Summary: Ms X complains about the Council’s grant of planning permission for a neighbour’s extension. We will not investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council causing significant personal injustice and part of the complaint is out of time.

The complaint

1. Ms X complains about the Council’s grant of planning permission for a neighbour’s extension.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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)
3. 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.

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

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How I considered this complaint

4. I have considered the comments of the complainant and the Council and the complainant has commented on the draft decision.

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What I found

5. Ms X’s neighbour submitted a planning application for an extension to their house in 2017 to which Ms X did not object. The Ombudsman would not investigate a complaint about this planning application as it is out of time for the reasons given in paragraph two above.
6. A further planning application was submitted in 2020 for an extension (to which Ms X objected) and this was granted in September 2020. Ms X says that the neighbour had previously altered the drainage which she says denied her the ability to obtain a Party Wall Agreement (although she subsequently secured an agreement following the second planning permission).
7. The Council says that, whilst the extension was not built in accordance with plans, the changes related to internal layout which did not require planning permission (ie the neighbour could have changed this at any time subsequent to the planning permission).
8. The Council says that the Party Wall Act is a private matter between neighbours. Any damage caused to Ms X’s property by her neighbour is a private matter. There is no evidence that Ms X’s property has been damaged by the extension. Ms X can take private legal action against her neighbour if she considers that work was carried out in breach of her own private rights under the Party Wall Act.

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Final decision

9. I do not intend to investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council causing significant personal injustice and part of the complaint is out of time.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman