Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about whether the Council was in breach of its tenancy agreement as court action is more appropriate to address his concerns. We will not investigate his complaint about the Council’s lack of response to the concerns he raised about the operation of its private sector leasing scheme because his complaint is late and there are no good reasons to decide to investigate now. Even if we investigated, we could not achieve a worthwhile outcome.

The complaint

1. Mr X leased a property to the Council to let to a homeless family. He complained the Council has breached the tenancy agreement in various ways, including allowing the tenant to make internal alterations without his knowledge or consent, and incurring costs to replace a fence, which was the responsibility of a neighbour rather than him. He was also unhappy with the Council’s complaints handling in relation to these matters.
2. Mr X raised concerns with the Council about its Private Sector Leasing arrangements. He said the Council did not investigate and respond to him.
3. Mr X said he was put at financial risk in relation to the tenancy agreement and was put to avoidable time and trouble pursuing the Council for clarification.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
5. 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)
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:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• there is another body better placed to consider this complaint, or
• there is no worthwhile outcome achievable by our investigation.

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

7. 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)

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How I considered this complaint

8. I considered information provided by Mr X.
9. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

Tenancy matters

10. Mr X has let a property to the Council, which has sub-let it to a tenant. He complained the Council was in breach of the terms of the tenancy agreement, including allowing the tenant to make internal alterations without his knowledge or consent, and incurring costs to replace a fence, which was the responsibility of a neighbour rather than him.
11. He raised concerns with the Council, but was not satisfied with its response, so made a formal complaint. The Council accepts its stage 1 response, dated 1 May 2025, did not address all the concerns he raised, for which it has apologised. It provided a full response to the concerns raised in its stage 2 response dated 2 June 2025. Its responses said it had not given the tenant permission to make internal alterations; it accepted Mr X was not responsible for maintaining the fence at the rear boundary and had not charged him for works to the fence between his property and the next door neighbour. It added that, if Mr X considered it was in breach of the terms of the tenancy, that was a legal matter and out of scope of the complaints process. It confirmed it had referred his concerns its legal team.
12. It is more appropriate for Mr X to take court action if he considers the Council is in breach of its obligations under the tenancy agreement. This is because only the court could say whether there was a breach of the terms of the tenancy or determine the legal responsibility for the boundaries. This is not something we could determine by further investigation.
13. Although Mr X remains unhappy with the clarity provided by the Council in its responses and says he needs further details before he can consider taking court action, I do not consider there is sufficient evidence of fault causing sufficient injustice to justify us investigating further.
14. We would not usually investigate complaints handling unless we are also investigating the substantive matter. In any case, I note the Council accepted it did not address all Mr X’s concerns at stage 1, for which it has apologised. That was an appropriate remedy for the injustice caused. Further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

Private Sector Leasing Scheme

15. In March 2023, in a letter about the Council’s lack of transparency about the level of rents paid for properties similar to his own, Mr X raised concerns about the Council’s systemic disengagement from its Private Sector Leasing (PSL) obligations and its deteriorating relationship with community-based landlords. He pointed out that in August 2018, the scheme covered 871 properties, and all the landlords were being paid less than a fair market value. By February 2022, the number was 685, a loss of 186 properties. This meant the Council was losing more than one property per week. He criticised the Council for its unprofessional language in communications with him and its lack of transparency and said he wanted a meeting to discuss his relationship with the Council.
16. Mr X said the Council failed to investigate his concerns about the PSL scheme and took no action for three months, when a report was discussed at its Cabinet about a new acquisition strategy. That report referred to PSL landlords ending their leases to get higher rents by renting privately. Mr X said the Council’s actions showed it would only act when that served its own internal purposes and not in the interests of the public at large.
17. We usually expect people to complain to us within 12 months of the events complained about. Mr X was aware in 2023 the Council had not responded to him on this particular issue, but he did not complain to us about it until April 2025. There is no evidence he could not have complained to us sooner and no good reasons to decide to investigate now.
18. In any case, it is for the Council to consider the acquisition and retention of properties to support its legal obligations to provide housing and, on Mr X’s own account, it was considering the matter through Cabinet discussions. I cannot comment on the Council’s motivations in relation to the timing of those discussions and further investigation is unlikely to establish this. It is for the Council to consider and decide the most appropriate ways to source housing, including which are most cost-effective. We will not investigate further because this is unlikely to lead to a worthwhile outcome.
19. As said before, we do not usually investigate complaints handling unless we are also investigating the underlying complaint. In this case, Mr X was raising a number of concerns in his March 2023 communications, many of which were addressed in later communications by the Council. Any delay in considering his concerns about the PSL scheme and any failure to respond to him, have not caused a sufficient injustice to justify further investigation.

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Final decision

20. The court is better placed to address Mr X’s concerns about whether the Council is in breach of the tenancy agreement. We will not investigate his complaint about the Council’s lack of response to his concerns about the operation of the private sector leasing scheme because the complaint is late and further investigation is unlikely to lead to a worthwhile outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman