Summary: The Ombudsman will not investigate Mr and Mrs X’s complaint that the Council wrongly required their builder to dig deeper foundations for their extension than originally advised. The complaint is late and we cannot question the merits of the Council’s decision.

The complaint

1. The complainants, Mr and Mrs X, complain the Council required their builder to dig foundations to an excessive depth, incurring additional expense. As a result they had to amend the design of their extension to save costs.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We cannot question whether a council’s decision is right or wrong simply because the complainant disagrees with it. We must consider whether there was fault in the way the decision was reached. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), 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 reviewed Mr and Mrs X’s complaints and the Council’s responses. I shared my draft decision with Mr X and considered his comments.

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What I found

5. Mr and Mrs X obtained planning permission from the Council to extend their property in 2016. When they were ready to commence work on the build they submitted plans showing the depth of the foundations as 2.5m at their deepest point, with the depth of the remaining sections to be agreed on site between the building control officer and Mr and Mrs X’s builder.
6. Mr and Mrs X sought confirmation from the Council as to the depth of the remaining sections and the builder control officer advised that 1m would be sufficient. But when the work commenced another builder control officer attended and decided the foundations should be deeper. Mr and Mrs X say their builder disagreed with the building control officer but dug the foundations as directed. They say this added thousands of pounds to the cost of their build and meant they had to apply for a new grant of planning permission to alter the design as they could not afford to build it in accordance with the original plans.
7. Mr and Mrs X’s complaint is late. They knew about the building control officer’s direction to their builders in 2017 and were aware their builders disagreed with the direction, and of the additional expense of complying with it, at the time. It would therefore have been reasonable for them to complain to us sooner. Instead, they raised their concerns with the Council and referred the matter to us in 2020, more than two years outside our 12-month time limit.
8. The Ombudsman has discretion to investigate late complaints but I have decided not to exercise our discretion in this case. The Council believes the advice given by the officer is correct and it would be difficult for us to question this so long after the event. The officer’s decision is a matter of professional judgement and was based on their experience of site conditions at the time of their visit. Although Mr and Mrs X’s neighbours were allowed to have shallower foundations for their extensions this does not prove fault by the Council in their advice to Mr and Mrs X’s builder.
9. Mr and Mrs X are also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with their complaint. But it is not a good use of public resources to look at the Council’s complaints handling if we are not going to look at the substantive issue complained about. We will not therefore investigate this issue separately.

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Final decision

10. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint. This is because the complaint is late and we cannot question the merits of the Council’s decision.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman