Summary: We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint about the Council not investigating further and confirming the ownership of two walls near her property. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council, or of a significant personal injustice being caused to Mrs X by the matter, to warrant us investigating.

The complaint

1. Mrs X complains the Council has not investigated properly to find out who owns the walls on either side of a road next to her house. The Council says it does not own them. Mrs X says she has not been able to find out who owns the walls.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. The Ombudsman investigates 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 may decide not to continue with 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, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation, or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

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

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by Mrs X, viewed relevant online maps, and considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

4. The Council has denied ownership of the walls. Mrs X says officers believe one wall is owned by the owners of several nearby properties. There are many structures and pieces of land around the country which, for different reasons, do not have an owner formally listed with the Land Registry. Ownership of unregistered property does not revert to councils by default. It is also not the role or responsibility of councils to resolve questions of land ownership. The Council may only have cause to act if something happened to the wall, or the land beyond it, which affected the highway land it does own. There is not enough evidence of fault by the Council in not resolving the land ownership issue here to warrant us investigating.
5. Even if the Council was at fault, nothing has happened to cause Mrs X a significant personal injustice. Mrs X not knowing who owns the walls does not cause a significant enough injustice to her to warrant us investigating. There might be future issues about repairs and maintenance of the walls. But there are no such issues mentioned, and we will not investigate here based on speculative future injustices.

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Final decision

6. We will not investigate Mrs X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of fault by the Council to justify us investigating; and
• there is not enough evidence of a significant personal injustice caused to her by the matter to warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman