Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s delay in consideration of a claim for damages. This is because the main complaint relates to whether the Council is liable for causing that damage. Mr X has an alternative legal remedy available, to pursue a claim of negligence through the courts. Only a court can decide whether the Council was liable and so it is reasonable to expect Mr X to use their legal remedy.

The complaint

1. Mr X says the Council delayed considering his claim for damage to his motor vehicle. He said because the Council did not respond in good time, in line with its published response times, he incurred unnecessary expense by paying for the repairs himself.
2. Mr X wants the Council to improve its processes and pay him the cots of his financial detriment.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. However, we may decide to investigate if we consider it would be unreasonable to expect the person to go to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended)
4. We will not usually investigate the Council’s communication about a matter if we are not investigating the rest of the complaint. This is because there is not usually enough injustice to justify us doing so. We collect information about particularly poor complaint handling practice and service requests, and report this back to organisations. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34B(8))
5. Negligence claims and interpreting the law around civil liability are generally best decided by a court where the Council does not accept insurance liability. Only a court can decide whether the problem should have been dealt with by the Council before it caused damage to a person’s property, or if it is liable to pay damages for a person’s loss.  

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How I considered this complaint

6. I considered information provided by the complainant and I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

7. In March 2026, Mr X submitted a claim for damages to the Council. He followed this up and in July 2026, the Council acknowledged his claim. Mr X then complained about delays in considering the claim. The Council partially upheld Mr X’s complaint that it had not properly communicated with him about this. It also apologised. It said at that point it had not decided on whether it was liable for the damage to his motor vehicle.
8. I will not investigate this complaint because the main issue relates to whether the Council is liable to compensate Mr X for damage to his property and we could not say it was liable, only the courts can.
9. On the evidence at hand, the Council had not agreed liability when Mr X complained to us and while Mr X may have incurred expense while he was waiting for the Council to decide, the Council may yet decline liability.
10. If the Council accepts liability and then Mr X can pursue a claim for all related expenses beyond the initial costs of damage. If it does not, Mr X would then have to pursue a claim for all expenses. In either event, it would be reasonable to expect Mr X to use his alternative legal remedy to achieve what he is looking for.

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Final decision

11. We will not investigate Mr X’s complaint because they have an alternative legal remedy, through the courts and because only the courts can achieve the outcome they are looking for, it is reasonable to expect them to use this remedy.  

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman