Bassetlaw District Council (19 018 104)
Category : Planning > Building control
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 05 Mar 2020
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: Mr X complains about the Council’s Building Inspection cost. The Ombudsman will not investigate this complaint because there is no evidence of fault by the Council.
The complaint
- Mr X complains about the Council’s Building Inspection cost.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word ‘fault’ to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We may decide not to start or continue with an investigation if we believe:
- it is unlikely we would find fault.
(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended)
How I considered this complaint
- I have considered the comments of the complainant and the Council and the complainant has had an opportunity to comment on the draft decision.,
What I found
- Mr X made an application for a Building Regulations Inspection from a private company. The company went into liquidation before the final completion certificate would be issued.
- Mr X asked the Council if it could take over the Inspection. The Council said it could do this but would charge £951 as it would need to re-check the work. Mr X says that this was too high a charge as all the work had been checked previously.
- The Council has agreed to reduce the sum if less work was involved by the issue of the certificate. Mr X has now made a Building Inspection application to the Council.
- I am not persuaded that there is evidence of fault by the Council. It has given an estimation of the costs to Mr X which was a professional judgement. The Council has agreed to reduce the fee if the work was not as great as predicted.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman