Summary: A man complained about the Council’s failure to take action in response to his concerns that his private rented accommodation did not have planning permission and was not licensed as a House in Multiple Occupation. But the Ombudsman will not investigate this matter. This because the man’s main complaints have been made late, and there is no sign he suffered a significant injustice as a result of fault by the Council in respect of any other issues he raised.

The complaint

1. The complainant, who I shall call Mr X, complained about the way the Council had dealt with issues relating to his private rented accommodation. Mr X complained in particular that the Council:
1. failed to take action in response to his concerns that his accommodation did not have planning permission and was not licensed as a House in Multiple Occupation (HMO);
2. failed to respond to his letter asking for written confirmation the accommodation was not licensed as a HMO;
3. has failed to investigate if there are similar issues affecting other properties in the Borough which are owned by the same landlord;
4. failed to pass on to a neighbouring council his concerns about a property owned by his landlord in that council’s area;
5. has an internal mail system which is illogical and illegal.

Mr X said if the Council had responded to his request for confirmation that his accommodation was not licensed as a HMO it is likely he could have avoided being evicted from the property.

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start an investigation if, for example, we believe:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)

3. 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 an authority has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered the information Mr X provided with his complaint and his comments in response to a draft of this decision. I also took account of information from the Council about its correspondence with Mr X regarding his complaint issues.

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What I found

5. In 2015 Mr X started renting a flat in a house which had been converted into six flats.
6. Subsequently Mr X’s landlord started court proceedings to evict him. In January 2017 Mr X telephoned the Council and was told the property was not licensed as a HMO. In April 2017 Mr X hand delivered a letter to the Council asking it to confirm in writing that the property was unlicensed, but he received no response. Mr X was evicted from his flat the following month.
7. In April 2018 Mr X complained to the Ombudsman about the Council’s failure to enforce a HMO licence in respect of his former accommodation, or to pursue planning enforcement action about the property’s conversion into flats without planning permission.
8. In June 2018 we referred Mr X’s complaint back to the Council to consider as he had not completed its own complaints procedure at that stage.
9. In September the Council sent Mr X a final complaint response. The Council said it had no record of Mr X’s letter from April 2017, but it accepted he had delivered it. The Council apologised for not retaining a copy of the letter.
10. However the Council said it had taken action in January and April 2017 in response to Mr X’s concerns about his accommodation, although it could not go into details about this because of Data Protection issues.
11. The Council also said it had visited the property in response to Mr X’s recent complaint and, as a result, it had served a planning enforcement notice on the owner asking them to restore the property to its previous state. In addition the Council said its Housing service was taking appropriate action about the licensing issue.
12. In June 2019 Mr X complained again to the Ombudsman.

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Analysis

13. But having considered all the information provided in Mr X’s case, I have concluded that we should not start an investigation of his complaint.
14. This is mainly because Mr X has been aware of many of the issues in his complaint for more than 12 months before coming to us. Therefore I consider the restriction on our jurisdiction to investigate, which I refer to in paragraph 3, applies in his case because many of his complaints have been made late.
15. In particular, Mr X evidently knew in May 2017 that the Council had not responded to his letter about the HMO licence issue. But he did not complain to the Ombudsman about this matter until April 2018. In addition Mr X did not come back to us again regarding this issue until June 2019, almost nine months after the Council’s final complaint response in September 2018.
16. I am not clear exactly when Mr X first complained to the Council about the lack of planning permission in respect of his former rented accommodation. But I consider it likely he was aware of this issue well before his complaint to us in April 2018. On that basis I suggest his complaint in this respect is also likely to be late.
17. In addition, I consider the time restriction set out in paragraph 3 also applies to Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to alert a neighbouring council about his concerns relating to a property in its area. From the information provided I understand Mr X reported this matter to the Council in April 2017. So I consider he could have complained to us much sooner if he was concerned about the Council’s response.
18. Furthermore, I consider we should not pursue Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s internal mail system for the same reason. As I understand it Mr X’s complaint is focussed on the inadequacies of the Council’s system for receiving, date stamping and distributing hand delivered mail during his dealings with it up to May 2017. He refers in particular to the letter which went astray in April 2017 and another letter to which he received no response in 2016. But it seems clear Mr X has known about these matters for well over a year before complaining to us.
19. From the information provided I do not see why Mr X could not have complained to us much sooner about all of these issues, and he has not offered any reasons for not doing so. As a result I am not convinced that we have any good cause to exercise our discretion not to apply the time restriction in his case.
20. But even if the time restriction did not apply, I am still not convinced we would have reason to pursue Mr X’s complaint.
21. In particular, we normally only investigate complaints where there is sign of fault by a council which has caused a significant personal injustice to the person complaining. But I am not persuaded there are indications that Mr X has suffered any significant injustice as a result of fault by the Council.
22. Mr X’s claimed injustice from the Council’s failure to respond to his letter in April 2017 is that this damaged his chances of defending his landlord’s possession claim at the time. I understand Mr X takes this view because the courts can decide a landlord’s notice requiring possession is invalid if the property in question should be licensed but has not been.
23. Mr X has not provided any information about the possession proceedings in his case, so I am unclear about the grounds for possession or when the hearing took place. But if Mr X was evicted in May 2017, it seems to me the Council was unlikely to have had time to take action which would have necessarily made any difference to the outcome of the court case. In addition I suggest Mr X could still have brought his concerns about the licensing issue to the court’s attention even without the Council’s input.
24. Furthermore, even if the Council has subsequently been slow to investigate and enforce licensing and planning infringements in respect of the property in question, I do not see that this would have caused any direct personal injustice to Mr X given he has not lived there since May 2017.
25. I consider the same consideration also applies to Mr X’s complaint that the Council had failed to investigate potential planning and licensing breaches in relation to the rest of his ex-landlord’s properties in the Borough. In particular I do not see how Mr X would have suffered a significant injustice as a result of any failings by the Council in respect of properties to which he has no connection.

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Final decision

26. The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr X’s complaint relating to the Council’s failure to take action in respect of planning and licensing issues in respect of his former private rented accommodation. This is mainly because Mr X has complained late about these matters. In addition there is no sign of fault by the Council which has caused Mr X an injustice to warrant our intervention in his case.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman