Summary: The Council was at fault for the way it dealt with some land adjoining Mrs B’s property. It told her she could buy it when she could not. It then put the land up for sale, although it was restricted from doing so. It also failed to respond to her emails or provide her with the right information, which meant she felt she had to instruct solicitors. It has agreed to make symbolic remedy payments to Mrs B to recognise her injustice.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I refer to as Mrs B, complains that, from mid-2022 until April 2023, the Council provided her with incorrect information about a parcel of land next to her house.
2. Mrs B says:
• The Council told her she could buy the land for £10k, which led to her applying to do so. She also advised someone buying her house that they could apply to buy the land, for the same price. But when neither she nor the prospective buyer decided to buy the land, the Council put it up for auction.
• This – the prospect of a third party buying the land immediately adjoining her house, potentially for commercial purposes – led to the sale of Mrs B’s house falling through, and also caused her distress. She went to a significant amount of time and trouble to get the matter resolved, and, because of the Council’s failure to respond consistently to her correspondence, she had to instruct a solicitor to get answers.
• After all this, it turned out the land had restrictions on which prevented its sale, and the Council now has no intention of selling it.
3. Mrs B feels all this could have been avoided if the Council had simply read the deeds for the land at the outset and given her the correct information.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused significant injustice, or that could cause injustice to others in the future we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information from Mrs B and the Council. Both had an opportunity to comment on my draft decision. I considered any comments received before making a final decision.

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What I found

The Council’s comments on the complaint

7. The Council says:
• It did not follow the right process, and this led to ongoing miscommunication with Mrs B which raised her expectations and caused her distress. This was due to an internal misunderstanding about what the right process was, and about which team had the correct authority to deal with the case.
• Its housing team should not have dealt with this matter. It should have been identified as related to corporate land, not housing land, following Mrs B’s initial formal application in September 2022.
• Had the appropriate checks been undertaken by the housing team at the time, they would have been able to confirm that the land was not available for sale due to the restriction register on the title. This would have prevented Mrs B’s expectations from being raised.
• It should not have put the land up for sale, either directly to Mrs B or at auction. This was a mistake.
• Following the housing team being made aware of the issues on this case, it paused all prospective sales of the land. The Council reviewed what went wrong and put a new process in place, which ensures no steps to sell land are taken until the appropriate checks around ownership and restrictions have been completed.
• It has updated its website to provide information about land sales which should avoid expectations being unnecessarily raised.
• It failed to respond to Mrs B’s emails in the way it should have done. It has apologised to her for this.

My findings

8. The Council has accepted that it was at fault for all areas of Mrs B’s complaint. There is little I could add to what the Council has said, so I will not reinvestigate the issues she raises.
9. However, I have considered whether the Council should offer Mrs B any remedies to recognise her injustice.
10. The Council has already apologised to Mrs B, but it should also offer her financial remedies in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance. This guidance explains that our recommendations aim to either put people back in the position they would have been if not for a council’s mistakes, or, if that is not possible, to recognise the distress they experienced.
11. Ms B paid a £100 application fee to buy the land, which unbeknown to her, she had no right to buy. The Council should refund this.
12. Ms B also says she had to instruct a solicitor to get answers from the Council. She has provided evidence that she:
• was invoiced a total of £251.20 by one solicitors’ firm for work directly in relation to the sale of the land;
• made payments of £857.20 to the same solicitors’ firm for reasons not explained in the payment confirmations; and
• instructed a second solicitors’ firm but is yet to receive an invoice for their work.
13. In light of the Council’s acknowledged failure to respond to Mrs B’s emails – but given that I am not in a position to decide exactly what involvement from the solicitors was necessary – the Council should make a symbolic payment to Mrs B which covers part of her solicitors’ fees and recognises why she felt she needed to instruct the solicitors in the first place.
14. The Council should also make a further remedy payment to recognise Mrs B’s avoidable distress from the lengthy process for which it accepts it was at fault.
15. The Council has taken steps to outline how its service will operate better in future. Any efforts to improve its service are a matter for the Council to decide, not the Ombudsman. Time will tell whether they are effective.

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Agreed actions

16. Within a month, the Council has agreed to make the following payments to Mrs B:
• £100 to recognise that she paid a deposit to buy some land which she was not able to buy.
• £500 to recognise the avoidable distress caused by the Council’s mishandling of her case.
• £400 to recognise that she felt the need to instruct solicitors to get the right answers about her case.
17. The Council will provide us with evidence it has made these payments.

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Final decision

18. The Council was at fault.

Investigator’s final decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman