Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about matters related to a property Mr X rented out. The law prevents us investigating anything related to Mr X’s tribunal appeal. Any separate injustice from how the Council communicated with Mr X is not significant enough to investigate. Also, we cannot achieve the result Mr X wants.

The complaint

1. Mr X, who was a landlord, complained about the Council’s actions related to a property he rented out. He says this caused him stress and he incurred expense related to a tribunal appeal.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone can appeal to a tribunal. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to appeal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
4. We cannot investigate a complaint if someone has appealed to a tribunal. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(a), as amended)
5. The Ombudsman investigates complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or may decide not to continue with an investigation if we decide any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement or we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6))

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How I considered this complaint

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

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My assessment

8. Mr X says a Council officer dealing with the matter sent threatening and upsetting communications. The Council denies this. I have considered whether this in itself amounts to significant enough injustice for us to investigate. I appreciate Mr X might well have found the situation upsetting. However, the context is that landlords might reasonably expect some complaints or scrutiny about a property (whether justified or not) and it is reasonable to expect Mr X, as a landlord, would know the Council could not actually compel him to make any changes to the property without his being able to appeal to a tribunal for an independent decision. In the circumstances, I do not consider that any upset caused by the way the Council communicated was a significant enough injustice to warrant the Ombudsman devoting time and public money to investigating whether the Council was at fault for the tone of the communications.
9. The Council issued a housing improvement notice telling Mr X to do works to the property. A landlord receiving such a notice can appeal to the Residential Property Tribunal. The Tribunal is independent of the Council and can make its own decision about matters in the notice.
10. Mr X used his right to appeal to the Tribunal against the housing improvement notice. The restriction in paragraph 4 therefore applies. Mr X later withdrew his appeal, but that does not affect our powers. So we cannot consider whether the Council should have issued the notice in the first place, or the notice’s contents, or whether the Council should have revoked the notice later. Nor can we consider any matters related to the Tribunal proceedings, including Mr X’s allegation the Council wrongly tried to influence the Tribunal with irrelevant and unverifiable information. Those were all matters for the Tribunal, which the law prevents the Ombudsman considering.
11. Mr X wants the Council to refund his costs related to the appeal. As I have explained, the law prevents us considering Tribunal-related matters where someone has started an appeal. So we could not recommend a refund. Mr X also believes the actions of a Council officer amounted to gross misconduct and he wants the Council to take disciplinary action. The Ombudsman would not recommend this, as we consider complaints against the Council as a corporate body, not individuals. So we cannot achieve what Mr X wants.

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Final decision

12. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we cannot consider anything related to the Tribunal appeal. Any injustice from how the Council communicated with Mr X separate from Tribunal-related matters is not significant enough to warrant investigation. Also, we cannot achieve the result Mr X wants.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman