Stevenage Borough Council (23 017 819)
Category : Housing > Council house sales and leaseholders
Decision : Upheld
Decision date : 15 Nov 2024
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Ms Y complained about the way the Council dealt with her Right to Buy application. We have found fault by the Council, causing injustice, in failing to communicate properly and keep proper records regarding her application, and its poor complaint handling. The Council has agreed to remedy this injustice by apologising to Ms Y, making a symbolic payment to reflect the upset caused and reporting on improvements to its service.
The complaint
- The complainant, Ms Y, complains about the way the Council dealt with her Right to Buy application in 2021. It lost the information she provided for her application and failed to progress it properly. Ms Y says:
- the Council acknowledged her application in February 2021 and arranged for a valuer to visit her home to carry out a valuation;
- it contacted her in March and April 2021 about information required for the application, which she provided. The Council then failed to progress her application;
- she contacted the Council regularly about her application but did not receive any response; and
- in response to her complaint in 2022, the Council said it had not progressed her application because she had not provided the required information.
- Ms Y wants the Council to reinstate her Right to Buy application and proceed on the basis of the 2021 valuation.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- 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 significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
- If we are satisfied with an organisation’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)
How I considered this complaint
- I spoke to Ms Y, made enquiries of the Council and read the information Ms Y and the Council provided about the complaint.
- I have invited Ms Y and the Council to comment on a draft version of this decision. I considered their responses before making my final decision.
What I found
What should have happened
The Right to Buy Scheme
- Under the Government’s Right to Buy scheme, a secure Council tenant can buy their home, if they meet qualifying criteria, at a lower price than the full market value. A discount is calculated based on the length of time they have been a tenant. The law governing the Right to Buy scheme is in the Housing Act 1985.
- The key stages in the Right to Buy (RTB) process are:
- A tenant applies to buy their property using form RTB1;
- The Council has four weeks to decide whether the applicant is eligible to buy the property and issue form RTB2;
- If the tenant is eligible to buy the property, the Council then has eight weeks to send the applicant a formal section 125 notice (RTB4). This sets out the sale price and terms and conditions of sale;
- If a Council does not meet these timescales, the Housing Act 1985 gives the applicant the option of serving an initial notice of delay form (RTB6);
- A Council must then either progress the sale within a month or send a counter notice (RTB7) to the tenant. The counter notice will explain what action the Council has already taken or explain why it cannot progress the sale;
- If the Council does not reply within a month the tenant can complete an ‘operative notice of delay’ form (RTB8). Once this notice is sent, a Council may need to refund the rent the tenant has paid during the period of delay; and
- If the Council still does not act on the notices of delay, a tenant may take their dispute to the County Court under section 181 of the Act. The County Court may decide any question about the RTB scheme, other than the value of the property, which can be determined by the District Valuer.
- The Ombudsman usually expects a tenant to use the statutory notice of delay procedure. It provides a remedy as any rent paid during a period of delay by a Council is deducted from the purchase price. The procedure is publicised in information Councils sent to RTB applicants and on the Government’s RTB website.
What happened
- I have set out a summary of the key events below. It is not meant to show everything that happened. It is based on my review of all the evidence provided about this complaint.
February 2021: Ms Y’s Right to Buy application
- Ms Y asked the Council to send her its Right to Buy information pack. She then made her Right to Buy (RTB) application.
- The Council acknowledged Ms Y’s RTB application on 9 February. It wrote to her setting out the further information and documents it required from her for the application, including identity documents and proof of address.
March to April 2021: The request for further information
- Ms Y sent the Council some of the information. The Council confirmed this had been received this and told her about the further documents it required from her, as proof of address.
- Ms Y contacted the Council by email on 30 March about her difficulty obtaining these documents. She asked the Council for advice about this.
- Ms Y did not receive any reply from the Council and chased it for a response.
- The Council told Ms Y the officer who had been dealing with her application had left. It then sent her an email on 29 April explaining the outstanding information it required from her.
December 2021: Ms Y contacts the Council about her application
- Ms Y contacted the Council by email in December 2021. She said she had provided the outstanding information some time ago. She had phoned a number of times and been told someone would contact her but had heard nothing further about her application.
- The Council checked the position. It noted Ms Y’s application was in a folder but had not been recorded on its RTB register. And that it appeared it had been waiting for outstanding documents from Ms Y but had no record of these being received.
January to June 2022: Ms Y’s complaint about her RTB application
- Ms Y complained to the Council about its handling of her RTB application. She also questioned why her property wasn’t part of the Council’s improvement programme.
- The Council initially told her there was no record of an RTB application from her in 2021. But after Ms Y provided details of her contact with it in 2021, the Council accepted it had received her application.
- The Council then said, in response to Ms Y’s complaint:
- an officer had collected documents from her. It had scanned copies of these documents but it could not establish what happened to the original documents;
- the application did not progress because Ms Y had not provided proof of residency information;
- it removes a property from its improvement programme when it receives an RTB application for that property;
- it accepted it had removed her property from its improvement programme but it had not recorded the reason for this. It could return her property to the programme; and
- it had no record of an ongoing RTB application. If she wanted to proceed, she would have to make a new RTB application which would be based on the property’s current value.
- The Council also told Ms Y:
- it accepted there had been communication failures;
- it understood she was deciding whether to make a new RTB application or take up the offered improvement programme; and
- if she was not satisfied with its response, she could refer her complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Scheme.
June 2022 to January 2024: Complaint to the Housing Ombudsman Scheme
- Ms Y complained to the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (HOS) about the way the Council handled her RTB application. She also referred to the Council’s delay in completing improvement work.
- HOS looks at complaints about the management of social housing. It started an investigation into Ms Y’s complaint and asked the Council for information about the improvement work.
- In January 2024, HOS decided it could not continue to investigate Ms Y’s complaint.
- This was because it considered Ms Y’s complaint was not about the Council’s management of her social housing property but related to the way in which the Council dealt with her 2021 RTB application. We can investigate complaints about RTB applications. HOS is not able to look at this type of complaint. So it referred the complaint to us.
Concerns about improvement works
- 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).
- As explained in paragraph 25 this is a matter for HOS.
- I don’t know if Ms Y has concerns about any improvement work I understand the Council is now completing to her property. But if she does have a complaint about this, which she cannot resolve with the Council, it should be referred to HOS.
Council’s response to the complaint to us
- The Council has told us it:
- understood HOS was investigating the repair and improvement work issues, and that Ms Y was not pursing her complaint about the 2021 RTB application;
- accepted that as her 2021 RTB application had not progressed, her property should have been included in the improvement programme. It had begun engaging with Ms Y about the improvement work; and
- wouldn’t have engaged with Ms Y about the improvement work if there was an ongoing RTB application, or she wanted to proceed with an application.
- The Council also sent us details of its contact with Ms Y in January 2024 about her complaint it had failed to carry out the improvement work. In its response to this complaint it said:
- Ms Y had recently come back to it about her complaint and confirmed she did not wish to buy her home at the moment. This was why it was now looking at the improvement works required; and
- it offered Ms Y compensation for its failure to carry out the improvement work sooner as it should have done had its records correctly shown there was no RTB application.
- The Council’s compensation offer was for a total of £900 made up of:
- £250 for poor complaint handling;
- £500 for its poor communication and time and trouble Ms Y had spent pursuing this; and
- £150 for poor record keeping.
- Ms Y says she never told the Council she did not want to go ahead with her RTB application.
My view – was there fault by the Council causing injustice
The 2021 RTB application and the Council’s communication about this
- The Council has accepted, and I agree, it failed to communicate properly with Ms Y about, and keep accurate records for, her 2021 RTB application. It failed to:
- record Ms Y’s application on its RTB register in February 2021, in accordance with its RTB process;
- confirm receipt of the original documents Ms Y provided and process them correctly;
- decide whether Ms Y was eligible to buy the property; and
- provide Ms Y with accurate information about her application when she contacted it in December to ask what was happening.
- I consider these failures in communication and record keeping were fault.
- These failures caused Ms Y upset, frustration and uncertainty about her application.
- But we cannot achieve the remedy Ms Y said she wanted at the outset of her complaint - which was for the Council to proceed with her 2021 RTB application on the basis of the property’s value in 2021. The Council did not even get as far as issuing the RTB2 form confirming whether she was eligible to buy the property and there is no evidence any valuation was completed in 2021.
- And in any event, the Housing Act 1985 sets out the procedure councils and tenants should follow for the RTB process (see paragraphs 8.9 &10). This procedure was explained in the RTB information pack the Council sent Ms Y before she made her application in February 2021.
- Under this procedure, if there are delays or issues with the RTB process, tenants have the right to:
- serve, or continue to serve, notices of delay on the Council;
- serve operative delay notices, if the Council fails to act or serves a counter notice, which can provide the remedy for the delays experienced through a reduction in the purchase price based on their rent payments; and
- take their dispute to the County Court under section 181 of the Act. The County Court may decide any question about the RTB scheme, other than the value of the property, which can be determined by the District Valuer.
- This process is designed to stop drift in RTB applications. I consider Ms Y could have used this process in 2021 once the delays with her application started, and there was no reason for her not to do so.
The Council’s complaint handling
- In my view the Council failed to properly investigate Ms Y’s complaint and its responses were confusing and misleading.
- It initially said it had not received the 2021 application. Then, having accepted it had received the application, it did not acknowledge its failures in its administration of the application. This included the failure to record Ms Y’s application in its RTB register which caused the confusion over why her property had been removed from the improvement programme.
- And it wrongly signposted Ms Y to HOS instead of telling her the complaint about the way it dealt with her RTB application should be brought to us.
- These failures were fault and caused Ms Y additional upset, frustration and uncertainty. And also the wasted time and effort of referring her complaint to HOS.
Council’s proposed remedy
- The Council has offered to pay Ms Y £900 as redress for the upset and time and trouble caused to her by its poor complaint handling, communication and record keeping.
- I consider this offer meets the expectations in our published guidance on remedies. Other than apologising to Ms Y, I do not propose asking the Council to take any further action to remedy the injustice caused to Ms Y by the faults identified in this decision.
- But I have asked the Council to report to us on the action it has taken since 2021/2022 to ensure it properly records and processes RTB applications.
Agreed action
- To remedy the injustice caused by the above faults and, within four weeks from the date of our final decision, the Council should:
- apologise to Ms Y for its failures in communication and record keeping regarding her RTB application and its poor complaint handling. This apology should be in line with our guidance on Making an effective apology; and
- pay Ms Y £900 as it offered to do, to reflect the upset and uncertainty, time and trouble caused by its failures in paragraph 49(a), as a symbolic amount based on our guidance on remedies
- And within three months from the date of our final decision, the Council should report to us on the action it has taken since 2021/2022 to ensure it properly records and processes RTB applications.
- The Council should provide us with evidence it has complied with the above actions.
Final decision
- I have completed my investigation and found fault by the Council causing injustice. The Council has agreed to take the above action to remedy this injustice.
Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman