Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s failure to hand his property back. This is because Mr X’s property is leased by managing agents to the Council under a contract. We cannot achieve the outcome requested.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains about the Council’s failure to rehouse its tenants living in his property. He says he needs the property back for various reasons including to accommodate his relative who has dementia.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate 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 an investigation if we decide:

• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant which includes the Council’s responses.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. The Council’s response to Mr X says it will not investigate his complaint. The Council says it leases the property in question from Mr X’s managing agents and the lease governs the terms and conditions under which its tenants live there. The Council has stressed it has no direct relationship with Mr X.

6. We will not investigate. We have no standing to intervene in a contractual relationship between the Council and Mr X’s managing agents and achieve Mr X’s desired outcome. The Ombudsman is concerned with the Council’s administrative actions and not its contractual ones.
7. If Mr X considers the managing agents are not acceding to his wishes, to arrange to hand the property back to him as the property owner, he can seek to enforce the terms of his agreement with the managing agents in court.
8. Mr X says the ‘estate agents’ are not managing the property. However, Mr X wishes to refer to the third-party business letting out his property who he may be dissatisfied with, this is not a complaint we can investigate.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman