London Borough of Lambeth (202312005)

Background

1. The resident complained about major works and day to day service charges that accrued since April 2018. On 11 October 2024, he made an application to the first-tier tribunal regarding the service charges. The application was cancelled by the resident on 30 January 2025 following a settlement agreement with the landlord.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the service charge account and the resident’s request to inspect the service charge accounts.

Our decision (determination)

3. We have determined that the complaint is outside of our jurisdiction because the resident has since had the opportunity to raise the complaint as part of legal proceedings.

Summary

4. The Ombudsman is not free to investigate every complaint referred to him. What the Ombudsman can and cannot investigate is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is set out in the Scheme. When a complaint is brought to us, we must consider all the circumstances of the case, as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint (or part of a complaint) will not be investigated.
5. Generally, we will not investigate matters where a resident has had (or will have) the chance to raise the subject matter of the complaint as part of legal proceedings. In this case, we can see that a legal application was formally made on 11 October 2024. This would have given the resident the chance to raise his complaint about the service charges as part of the legal proceedings. For this reason, we will not investigate the complaint about the service charges.