Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s management of tenancy conditions in a building which it owns. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

The complaint

1. Mr X complained about the Council’s failure to enforce tenancy conditions on occupiers of flats in his block placed there as temporary accommodation. He says the tenants are leaving rubbish and dog fouling in the communal areas and leave open the communal back door of the building. He wants the Council to enforce its tenancy conditions and evict any identified perpetrators.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. 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, or
• any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement, or
• we could not add to any previous investigation by the organisation.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

3. I considered information provided by the complainant and the Council’s responses.
4. I considered the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. Mr X is a private renting tenant in a block of flats owned by the Council and used by it for housing homeless applicants in temporary accommodation. He says the other tenants frequently breach their tenancy agreements by causing problems for him and other tenants in communal areas. He has raised the matters of wedging open the communal back door which affects the security and safety of the occupants, allowing dog fouling in communal spaces and leaving refuse sacks in the corridors which are a health hazard and have been ripped by animals.
6. Mr X reported the issues to the Council and it investigated his complaints. It says it has written to the tenants informing them about their tenancy conditions and the use of communal areas. It has not identified any personal anti-social behaviour or which individual tenants have been responsible for the matters raised and does not have sufficient evidence to end a tenancy on this basis.
7. The Ombudsman is not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, regardless of whether someone disagrees with the decision the organisation made. In this case the Council responded to Mr X’s concerns about the actions of other tenants and took reasonable measures to resolve it.

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Final decision

8. We will not investigate this complaint about the Council’s management of tenancy conditions in a building which it owns. There is insufficient evidence of fault which would warrant an investigation.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman