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Ealing Council (202005564)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202005564

Ealing Council

20 October 2021


Our approach

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The Ombudsman must determine whether a complaint comes within their jurisdiction. The Ombudsman seeks to resolve disputes wherever possible but cannot investigate complaints that fall outside of this. 

In deciding whether a complaint falls within their jurisdiction, the Ombudsman will carefully consider all the evidence provided by the parties and the circumstances of the case.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about the landlords handling of a reported roof leak.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

  1. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, I have determined that the complaint, as set out above, is not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Summary of events

  1. On 10 September 2020, the resident submitted a webform to this service concerning a complaint she had raised with her landlord.
  2. On 11 September, our service contacted the resident for more details about her complaint. The resident replied on 15 September to confirm that she had exhausted the complaints process with her landlord but had not provided any evidence of this.
  3. On 1 October 2021, the residents MP submitted a referral to this service which contained a copy of the final response to the residents complaint which had been issued on 4 November 2019.

Reasons

  1. Paragraph 39 d of the Scheme states that: The Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion: were brought to the Ombudsman’s attention normally more that 12 months after they exhausted the member’s complaints procedure;
  2. The resident made an initial enquiry about her complaint with this service in September 2020 but did not formally refer her complaint until 13 months after the final response to the complaint had been issued on 4 November 2019.
  3. This service thinks it would have been reasonable for the resident to have followed up her enquiry within six months of making it. In any case, referrals to this service should be made within 12 months of the date of the final response letter. For these reasons, the Ombudsman considers that the complaint has not been made in time and is therefore outside of our jurisdiction to consider.
  4. In recent correspondence to this service, the resident explained that they are still experiencing issues with a leak. They may wish to make a new complaint to the landlord about these recent and/or ongoing issues.