Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about delays completing a lease. Some of the complaint is late without good reason to investigate it now. It is unlikely we could achieve much more by investigating. Some points are more properly for the courts to decide.

The complaint

1. Miss X, who represents a business, complains about the Council’s and its predecessor authority’s delays and poor handling of the process for agreeing a lease since 2013. She says this has affected her business and personal life.

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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)
4. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
5. It is our decision whether to start, and when to end an investigation into something the law allows us to investigate. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 24A(6) and 34B(8), as amended)
6. 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 or continue an investigation if we decide: we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or further investigation would not lead to a different outcome, or 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

7. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council.
8. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

9. Miss X’s business wants to lease property from the Council. I shall not give more details about the intended lease, to protect anonymity. Discussions about the lease began in 2013 with the Council’s predecessor local authority and have continued with the current Council. Miss X complained to us in July 2025.
10. The restriction in paragraph 3 applies to any complaint about events between 2013 and July 2024. I consider a representative of the business could reasonably have complained to us sooner about those events. It also seems unlikely we could reach a clear enough view now about some older events. So I do not see good enough reason to investigate the late parts of the complaint now.
11. The Council accepts delays by it and the previous council were responsible for some, but not all, of the time taken. It apologised for its contribution to the delays. It said the relevant service had staffing problems, which it is aiming to improve now. The Council’s final response to Miss X’s complaint said the Council would aim to avoid undue delay and hoped to complete the lease within three months.
12. It is unlikely an investigation by us would achieve significantly more than that. At least some of the failure to complete the lease seems to stem not simply from inaction but from disagreement between the parties about what has already been agreed and about some details of what the lease should include, for example, about rent levels. Ultimately, the parties must agree those details between themselves to complete the lease. It is not for the Ombudsman to decide what the terms of a lease should be. Nor can the Ombudsman force the Council or the business to agree to terms they do not consider suitable and in their interests. So any investigation by us could not get a guarantee the lease would be concluded in a particular timescale.
13. The courts could decide any dispute about what was previously agreed for inclusion in the lease, or about whether one party had acquired a legitimate expectation that certain terms would form part of the agreement. So the restriction in paragraph 4 applies here. It is more appropriate for the courts than the Ombudsman to decide such matters. So it is reasonable to expect Miss X’s business to take court action if it cannot reach agreement with the Council on any of these disputed points it considers important.
14. Miss X wants financial redress for the losses she says the alleged faults have caused. She says this includes lost opportunities to develop the business over the years, long-term instability to the business, time spent dealing with the matter, stress and the impact on family relationships. This is essentially a request for compensation for claimed damages and consequential or economic loss. The courts can decide such matters, so the restriction in paragraph 4 applies here, too. Such matters are not legally straightforward. It is more appropriate for the courts than the Ombudsman to decide them.

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Final decision

15. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint. Part of the complaint is late without good reason to investigate it now. It is unlikely we could achieve significantly more by investigating. On some points, it is reasonable to expect Miss X’s business to take court action.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman