Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council pulling out of buying a house. This is mainly because it is reasonable to expect Mr X to take court action.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council was at fault for the way it pulled out of buying a home he owns. He says this has caused financial loss, inconvenience and stress. He wants the Council either to buy the property or to pay compensation, including for abortive costs, some ongoing mortgage costs and consequential loss.

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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)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The complaint concerns the Council’s ‘buy back’ of a home. The law allows the county court to decide any dispute about this, except for disputes about valuation (valuation is not relevant to this complaint). (Housing Act 1985, section 181) So the restriction in paragraph 2 applies to this complaint.
6. As the law expressly provides this route for resolving such disputes, we normally expect people to use it, with legal advice if necessary. There might be some cost to court action, but that alone does not automatically make taking court action unreasonable, particularly in the context of a transaction for a valuable asset such as Mr X's property. The court could also make a binding order if it saw fit, which the Ombudsman could not. Mr X argues the Council’s actions created a legitimate expectation it would complete on buying the property and that the Council did not provide full enough information about its circumstances when he was making decisions about the contract. Those points are not necessarily legally straightforward. It is more appropriate for the courts to decide them. Mr X wants the Council either to buy the property or to compensate him, including for consequential loss. Neither of those is the Ombudsman’s role. The court could consider whether the Council should still buy the house. And compensation - especially for consequential loss, which is not legally straightforward - is properly a matter for the courts. For these reasons, it is reasonable to expect Mr X to take court action.
7. Mr X also complains the Council directed him to the wrong ombudsman scheme when he complained. It is not a good use of public resources to investigate complaints about complaint procedures, if we are unable to deal with the substantive issue.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. It is reasonable to expect Mr X to take court action on the point about the Council not buying the property. It would be disproportionate to investigate the complaint-handling in isolation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman