Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint about the Council’s issue of a completion certificate for building work carried out by the previous owner of his property. This is because we cannot achieve any worthwhile outcome for Mr X.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council wrongly signed off building work carried out in 2005 as compliant with the Building Regulations. Mr X has since bought the property and says it will cost money to put the substandard work 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:

• 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)

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How I considered this complaint

3. I reviewed Mr X’s complaint, shared my draft decision with him and considered his comments.

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What I found

4. Mr X purchased a property in 2020. A previous owner had work carried out to the property which the Council inspected and issued a completion certificate for. Mr X says the work is substandard and he is concerned about the stability of his property and the cost of rectifying the issue. He wants the Council to pay to bring the work up to the required standard.
5. Building regulations set standards for the design and construction of buildings to ensure the health and safety of people in and about those buildings. They provide a means for the local authority to maintain building standards in general, rather than imposing a duty to maintain standards in each particular case.
6. When carrying out their functions under the Building Regulations, 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. We 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. Caselaw has established that even where a local authority issues a completion certificate it does not take on responsibility or liability for substandard work; this remains with those responsible for the work rather than with the Council for signing it off.
8. Because we cannot say the Council is liable for the substandard work we cannot recommend it pays for the cost of putting it right.

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Final decision

9. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because we cannot achieve any worthwhile outcome for Mr X.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman