Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about a charge placed on her property to secure a ‘kickstart’ loan from the Council in 2010. This is because the complaint is late.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mrs X, complains the Council placed a charge on her property for works she says were never completed. She wants the Council to remove the charge or reduce its amount.

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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. 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 Mrs X and the Council.
5. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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Background

6. Mrs X took out a ‘kickstart’ loan from the Council in 2010 to carry out improvements to her property. The Council says the works were certified as complete in November 2010 but Mrs X says she was not satisfied with the work carried out and that she did not confirm completion. She says she did not realise until several years later that the loan would be secured against her property and she is unhappy with the amount of the charge, given her concerns about the standard of the work. She asked the Council to reduce or remove the charge but it refused.

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My assessment

7. Mrs X confirms she was not happy with the work at the time it was carried out in 2010 and that she complained to the Council about it again, having re-mortgaged her property and found out the loan was secured as a charge against it, in 2015. But she did not complain to us about the matter until August 2021; her complaint is therefore at least five years late. While Mrs X blames this delay on the Council’s failure to respond to her correspondence this does not provide sufficient grounds for us to exercise our discretion to investigate the complaint. We would not expect any person to wait for several years before chasing and pursuing a complaint and it is unlikely we could effectively investigate what happened in 2010 some 10 years after the event.
8. If Mrs X believes she did not agree to the charge being placed on her property she should contact the Land Registry. She may also wish to obtain legal advice.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because the complaint is late and I have seen no good reasons to exercise our discretion to investigate it.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman