Summary: Mr X complains the Council issued a building control completion certificate in 2003 for an industrial unit his company bought shortly after. He says the building had a flaw that led to cracking after a storm in 2017, for which the company has been refused an insurance claim. We cannot achieve the outcome Mr X wants.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall call Mr X, complains the Council wrongly signed off in 2003 an industrial unit that had a flaw. His company bought the unit. He says it only discovered the flaw in 2017 following storm damage, for which the company’s insurer would not pay out. He wants the Council to pay for the damage to be put right.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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’. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
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)

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How I considered this complaint

4. I read the documents Mr X sent and spoke to him on the telephone. I considered the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. I shared a draft of this decision with both parties and invited their comments. I considered those I received.

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What I found

5. Mr X’s company bought an industrial unit in 2003. It was built a few months earlier and the Council issued a building control completion certificate. In 2017 a storm damaged the unit. The company’s insurer refused the insurance claim, saying there was a flaw in the building.
6. There are three issues here.
7. First, as Mr X points out, his company did not commission construction, but bought the finished building. The Ombudsman does not investigate most building control complaints because the courts have said responsibility for building work rests with those who commission it and those who do the work. Building Regulations provide a means for councils to maintain building standards in general, rather than imposing a duty to maintain standards in each particular case.
8. Second, the Ombudsman would expect a person purchasing a property to have a full survey completed before completing the purchase. If a defect is discovered in work completed before the purchase, he would expect the building owner to have a remedy against either the person who carried out the survey or the previous owner. It would be reasonable for Mr X to pursue any question of defective buildings with the seller under property law through the courts. The Ombudsman has no role here.
9. Third, even if the matter was one that concerned a council function the Ombudsman might investigate, the matter alleged occurred 16 years ago. While it is not Mr X’s fault that the storm damage happened so long after construction, the Council destroys building control records after 15 years. It is not fault for it to do this. The records that would be needed to carry out a robust investigation are thus no longer available. Also, there is no good reason for us to use our powers go back to 2003 because the courts have said councils are not liable.

Mr X’s comments

10. Mr X does not accept the points made above. However, none of the points he made in his response to the draft decision means the Ombudsman should investigate further.

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Final decision

11. I have discontinued my investigation as we cannot achieve the desired outcome.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman