Lambeth Council (202212225)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202212225

Lambeth Council

11 April 2023


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 landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s fence.

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. The resident purchased the property, a house, from the landlord through the Right to Buy scheme in 2006. She is represented in the complaint by a family member; both will be referred to as ‘the resident’ in this report.
  2. The landlord raised a job on 4 April 2022 to replace the fence between the resident and her neighbour. The resident raised a complaint with the landlord on 27 June 2022 because she had been attempting to get the fence repaired for ten years and it had been unresponsive. The landlord issued its stage one complaint response to her on 28 June 2022 to confirm that the job had been cancelled as the fence was between leasehold and freehold properties.
  3. The resident escalated her complaint to the final stage on 5 July 2022 where she reiterated her dissatisfaction with the landlord not completing the repair. She said that she had attempted to arrange for the repair privately but it had told her not to do so. The landlord issued its final stage response to the resident on 11 August 2022 where it explained that the previous job had been cancelled in error and it had raised the work again to be completed by 30 August 2022.
  4. The fence repair was rebooked for 11 November 2022. The resident informed this Service on 18 November 2022 that she continued to be dissatisfied as the work remained incomplete and the landlord kept sending operatives who would not carry out the fence repair.

Reasons

  1. Paragraph 25(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme) states that complaints may be brought to the Ombudsman by people who are or have been in a landlord/tenant relationship with the member landlord. Furthermore, they must have been in a legal relationship with the landlord at the time that the issue complained about arose.
  2. The complaint is outside the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman as the resident was the freeholder of the property since 2006 and, therefore, not in a landlord/tenant relationship with the landlord at the time of the complaint. Furthermore, while the resident has informed this Service that the fencing issue arose “nearly ten years ago”, this would have placed the occurrence of the issue in 2012, several years after the landlord/tenant relationship ceased. Therefore, this complaint cannot be considered by the Ombudsman.