Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council charging Mr X an additional building control fee. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault.

The complaint

1. Mr X complains the Council wrongly charged him a building control fee and was poor in its complaint handling.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
• any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Council.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Building Regulations say the person undertaking works must notify the council within five days of completion.
6. The Council is not responsible for advising Mr X of the Regulations. And that a Council officer told Mr X an inspection was not due until completion is not evidence of fault.
7. The Council has no record to show Mr X did provide notification within five days. It remains open to Mr X to provide this evidence for the Council to consider. That the Council does not have evidence of something that may not have occurred is not evidence of fault.
8. The law says the Council must set and publish a charges scheme.
9. The Council publishes its charges scheme on its website. It has provided a copy of the scheme in force at the time Mr X applied. This says: “All charges are based on build time of 12 months or less. Where works undertaken exceed 18 calendar months an additional charge of £125 will be applied.” I am therefore satisfied the Council gave Mr X notice of this. There is not enough evidence of fault.
10. The Council initially told Mr X he had to pay an additional fee of £250 given the works undertaken exceeded 18 months. However, it corrected this to £115 plus VAT upon his complaint and before he paid any fee. Any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement.
11. Mr X has not shown works undertaken by the Council directly caused a delay in completion or, that any such delay was avoidable. There is not enough evidence of fault causing injustice to warrant an investigation.
12. It is not a proportionate use of our resources to investigate the Council’s complaint handling when we are not investigating the substantive matter.

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Final decision

13. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because there is not enough evidence of fault.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman