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman