The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We have not investigated any part of this complaint. This is because it is late, concerns matters which carry appeal rights which it was reasonable for the complainant to use, matters which can only be decided by a court, or matters which fall to a different organisation to investigation. The complainant has also raised new matters which did not form part of his complaint to the Council.
The complaint
I will refer to the complainant as Mr P.
Mr P considers the Council is at fault for failing to control a rat infestation at his home, which led to him having to leave the home, the destruction of his property, poor health and the break-up of his family. He considers the Council should rehouse him and compensate him for his property.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
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) The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint unless we are satisfied the council knows about the complaint and has had an opportunity to investigate and reply. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(5), section 34(B)6) The law says we cannot normally investigate a complaint when someone could take the matter to court. (Local Government Act 1974, section 26(6)(c), as amended) We cannot investigate complaints about the provision or management of social housing by a council acting as a registered social housing provider. (Local Government Act 1974, paragraph 5A schedule 5, as amended)
How I considered this complaint
I reviewed Mr P’s correspondence with the Council.
What I found
Until recently Mr P lived in a property owned by his ex-partner.
In 2018 Mr P reported to the Council there was a rat infestation at the property. The Council made several pest control visits over the following months, but said it could no longer contact Mr P after February 2019. The Council also says it wished to test the drains to identify if the rats were escaping from the sewers, but was unable to do so because of the amount of dog fouling in the property’s garden.
Mr P says that, after the Council stopped visiting, his partner left the property with their infant son because the rats presented health risk to him. Since then, his partner has broken up with him. Mr P says he also developed a lung infection because of the rats. He considers the Council is responsible for these events.
In 2021, the Council gained a warrant to enter the property after receiving complaints about its condition. It served a notice under the Prevention of Damage by Pests Act 1949 on Mr P’s ex-partner (as the owner), requiring the property to be cleared of waste, rat poison to be laid, the drains to be investigated and other defects to be repaired.
In 2022, the Council received a complaint the property represented a potential statutory nuisance. It inspected the property and served an improvement notice requiring various hazards and defects to be addressed. It also served an abatement notice under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, due to a water leak which was causing damp to a neighbouring property.
After a further visit, the Council decided the house could not safely be lived in an served an emergency prohibition order. This meant the property was sealed and Mr P was forced to leave and became homeless. The Council offered temporary accommodation for him in a hostel but Mr P declined this.
Since then, the Council has housed Mr P in either alternative temporary accommodation, or Mr P has successfully bid on a Council-owned property through its housing register.
Mr P complained to the Ombudsman in September 2022 after completing the Council’s complaints process.
Analysis Mr P’s complaint to the Ombudsman covers several different aspects, but we are unable to investigate it for several reasons.
First, the law says a person should approach the Ombudsman within 12 months of becoming aware of the issue they wish to complain about. Mr P has complained about the Council’s failure to continue its pest control visits in 2019, and while the Council says this is because it could no longer gain access, either way Mr P had been aware of this matter for considerably longer than 12 months when he complained to the Ombudsman.
The law does allow us to disapply this rule, where we consider there are good reasons to do so. But Mr P has not provided any such reason here, and so I do not consider I have grounds to disapply the rule. We therefore cannot investigate anything which happened before September 2021.
By extension, we also cannot investigate what Mr P considers to be the consequences of the Council stopping its pest control visits. This includes his ex-partner’s decision to leave the property, their subsequent break up, or the effect on Mr P’s own health. I will add that we could not, in any case, hold the Council responsible for these matters, regardless of what other findings we might make if we did investigate.
Since September 2021, the Council has served an improvement notice and an abatement notice, requiring various works to be completed at the property to address hazards, defects, and a leak affecting a neighbouring property. When the works were not completed, the Council served an emergency prohibition order, which meant the property was sealed and nobody could live there unless the required improvements were made.
The improvement notice and emergency prohibition order both carried a statutory right of appeal to the residential property tribunal, while the abatement notice carried a right of appeal to the magistrates’ court. The law says, where a person has or had a right of appeal to court or tribunal over a matter they wish to complain about, we should generally not investigate it, unless we consider it unreasonable to expect them to exercise their right of appeal.
Mr P has pointed out the notices and order were all served in his ex-partner’s name, as she is the property owner, and he therefore did not have a right of appeal himself. I accept this, but I do not consider this means we should investigate. Mr P’s ex-partner was, in effect, his landlord, and it was for Mr P to bring the matter up with her if he considered the Council’s service of the notices and order was unwarranted.
I should also note here the Ombudsman does not provide an alternative right of appeal in these circumstances. Our role is to review the process by which a council has made a decision; we do not consider the merits of the decision itself, and we have no power to overturn or exercise our own judgement about the matter in question. There is nothing here to suggest the Council has failed to follow the correct procedure in serving the notices and order, and while Mr P does not agree with its decisions, these are not things we can criticise the Council for in the absence of evidence of fault.
Mr P has also referred to the Council ‘evicting’ him from the property. I am unsure what he means by this, as the Council does not have the power to evict anybody from a property, except those it owns as a landlord.
Mr P also complains that, as a result of the rat infestation, all of his belongings, including his car, have been damaged or contaminated, and have had to be destroyed leaving him with nothing.
Mr P’s complaint here is effectively about loss or damage of property through alleged Council negligence. The Ombudsman cannot determine liability for loss or damage to property, or order the payment of compensation for it, as this is a power which rests solely with the courts. If Mr P wishes to pursue this matter he will need to seek advice about taking legal action against the Council.
In his correspondence with the Ombudsman, Mr P has also referred to two new matters.
First, he complains the property the Council has now placed him in has no furnishing of any description, nor any gas supply.
Mr P has been unable to clearly identify whether his current property is either temporary accommodation, provided by the Council under its homelessness duties, or a permanent, Council-owned home.
Either way, this is not something we can investigate. If the property is temporary accommodation, Mr P has a statutory right to request the Council review its suitability. We would expect Mr P to use this right before making a complaint to us. Even putting this to one side, the problems with the property are not something Mr P raised in his complaint to the Council, which he is required to do before we are able to accept a complaint for investigation.
Alternatively, if the property is permanent, Council-own accommodation, we have no jurisdiction at all to investigate this element of Mr P’s complaint. This is because complaints about the Council in its role as a social landlord fall into the Housing Ombudsman Service’s jurisdiction instead.
Second, Mr P complains he is now being prevented from seeing his children. It is not clear whether the Council’s children’s services have had any involvement in this, but if so, it is again something which Mr P will need to make a complaint to the Council about before we can investigate it.
Taking this together, I am satisfied we cannot investigate any part of Mr P’s complaint. This is because it concerns matters which are either late, are not things we could hold the Council responsible for, had rights of appeal it was reasonable to expect be used, can only be decided in court, are a matter for a different ombudsman scheme, or which Mr P has not yet made a complaint to the Council about.
Final decision
I have not investigated this complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman