Summary: Mrs X complained the Council misled her when it sent a certificate that she relied on to buy a house. The certificate said that structural repairs had been carried out and the work was inspected, but the Council had no records to show its statements were correct. Mrs X discovered the work had not been carried out properly and her house needed extensive repairs. The Council agreed a settlement with Mrs X. In liaison with an independent expert, it also devised a repair and examination scheme, which it continues to use to check for similar structural problems. The Council was at fault for sending Mrs X a certificate which made claims it could not verify. To evaluate whether other properties are similarly affected, the Council should continue its examination and repair scheme. It should also consider any comments from the independent expert before deciding what further action, if any, is necessary.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complained the Council misled her when it sent her a letter to confirm the home she wanted to buy had been repaired and inspected under a repair scheme.
2. Mrs X says she later found out her home was structurally unsafe because important repairs were incomplete and carried out to a very low standard. Repairs to make her home safe were very expensive and she had to leave her home for several months while structural repairs were carried out.
3. Mrs X says that, if the Council had not misled her, she would not have bought her home and so suffered the costs, inconvenience, frustration and stress that followed.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

4. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this report, we 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. We refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
5. We may investigate matters coming to our attention during an investigation, if we consider that a member of the public who has not complained may have suffered an injustice as a result. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26D and 34E, as amended)
6. 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)
7. 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

8. I read the complaint and discussed it with Mrs X. I read the Council’s response to the complaint, considered documents from its files and interviewed its officers. I have also discussed the Council’s examination and repair scheme with an independent expert.
9. I gave the Council and Mrs X an opportunity to comment on a draft of this decision and took account of the comments I received.

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What I found

Relevant law and guidance

10. The Housing Defects Act in 1984 was passed to deal with structural problems found in dwellings built using prefabricated construction materials. The majority of these houses were built between the end of the second world war and the 1970s. The 1984 Act provided for grants to local authorities to carry out structural repairs under repair schemes.
11. There is guidance on how long Building Control Bodies should keep records, but guidance standards were introduced in 1999, so were not applicable when the precast-reinforced concrete (PRC) repair scheme work was carried out on Mrs X’s house. The current guidance recommends that, in addition to a Building Control Body’s own policy requirements, records should be kept for 15 years and include:
• details of approved proposals and design principles;
• records of work carried out by the Building Control Body;
• records of site inspections;
• records of design and building contractor details;
• certificates and notices of completion or final certificates

What happened

12. Mrs X bought her home from a private seller. It had been built by the Council in the 1950s and was made from PRC. It was of a type of PRC dwelling known as an ‘Airey’ house. The concrete is reinforced with steel rods, which add structural strength. The house has pillars standing on the foundations that support the eaves beam, on top of which sits the roof. As well as the roof, the PRC pillars support the weight of the first floor and its rooms.
13. Mrs X’s home had been owned by the Council but had then been in private ownership for many years and sold to successive private individuals before Mrs X bought it. It was one of many PRC houses built by this and other local authorities throughout the country.
14. PRC houses were popular at this time as they could be built quickly, using factory-made concrete walls and pillars. By the 1980s important research confirmed there were serious problems with PRC buildings, which could become unsafe unless repairs were carried out. This was because steel reinforcing rods could corrode, causing structural weakness.
15. The government passed the Housing Defects Act in 1984 to deal with the problem. The purpose of the Act was to provide resources to local authorities to carry out repair schemes.
16. The house Mrs X eventually owned should have been repaired under one of these schemes. The scheme required removal of external concrete slab walls and the filling of gaps between PRC pillars with cement blocks from the foundations to the eaves beam. If the work was carried out properly, the cement blocks should relieve the PRC pillars from the weight of the roof and extend the safe life of the house. The concrete slab external walls were then replaced by a brick ‘skin’ into which windows and doors were fitted.
17. The repair scheme work should have been overseen and checked by the Council’s building control technical officers.
18. In 2016, before Mrs X bought her home from a private seller, her mortgage lender asked for a copy of a PRC certificate to confirm structural repair works had been carried out. Mrs X’s agent contacted the Council and asked it to confirm this.
19. In October 2016, the Council wrote to Mrs X and certified:
• the house was repaired under the repair scheme and the works repair scheme is an adequate remedy for Housing Act 1984 defects;
• the adjoining property was also repaired under the repair scheme;
• inspections of the works were made at appropriate stages by the Council’s technical officers and were, in its opinion, completed; and
• works carried out under the scheme will have a 60-year life if maintained in accordance with good practice.
20. The letter contained no cautions or warnings about the extent to which the information it contained should be relied upon.
21. Mrs X moved into the house and began to refurbish it. During this work, her builder exposed the PRC/cement block wall, the cavity and inside of the brick ‘skin’ around the bathroom window. It also revealed a serious problem, because Mrs X’s builder could see that:
• the concrete blocks did not go all the way to the eaves beam, so the weight of the roof was still resting on the PRC pillars, not the concrete blocks;
• the lintel above the bathroom window was not securely fixed with bricks and mortar. The repair-scheme builder had propped the lintel on top of a dry stack (i.e. without mortar) of rubble, which included pieces of cement board, broken bricks and pieces of tile.
22. Mrs X’s builder said he could not continue with the refurbishing work because the building was unsafe and needed repair. Mrs X and her husband moved out of the house into rented accommodation. She commissioned an independent surveyor, who took photos of the defective work found by the builder and advised what was needed to repair the problem. The surveyor shone a bright light inside the cavity wall and saw the same problem extended into the house next to Mrs X’s and possibly beyond onto the other houses in the terrace.
23. Mrs X contacted the Council and complained that she had been misled by the contents of the certificate. The Council denied responsibility because:
• it had not knowingly misled her;
• the works had been carried out many years ago and it could not be held legally responsible forever; and
• as a buyer, Mrs X was responsible for carrying out her own checks and surveys to satisfy herself about the property’s condition.
24. Despite this, the Council offered to have one of its contractors carry out repairs to the ill-fitted block work on top of the wall and for this work to be overseen by its officers. The Council said it would not pay for any other work or provide guarantees for its contractor’s repairs.
25. Mrs X was dissatisfied with this offer because it would, in her estimation, only cover half of her costs. She refused the offer and complained to the Ombudsman.
26. We asked the Council to provide evidence to support the claims made in the certificate letter sent to Mrs X in October 2016. The Council had no evidence to show that PRC works were carried out or inspected by its officers.
27. The Council accepted it could not verify the claims it had made in the certificate letter but pointed out it had been under no legal obligation to send Mrs X a PRC certificate. The Council revised its practice and letters. It sent me a copy of a revised letter to replace the certificate letter it had sent Mrs X. The letter makes it clear that the Council:
• no longer holds records in relation to inspections and repairs;
• does not give any assurance or guarantee in respect of any works that were carried out; and
• advises owners or purchasers to satisfy themselves as to the condition of the property by obtaining an independent structural report from a specialist professional surveyor.
28. During our investigation the Council separately agreed a settlement with Mrs X. It also agreed to commission an independent expert who devised a scheme to check a sample of other ‘Airey’ homes in the area to see if they were similarly affected. The Council has been sampling properties for nearly a year with the results overseen by the independent expert and shared the results with us. The Council has found no other properties affected, apart from the four in the block where Mrs X lives.

My findings

29. There was fault by the Council in sending a certificate letter when it had no records to show whether the information in it was correct. While this caused an injustice to Mrs X, we have not determined the extent of that injustice or recommended a personal remedy for her, because she and the Council agreed a settlement privately.
30. The Council recognised that others might be affected by similar problems to those found in Mrs X’s house. It has devised a scheme to investigate the extent of the problem and that work is ongoing. In my view, what it has done so far is appropriate and proportionate.
31. I have used my powers under 26D of the 1974 Act to consider other members of the public who may be affected by the issues identified in this complaint. The people who may be affected are those living in ‘Airey’ PRC houses in the Council’s area which may have also been subject to substandard repairs in the 1980s and so may be structurally unsound. Because of this, I will recommend changes relating to future practice.
32. The Council agreed to accept my findings and recommendations in its response to an earlier draft of this decision. The Council says that, while it aims to meet the deadlines for action we agreed, there may be some delay due to the impact coronavirus emergency has had on its ability to deliver services. If there is a delay, we would expect the Council to keep us updated.

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Agreed action

33. To remedy any potential injustice, the Council agreed to:
• continue to carry out empty-house surveys on all Airey properties it owns that become available;
• share its findings with the independent expert in a survey report as soon as is practically possible but no later than November 2020 to give them an opportunity to comment on what it finds; and
• review its findings and any comments it receives from the independent expert before deciding what further actions, if any, are necessary.
34. The Council should provide a summary of its findings and decisions to the Ombudsman within two months of the completion of the survey report.

Final decision

35. There was fault causing injustice to the complainant and potentially to other individuals. I have completed my investigation because the Council agreed to my findings and recommendations.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman