Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to respond sufficiently to private housing disrepair. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Miss X complained that the Council failed to respond properly to her reports of disrepair at her private rented home in 2019 and in 2021. She says the Council’s officers negotiated with her landlord instead of taking enforcement action.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), 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 a council has done. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26B and 34D, as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
6. The complainant now has an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I will consider their comments before making a final decision.

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My assessment

7. Miss X says she complained to the Council about faults with dampness and draughts in her rented home in 2019. She says insufficient action was taken and she had to complain again in 2021. The Council says it only has her request for assistance with disrepair from March 2021 on its records.
8. The Ombudsman can only consider complaints about matters which the complainant became aware of in the past 12 months. If she made a complaint to the Council in 2019 and did not receive a satisfactory response it was reasonable for her to complain to us within 12 months. She did not do so and so we will not exercise discretion to consider it now. We will only consider the latest report of disrepair which the Council responded to.
9. The Council told Miss X that following receipt of her report about disrepair it contacted the landlord’s agent to arrange a visit to inspect the property. Miss X says that the Council has taken the landlord’s side and that it should have inspected and served an order on the landlord to carry out any work required.
10. The Council referred to its published policy on private sector housing enforcement which states that it will seek to resolve complaints about non-urgent repairs informally with landlords before any formal enforcement will be carried out. This has been particularly applied during the COVID-19 pandemic when home visits were discontinued except in urgent cases.
11. The Council says it will only consider taking the case to the next stage if the landlord fails to comply with the informal procedure.
12. We may not question the merits of decisions which have been properly made. We do not comment on judgements councils make, unless they are affected by fault in the decision-making process.

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Final decision

We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to respond sufficiently to private housing disrepair. This is because there is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman