The Ombudsman's final decision
Summary: We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint about the Council’s refusal to reimburse her for damage to her rented property caused by a tenant introduced to her by the Council. There is insufficient evidence of fault to justify our involvement.
The complaint
Ms X is the landlord of a property that was let to a tenant, Mr Y, through a Council lettings scheme. She complained Mr Y caused damage to the property, for which the Council had not accepted responsibility. Ms X said due to Council failings, she had incurred substantial costs.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
We investigate 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 continue an investigation if we decide there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
I considered information provided by Ms X and the Council.
I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
Ms X let a property to Mr Y, who was introduced to her by the Council through its lettings scheme.
The scheme’s terms and conditions, which Ms X signed to say she had seen, stated the landlord: would receive an incentive payment “in lieu of a deposit or rent in advance from the tenant”; would remain responsible for the property, including dealing with the rent account and property maintenance, as well as communicating directly with the tent; retained their legal duties relating to maintenance and disrepair; and could seek support from the Council’s “aftercare service” if they needed support to manage the property. However, this did “not mean [the Council] will assume management responsibility on your behalf”.
Mr Y lived in the property for a number of years and was evicted following a court order in 2023. Ms X said Mr Y left the property in a state of disrepair. She complained to the Council in August 2023, asking it to return the property to the state in which it was let and asked who was holding the deposit.
The Council did not respond to the complaint. It was not aware it had overlooked this until the Ombudsman contacted it in January 2024. It responded to the complaint in April 2024. In its complaint response, it stated: “All landlords are at risk of disrepair and non-payment of rent when they rent out their properties. Just because Camden Council paid you a non-refundable incentive to take a tenant in lieu of the usual returnable deposit does not imply that the local authority then takes responsibility for the management of that tenancy.
This was made clear to you at the outset of the agreement”.
It also explained that: it had informed Ms X it would identify a tenant and pay her an incentive of £1,500, following which its role ended; it sent her the scheme’s terms and conditions and she returned a signed copy of these to show she had received them; it had supported the tenant for over a year to ensure that they were managing the tenancy, and had checked with Ms X almost two years into the tenancy, at which point there were no issues with the tenancy; Ms X did not contact it about any problems until July 2018, which after Mr Y had been evicted, by which stage it could not take action to support the tenancy. It advised her it was not responsible for any damage as Mr Y was not a council tenant and confirmed this in writing to her.
Ms X remained unhappy. The Council considered the complaint further at the review stage of its complaints process and issued its final response in May 2024. It did not uphold the complaint for the reasons given previously and confirmed it was not responsible for any damage caused by Mr Y.
We will not investigate this complaint further because there is insufficient evidence of fault by the Council in explaining the scope of the letting scheme. We have seen evidence the Council provided Ms X with the terms and conditions, and she signed a copy to confirm this. The terms and conditions make it clear that the responsibility for managing the property remains with the landlord and that the incentive payment was instead of a deposit.
Although there were delays in the complaints process, we will not investigate the complaints handling in cases where we do not investigate the underlying complaint as this is not a good use of our resources.
Final decision
We will not investigate Ms X’s complaint because there is insufficient evidence of fault to justify our involvement. We do not investigate complaints handling if we are not considering the substantive complaint.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman