Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about a ‘right to buy’ application. Miss X no longer faces the risk of losing her home. It is reasonable to expect Miss X to use her right to take court action on any continuing dispute about buying her home.

The complaint

1. Miss X, through her representative Mr Z, complains the Council did not properly handle her and her mother Mrs Y’s application to buy their home and did not make reasonable adjustments for her mother’s needs. Miss X argues this prevented them buying their home while Mrs Y was still alive.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The law says we 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)
3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and copy correspondence from the Council. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Miss X lived with her mother Mrs Y in a Council home of which Mrs Y was the tenant. They applied to buy their home. Mr Z states the Council delayed for a period, then sought identification evidence and said it could not continue with the application because it had not verified Mrs Y’s identity. Miss X reports the Council had declined an invitation to visit Mrs Y at home to confirm her identity (Mrs Y could not leave home due to illness). Miss X also argues it was not legally necessary to verify Mrs Y’s identity at that stage of the process. Sadly Mrs Y has died.
6. Miss X wants the Council to reverse its decision not to continue with the application. She would like the Council to progress the original application.
7. When Mr Z first complained to us, he said Miss X was facing eviction from her home because she and her mother had not been able to buy it while Mrs Y was alive. Since then, the Council has given Miss X the tenancy of the same property. So we cannot achieve anything by considering this point now.
8. Miss X, as the tenant, can apply to buy her home herself. There might be an argument that any such purchase now would be on less favourable terms than if the Council were to continue with the previous application. The law allows the county court to decide any dispute about the right to buy, except disputes over the valuation of property. (Housing Act 1985, section 181) This is not a valuation dispute. Therefore the restriction in paragraph 2 applies.
9. As the law expressly provides this route for resolving such disputes, we normally expect applicants to use it, with legal advice if necessary. There might be some cost to court action, but that in itself does not automatically make taking court action unreasonable, particularly in the context of a transaction for a valuable asset such as Miss X’s home. Arguments about whether the Council properly followed the law on what was needed at a particular stage of the process are properly for the court. It is also more appropriate for the court than us to decide arguments about the precise circumstances in which a previous ‘right to buy’ application should continue after the death of one of the applicants.
10. For these reasons, it is reasonable to expect Miss X to use the right to go to court on a dispute about whether the Council should reactivate the previous application rather than expect a new application.
11. The complaint that the Council failed to make reasonable adjustments for Mrs Y is an allegation of unlawful discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. We cannot decide if an organisation has breached the Equality Act as this can only be done by the courts. But we can make decisions about whether or not an organisation has properly taken account of an individual’s rights in its treatment of them. However, we will only do this where we consider it appropriate and proportionate to pursue the point. In this case, it would not be proportionate to investigate this point when we are not investigating the broader substantive matter about the Council declining to continue with the ‘right to buy’ application.
12. The Council accepted it delayed dealing with Miss X’s appeal against its decision not to progress the ‘right to buy’ application. It apologised and offered £200. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about appeal or complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue. Also, even if we were investigating the whole matter, it is unlikely we would recommend more than the Council has already done on this point.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate this complaint. Miss X is now a tenant, so no longer faces the risk of losing her home. It is reasonable to expect Miss X to use her right to take court action on any continuing dispute about buying her home. It would be disproportionate for us to investigate the reasonable adjustments point or the Council’s delay with the appeal.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman