• The complaint
• The Ombudsman’s role and powers
• How I considered this complaint
• What I found
• Final decision

The Ombudsman's final decision:

Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Ms X’s complaint that the Council wrongly signed off building work as compliant with the Building Regulations. Primary responsibility for substandard work rests with those who commission the work and those who carry it out and we would expect any survey carried out on the property to identify obvious defects. We cannot hold the Council responsible for the faulty building work or recommend it pays the cost of repairs as Ms X would like.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Ms X, complains Ashfield District Council (the Council) wrongly accepted building work as compliant with the Building Regulations. Ms X subsequently bought the property and says the roof requires major repairs.

Back to top

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:

• it is unlikely we would find fault, or
• the fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• the injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• it is unlikely we could add to any previous investigation by the Council, or
• it is unlikely further investigation will lead to a different outcome, or
• we cannot achieve the outcome someone wants.

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

Back to top

How I considered this complaint

3. I reviewed Ms X’s complaint, shared my draft decision with her and invited her comments.

Back to top

What I found

4. Ms X bought a property in late 2018. The property had been extended and the work benefitted from a Building Regulations completion certificate from a second council, Council B. This stated that, as far as Council B could tell at the time, building work complied with the Building Regulations.
5. Council B says the Council did the majority of the checks on the work and it only issued the completion certificate at the Council’s request. Ms X believes the Council and/or Council B is responsible for the problems she has with the roof and wants them to pay for the repairs.
6. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. Primary responsibility for building work rests with those who commission it and those who do the work. Local authorities may visit at various stages but the number and timings of any inspections vary by local authority and type of development. Local authorities are not present for the great majority of the project and do not act as a ‘clerk of works’. On request and when satisfied after taking 'all reasonable steps' that the Regulations have been met, they must issue a completion certificate. This is not a guarantee that all works have been done to the required standard.
7. The Ombudsman would expect any person purchasing a property to have a full survey before completing the purchase. If a defect is later discovered in work completed before the purchase we would expect the building owner to have a remedy against either the person who carried out the survey or the previous owner. The Council does not assume responsibility for substandard work carried out by a third party.

Back to top

Final decision

8. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the Council is not responsible for the substandard work carried out on behalf of the previous owner of the property and we cannot therefore recommend it pays for the cost of repairs.

Back to top

Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

Print this page