Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr B’s complaint about land he inherited. This is because it is reasonable to expect Mr B to seek a remedy by going to court if the matter is not resolved to his satisfaction.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr B, complained that the Council sold land to his mother about 35 years ago but now says the land is open space. The Council says the family must buy it if they wish to own it. Mr B says the Council has failed to provide an explanation. He told us what has happened has made him and his sister extremely ill.

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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)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I have considered the information Mr B provided, his comments on my draft decision, correspondence between Mr B and the Council about the complaint and the Council’s responses to Mr B’s complaint.

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What I found

6. Mr B told us he and his sister inherited his mother’s house in 2016. They started trying to sell it but then found out the title deeds plan showed the Council owned part of the garden. They believe a mistake was made at the original conveyancing stage. In April 2018 they asked the Council if it would be prepared to write a letter confirming it had no claim to the land, had not maintained it, and recognising it as permanently belonging to their property from 1976.
7. In May 2018 a council officer told Mr B he believed the land in question to be open space. The officer told Mr B he could apply to buy the land. In his reply Mr B said the land had never been open land and explained his reasons. He attached evidence to support what he had said. He made an adverse possession claim.
8. Mr B’s adverse possession claim was unsuccessful. In October 2018 the Council asked him to reinstate the open space land. In reply Mr B said he and his sister cannot be held responsible for the Council’s past negligence, nor would they incur any financial burden to correct the Council’s past mistakes. He said they wanted to make an official complaint against the Council for conveyancing negligence in the past which caused the situation.
9. When the Council replied to the formal complaint Mr B’s sister made, it said it could not comment on the its own and its predecessor authority’s historical involvement with the land in 1976, 1982 and 2011. The Council invited Mr B to submit further evidence so it could look at the possibility of an amicable solution. The parties have not agreed a solution to date.
10. Mr B has known about the matter for more than 12 months before he complained to us in August 2019. But in this case there are good reasons for us to consider his complaint because he has been trying to resolve matters with the Council for several months and the situation has continued to date.
11. Mr B and his sister want the situation rectifying, for the Council to admit its mistakes and to give them the land which his family maintained for 35 years. They are seeking compensation for the way the Council treated them. Mr B believes the Council was negligent during the original conveyancing process. Negligence is a legal matter. We could not investigate effectively why the Council acted as it did several years ago and, in any case, we have no power to determine liability for negligence. This is a matter for the courts, ultimately. It is therefore reasonable to expect Mr B to seek a remedy by going to court if he cannot resolve the matter to his satisfaction. We would not investigate a standalone complaint about the way the Council has dealt with Mr B’s complaint when we are not investigating the matter which gave rise to the complaint.

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Final decision

12. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is reasonable to expect Mr B to seek a remedy by going to court if the matter is not resolved to his satisfaction.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman