Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s handling of a Right to Buy application. This is mainly because it is reasonable for Mr X to take court action.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council failed to follow Right to Buy law and the complaint-handling code, and did not deal with his requests for information. He says this caused financial loss, stress and uncertainty.

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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. The Information Commissioner's Office considers complaints about freedom of information. Its decision notices may be appealed to the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights). So where we receive complaints about freedom of information, we normally consider it reasonable to expect the person to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner.
4. We normally expect someone to refer the matter to the Information Commissioner if they have a complaint about data protection or access to information about themselves. However, we may decide to investigate if we think there are good reasons. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
5. We will not usually investigate complaint handling if we are not investigating the rest of the complaint. This is because there is not usually enough injustice to justify us doing so. We collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34B(8))

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
7. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

8. Mr X disputes the Council’s decisions regarding his Right to Buy discount entitlement and its handling of his Right to Buy application. In particular, he is concerned about delays in issuing the required notices, which he believes have affected the level of discount available to him and resulted in him continuing to pay rent for longer than necessary, which he is concerned the Council might not deduct from the eventual purchase price.
9. The law allows the County Court to decide any dispute about the ‘Right to Buy’ except for disputes about the valuation of property (valuation is not relevant to this complaint). (Housing Act 1985, section 181). 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 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 home. The court could also make a binding order if it saw fit, which the Ombudsman could not. For these reasons, it is reasonable to expect Mr X to use the right to go to court. 
10. Mr X says the Council has failed to respond to his requests for information. It would not be a good use of public resources for us to investigate this when we are not investigating the substantive complaint about the house purchase. Moreover, the Information Commissioner has the necessary expertise to decide these matters. It is more appropriate for Mr X to go to the Information Commissioner about these matters.
11. Mr X further complains about the Council’s complaint-handling. 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

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint. It is reasonable to expect Mr X to use his right to go to court on the ‘Right to Buy’ dispute. The Information Commissioner is better placed to decide the points about access to information. It would be disproportionate to investigate the Council’s complaint-handling in isolation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman