Summary: We will not investigate Mr X’s complaints about advice the Council gave him in 2005 and about its charging of a fee for his planning application in the same year. This is because the complaints are late and there are no good reasons to exercise our discretion to investigate them.

The complaint

1. The complainant, Mr X, complains the Council wrongly advised him about the status of land belonging to a property he subsequently purchased, in 2005. He applied for planning permission to develop the land in 2007 but the Council declined to determine the application because it appeared it was not approved for use as a garden. Mr X has recently applied to resolve the issue by way of a planning application but is unhappy he has had to pay a fee for this. He also complains the Council wrongly charged him for a planning application he made in 2005.

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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 effect 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 an investigation if we decide the tests set out in our Assessment Code are not met. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. 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

5. I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

Garden land

6. Mr X knew the advice the Council provided in 2005 was potentially incorrect in 2007 when the Council declined to determine his planning application. He says the officer told him they would contact him again but they did not hear anything further. This was some 17 years ago.
7. Had Mr X wished to pursue the matter it would have been reasonable for him to challenge the Council’s decision not to determine his application, or to complain to us, at the time. Mr X says he has been worried about potentially losing the use of his garden and having to remove his plants from the area since 2007 but he took no steps to resolve the issue until he began to look at selling the property in 2024.
8. Mr X says that new information in the form of an Ordnance Survey block plan suggests the area is and always has been garden land but we could not use this information as evidence to show the Council’s decision in 2007 was wrong. The Council has now confirmed use of the land as garden is lawful and this provides a definitive decision on the issue. Mr X is unhappy because he says the certificate issued by the Council contained errors but the Council has confirmed it will amend it and has apologised. It is unlikely investigation would achieve anything more for Mr X.

Planning application fee

9. Mr X says that because the Council removed permitted development rights from his property it should not have charged him a fee when he applied for permission to alter it in 2005. But this issue is also late and if he had wanted to pursue it, it would have been reasonable for him to do so in 2005/6. The amount of the fee- £50- is not significant enough to warrant investigation in any event.

Complaints handling

10. Mr X is also unhappy with the way the Council dealt with his 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

11. We will not investigate this complaint. This is because it is late and there are no good reasons to exercise discretion to investigate it.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman