Summary: We cannot investigate Mrs X’s complaint about what a Council officer said in court. This is because the issues Mrs X raises cannot be separated from her legal action to evict her tenant from her property.

The complaint

1. Mrs X says she agreed to delay the eviction of her tenant from her flat by three weeks as requested by an officer in the Council’s preventing homelessness team. She said she agreed to do this if the Council emptied and cleaned her flat.
2. Mrs X complains that the Council went back on its agreement to empty and clean her flat. She says this has caused her distress and financial loss as she had to delay her plans to sell the flat. She would like the officer in question to be reprimanded for not telling the truth about what happened in court.

The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. The Local Government Act 1974 sets out our powers but also imposes restrictions on what we can investigate.
4. We cannot investigate a complaint about the start of court action or what happened in court. (Local Government Act 1974, Schedule 5/5A, paragraph 1/3, as amended)

How I considered this complaint

5. I have considered all the complaint information sent in by Mrs X.
6. I also considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

What I found

7. We cannot intervene in court proceedings or investigate what happened in court.
8. We cannot separately investigate council officer actions without considering their consequences. In this case, all the effect of the Council’s actions are in the court proceedings.
9. So, Miss X’s potential remedy may lie via the courts and action against her tenant for possibly not adhering to their tenancy contract and we cannot investigate.

Final decision

10. I cannot investigate this complaint. This is because the complaint issues cannot be separated from what happened during Mrs X’s eviction proceedings against her tenant.

Investigator’s decision on behalf of the Ombudsman

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman