LGO orders compensation for 'gazumped' property buyer

Durham County Council has been asked by the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) to pay £250 in compensation to a man who claimed he was ‘gazumped’ by a building control officer.

The council was also told to review the way it deals with complaints about staff misconduct.

A man who was buying a plot of land contacted the building control officer to ask for advice about a soakaway.

Some months later the officer made an official visit and was asked by the site owner if he wanted to buy the land, which he subsequently did.

Despite being in the process of buying the property, the officer did not tell his manager that he was continuing to act as building control officer for the land in which he now had financial and personal interests.

He still did not tell his manager about this even when he submitted a planning application a month later, and continued to act as building control officer for the site.

The original buyer complained to Durham that the officer had ‘gazumped’ him and his complaint was passed on to a senior manager.

When this senior manager investigated, the building control officer “gave a statement which included an unfounded allegation and inappropriate comments about the original buyer, but the man was not sent a copy of this statement and had no opportunity to rebut the officer’s allegations”, the ombudsman found.

The manager ended his investigation with a 30 minute meeting with the officer, but there were no notes or any record of the meeting and the manager concluded there was no breach of the council’s code of conduct, despite the officer admitting he had acted as building control officer for eight weeks after his offer was accepted, in direct breach of the council’s own code of conduct for employees.

Local Government Ombudsman Jane Martin said: “People’s trust in public services is damaged when agreed codes of conduct are not followed. This trust is further eroded if allegations are not investigated in an open, transparent and effective manner.

“Durham council now needs to learn from my report and ensure that complaints of misconduct are acted upon in an appropriate way.”

She said the council should review its process for investigating complaints of serious misconduct and compensate the original prospective buyer with £250.

The compensation was set at this level because the investigation could not prove the original buyer would have completed the purchase but for the officer’s intervention.

Durham’s head of planning and assets Stuart Timmiss said: “I would like to reassure everyone that we have very high expectations of the standards and practices our officers work to and that we are really sad that evidence suggests they were not met in this instance.

“Ahead of receiving the ombudsman’s report we apologised to the gentleman and have started to review the issues raised.”