Nottingham City Council (202306942)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202306942

Nottingham City Council

29 May 2025

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration,’ for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice, or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman, and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

The complaint is about the landlord’s response to:
1. The resident’s reports of subsidence in his property.
2. The resident’s request that it remove a tree that was next to his property.

Jurisdiction

What the Ombudsman can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Scheme. When a complaint is brought to this Service, the Ombudsman must consider all the circumstances of the case, as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 42.j. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the following aspect of the complaint is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction:
1. The landlord’s response to the resident’s request that it remove a tree that was next to his property.

Part of the resident’s complaint raises concerns over the actions of the council’s tree services section. Paragraph 42 of the Housing Ombudsman scheme sets out various matters which the Ombudsman may not be able to consider. Paragraph 42.j. states:

“The Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, fall properly within the jurisdiction of another Ombudsman, regulator or complaint-handling body”.

Councils have a statutory duty to manage and maintain trees on council owned land. These duties are separate to its housing duties as a social landlord. Concerns raised over the actions of the tree services department will fall under the jurisdiction of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO).
Therefore, while the Ombudsman can look at the landlord’s overall response to the concerns raised around the structural safety of the property, the resident should contact the LGSCO if he wishes to pursue this aspect of the complaint.

Background

The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The property is a 2-bedroom bungalow. The resident’s wife has a condition that affects her mobility, and she is a wheelchair user. Their tenancy started in 2014.
In 2020 the resident reported to the landlord that his kitchen ceiling was cracking and bowing. He said that he thought that there had been movement in the property, and he suspected that this was due to tree roots causing structural damage. The landlord attended and agreed to raise a structural survey, however this coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic so was not progressed at the time.
In March 2022, the resident chased this with the landlord. He said that plaster was falling from the walls, and his internal doors would not close properly. The landlord arranged a survey appointment for 19 April 2022 and thereafter raised works to:
1. carry out a CCTV drain scan.
2. make good cracks to brickwork and to the internal walls.
3. make good decoration to new plaster and
4. replace sunken concrete near the kitchen window.
The landlord arranged for these works to start on 7 June 2022. On 26 July 2022, the CCTV drain inspection found that there was no damage to the property’s drains or footings caused by tree roots.
The resident reported in October 2022 that his floor was uneven, and the landlord referred this to its tree services section, so that it could investigate the tree.
In February 2023, the resident contacted his local councillor as he said the tree was causing structural damage to his property. He had asked the council’s tree services section to remove it. They had responded that they would not remove a healthy tree and there was no evidence that it was causing damage to the property. The councillor asked the landlord to review this decision, as they had visited the property and said that it appeared to them that there was movement in the property.
The resident raised a complaint with the landlord on 30 June 2023. He said:
1. The tree was causing a hazard.
2. His wife has had several falls due to the uneven driveway and sloping floor in the kitchen.
3. The landlord had told them that they could request a transfer to another property, but they knew that this will be costly.
On 3 July 2023, the resident made another complaint and said that the same repair to the wall had been completed 4 times by the same contractor, and the council had still not removed the tree. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint on 4 July 2023 and said that it hoped to respond by 18 July 2023. On 17 July 2023, it asked for an extension to the complaint deadline because it needed to arrange a structural survey.
On 28 July 2023, the landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response. It said:
1. It had undertaken inspections and had not found any new structural issues.
2. Its tree services section had confirmed that they would not be carrying out any works to the tree.
On 18 August 2023, the resident asked to escalate his complaint. He said that he did not believe that there had been any investigation of the interior of his home. The landlord acknowledged this request the same day and said that it hoped to respond within 20 working days.
The landlord arranged for an independent specialist to complete a structural survey on 30 August 2023. The survey found that there were no structural concerns with the property. It did however note that the kitchen floor sloped, but that this could be linked to how the property was constructed, and recommended that the landlord relevel the timber flooring, which the landlord agreed to do.
On 14 September 2023, the landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response. It said:
1. The structural report had found that there were some small hairline cracks in the resident’s walls, but these were typical shrinkage cracks and were non-structural.
2. The report also noted the location of the tree and said that there were no visible structural defects that they would associate with clay heave or shrinkage.
3. Contractors had carried out a CCTV drain scan on 26 July 2022 which confirmed that there was no damage to the drains caused by tree roots.
4. It would be contacting the resident in due course to arrange the works to his kitchen.
The resident was unhappy with the outcome of his complaint and referred it to this Service for investigation.

Assessment and findings

In investigating this complaint, the Ombudsman is not able to carry out a technical assessment of the cause of an issue and decide whether the landlord should carry out works. We do not have the expertise to make such findings. Instead, it is the Ombudsman’s role to assess the reasonableness of the landlord’s actions considering its legal obligations, policies and procedures and good practice.
The resident’s tenancy agreement says that the landlord must keep in repair the structure and exterior of the property. This will include floors, internal walls, windows, external walls, and ceilings. It says that it is not responsible for driveways or parking spaces, gardens, or yards.
The landlord’s repairs policy says that it will carry out emergency repairs within 24 hours. It will carry out other routine repairs within 30 days and planned works within 60 days.
From the records provided by parties, the resident first reported his concerns about subsidence and the position of the tree in 2020. Around this time, there were social distancing restrictions put in place by the government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the landlord’s responsive repairs targets were relaxed, as landlords were prioritising emergency works.
It was reasonable, therefore, for the landlord to have assessed the urgency of a structural inspection and arranged for this to go ahead when it was safe to do so. The records show that this was marked as completed in November 2020. The resident has said that the landlord had agreed to inspect the property in September 2021. From the documents provided to this Service, there is no record of the landlord arranging an inspection for September 2021. The Ombudsman is an impartial service, and where there are conflicting accounts, in the absence of contemporaneous evidence of a service failing, we are unable to make a finding.
However, once the resident had reported this to the landlord again in March 2022, it arranged an inspection within its target response timescales in its repairs policy and it raised both works and investigative processes within a reasonable period following the inspection. The landlord also arranged a pre-works induction to discuss how the works would affect the household, to take into consideration their needs and requirements. This was good practice particularly as the resident’s wife was a wheelchair user and the works were likely to cause some disruption.
The landlord undertook proper inspections to investigate whether there was anything causing movement in the property. The CCTV inspection of the drains in July 2022 concluded that there was no damage to the drains or to the property’s footings, therefore it reasonably concluded that it did not need to take further action.
Given the resident’s ongoing concerns, the landlord took a fair approach by arranging for an independent structural engineer to visit the site and to complete a report. The landlord arranged and completed this promptly and the report concluded that there were no structural issues. The resident disagreed with the findings in the report and described some inaccuracies in it. He also queried whether the contractor was independent.
We have considered the report and are satisfied that the specialist contractor was independent of the landlord. The report is thorough, includes photographs and details its conclusions. We find that the landlord was entitled to rely on the findings of the independent expert. Accordingly, its decision to not to carry out further works or inspections was reasonable in the circumstances.
The report did highlight that the kitchen floor sloped but said that this may have been present from the property’s construction in the 1990s. It recommended that it undertake work to relay the timber floor, which the landlord agreed to do. The resident has since reported that, while the landlord had installed a new kitchen and flooring, the kitchen floor still slopes. Although this did not form part of the resident’s complaint, we have included a recommendation in the report that the landlord inspect the floor and raise any remedial works where necessary.
Overall, although we acknowledge that the resident was unhappy with the outcome of the surveys and inspections, the Ombudsman considers that the landlord had met with its legal obligations and policies in responding to the resident’s reports. It completed investigations and shared its findings with the resident. Any works raised following inspections were carried out promptly. The Ombudsman therefore finds no maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of subsidence in the property.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the was no maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s reports of subsidence in his property.
In accordance with paragraph 42.j. of the Scheme, the landlord’s response to the resident’s request that it remove a tree that was next to his property, is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction to investigate.

Recommendations

The landlord should arrange to re-inspect the resident’s kitchen floor and, where necessary, raise any remedial works.