Summary: Mr D says the Council mishandled his Right to Buy application. I have found fault by the Council which resulted in a lost opportunity to have the application processed. The Council has already provided an explanation to Mr D and apologised. It has also offered to assist him if he wants to submit a new application and has made a service improvement to prevent the fault happening again. I do not see there is an outstanding unremedied injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant (whom I refer to as Mr D) says the Council mishandled several Right to Buy (RTB) applications dating back to 2022. He is also dissatisfied with the complaints handling in 2025.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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 future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. 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(1), as amended)

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What I have and have not investigated

5. My investigation looked at what happened with Mr D’s RTB application made in April 2025. I have not considered his earlier RTB applications going back to 2022 because he could have complained about them sooner. I see no basis to exercise discretion and consider those late events.

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered evidence provided by Mr D and the Council as well as relevant law, policy and guidance.
7. I shared my draft decision with both parties and considered their comments.

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What I found

What happened

Events prior to the investigation period

8. Mr D lives in a property managed by a Tenancy Management Organisation (TMO) acting on behalf of the Council. The TMO says in March 2025 Mr D’s rent account was amended. Mr D’s tenancy status was changed from ‘secure’ to ‘use and occupation’. It says Mr D was not notified about the change and it cannot explain why this amendment was made.

Events I have investigated

9. On 5 April Mr D submitted a new RTB application to the Council. On 11 April the Council denied the application because Mr D’s tenancy status on his rent account showed as ‘use and occupation’ rather than being a secure tenant. Mr D complained to the TMO In May. The TMO referred the case to the Council because the complaint concerned RTB. The Council advised the TMO it should provide the complaint response with some input from the Council. The TMO replied to Mr D on 24 May. It said it recognised that his last RTB application had been unsuccessful because his rent account stated ‘in error’ that he was a ‘use and occupation’ tenant. It said, ‘this error was made preventing you from going further with your application’. It confirmed he was secure tenant and it had notified the Council. It also stated the Council could not re-open the closed RTB application and Mr D would need to submit a new application. It offered assistance with resubmitting the application. The TMO updated Mr D’s rent account on 26 May to show he was a secure tenant.
10. On 16 June the TMO received a request from Mr D to escalate the complaint to stage two (the final stage in the complaint process). The complaint now included issues about a RTB discount which the TMO says it could not respond to, and the complaint was referred to the Council. The Council then logged this as a stage one complaint. On 18 June the TMO decided to implement a new process because of this case. Changes to tenancy status on a rent account would be discussed at monthly team briefings so that any errors were identified and rectified promptly.
11. On 10 July the Council issued a stage one response. It said Mr D had not met the eligibility criteria for RTB because he was not a secure tenant. Mr D brought his complaint to the Ombudsman in September 2025. Mr D felt the Council should have issued the July response as a stage two complaint reply. On 9 April 2026 the Council issued a stage two complaint response to Mr D. It said the correct process had been followed when assessing the RTB application. The Council said its stage one complaint response had been delayed by five days and apologised. It had been correct to treat the 10 July 2025 response as stage one case.

What should have happened

TMO

12. The TMO is acting as an agent of the Council, for the purposes of this investigation the TMO is the Council. I have kept the terms TMO and Council to help clarify who was taking specific actions in this case.

Right to Buy

13. RTB refers to rights granted under the Housing Act 1985 (as amended) to tenants of social landlords including councils to buy their home at a discount provided they meet the criteria.
14. Under Section 119 of the Housing Act a tenant is eligible to be considered for a RTB application who:

• has rented the property for three years (as a secure tenant) in a row or for a period amounting to three years;
• has lived in the house as his/her only or main home; and
• lives in a home which is self-contained and is not specially adapted for disabled or elderly residents

15. There is a strict procedure for applications. It starts with completing an application form and then time limits run for each part of the process. On receiving the application (RTB1 form) the Council must say yes or no to the application within four weeks of receipt. To assess an application the Council will check the applicant’s eligibility by reviewing their tenancy records held on the housing management system. That will show if the applicant is a secure tenant or not. If the system shows the applicant is not a secure tenant the Council will deem them ineligible to proceed with a RTB application and issue a RTB notice advising the application has been denied. Where a RTB application has been closed by the Council it cannot reopen that application. Instead the applicant would have to submit a new application.

Complaint process

16. The Council and TMO both have a two stage complaint process. A stage one complaint is usually considered by the service area, and the final stage (stage two) complaint is considered by a Head of Service. Where a complaint is made about service delivered by both the Council and the TMO, the Council and TMO will determine which body is best placed to respond. If a complainant has a stage one complaint considered by the TMO and asks to escalate this, the Council can provide a further response if it is primarily about a service it delivers. In such cases the Council would treat the request to escalate the complaint as a new stage one complaint.

Was there fault by the Council

17. The TMO has already accepted there was fault in this case because Mr D’s rent account was incorrectly changed to show he was not a secure tenant. The Council then followed the correct process when checking Mr D’s eligibility for his RTB application. It looked at his rent account to see if he was a secure tenant. It had no reason to believe the information on the system was incorrect at that time. Because the status showed Mr D was not a secure tenant the Council denied the RTB application.
18. Mr D feels his complaint was not handled correctly. The TMO correctly referred his request to escalate the complaint onto the Council because it referred to RTB issues which the Council was better placed to deal with. In line with procedures the Council logged that as a stage one complaint. I understand Mr D felt it should have been logged as a stage two complaint, but I do not consider there is fault in this matter. The Council has already accepted its stage one response in July 2025 was delayed by five days and has apologised. The Council’s responses should have picked up on the error by the TMO and provided an explanation but failed to do so.

Did the fault cause an injustice

19. The fault in this case meant the Council had incorrect information about Mr D’s tenancy status when assessing his RTB application. I cannot say, had the fault not occurred, what the Council would have decided about the application. In view of this, I consider the fault caused Mr D a lost opportunity to have his RTB application assessed further.
20. Mr D would like me to consider financial redress for the rent he has paid on his property since the 2025 RTB application. I see no basis to ask for that redress because I cannot hypothesise about whether the RTB application would have been successful had the fault not occurred.
21. The TMO has already apologised to Mr D and explained what went wrong in his case. It also offered to assist him if wanted to submit a new RTB application. In addition, it has made a service improvement to prevent the error reoccurring. I consider those actions to be a reasonable remedy to the fault and injustice identified in this case. I do not see there is an unremedied injustice that requires further action by the Council.

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Decision

22. I find fault which caused an injustice. The Council has already taken action to remedy that injustice.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman