DudleyCouncil3

Dudley MBC takes complaints seriously and, as such thank you for forwarding Mr Hancock's complaint onto us. As you are no doubt aware, any information relating to Mr Hancock is confidential. I will investigate his complaint and write to him directly. It will then be up to Mr Hancock as to whether or not he wishes to disclose its contents to the Complaint Shop.
Mr. Hancock then sent us their reply which was as follows:

I am advised that you took the decision to complete the purchase of your property with the repair outstanding. once the sale was complete, the responsibilty, in effect became yours.

You make mention of the repairs affecting the value of your home. From what you have described in your letter i find this unlikely. I would be happy to reconsider if you provide me with evidence to support this. I am sure you understand that a repair bill would be insufficient in itself

			Last update 17/10/2007
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I have recently bought my house from Dudley MBC which contained no heating of any kind except 2 gas fires, at the time I sent my right to buy application form. Whilst all this was being processed we had our annual safety check on the fires, one of which was condemned because of a blockage. Workers arrived one after the other and no one sorted out the problem. Fact is I am left in a house with no heating except one gas fire for myself my pregnant wife and 2 kids 5+6. Its been around 2 months now and after many calls still nothing. At the time the chimney was condemned I was still paying rent so I believe that Dudley MBC should either correct the problem or refund part of the monies paid to buy the property in the first place
We passed Mr. Hancock's complaint to the Director of Housing at Dudley Council but Dudley Council refused to communicate directly with us:
Dudley MBC takes complaints seriously and, as such thank you for forwarding Mr Hancock's complaint onto us. As you are no doubt aware, any information relating to Mr Hancock is confidential. I will investigate his complaint and write to him directly. It will then be up to Mr Hancock as to whether or not he wishes to disclose its contents to the Complaint Shop. Mr. Hancock then sent us their reply which was as follows: I am advised that you took the decision to complete the purchase of your property with the repair outstanding. once the sale was complete, the responsibilty, in effect became yours. You make mention of the repairs affecting the value of your home. From what you have described in your letter i find this unlikely. I would be happy to reconsider if you provide me with evidence to support this. I am sure you understand that a repair bill would be insufficient in itself
We were not happy with this reply and after verifying various point with Mr. Hancock we wrote back to the Council. Having looked into this matter further we find this very disturbing as there is now clear evidence that a safety check on his gas fires revealed that the fire was extremely dangerous and was immediately condemned when discovered. At that time you were the landlord of the property and consequently you were responsible for the immediate repair to make this fire safe. According to Mr. Hancock your workmen came out twice in an effort to rectify the problem but on both occasions were unable to do so. This is just plain incompetence on behalf of the council and the status quo would not have arisen had your work force carried out a proficient repair. Mr. Hancock was assured by the repair team which came out that the repair would be completed once they had the right tools and this was the only reason as to why Mr. Hancock did not instruct his solicitors to withhold completion of the sale of this property. If, what you are saying now is correct, that Mr. Hancock agreed that the repair would not be completed, then this is denied by Mr. Hancock as not being the truth. The only blame you can pin on Mr. Hancock is that he was too naïve and too trustworthy to believe your repair team would return to complete the job they had started and were unable to complete and he most definitely did not expect to be left in the 'cold' with no heating to speak of for hispregnant wife and his 2 small children. If we are to believe what you have now told Mr. Hancock, then we take this that you were fully aware of this situation at the time and that you deliberately completed the sale in the full knowledge that the fires at this property were dangerous, just to get you out of your responsibility. Just to re-cap the situation
	The gas fire was condemned as being unsafe whilst you were the landlord of the property and all responsibility for such situations rests with the owner of the property
	You acknowledged your responsibility when you sent out your work force to rectify the problem
	You were unable and incompetent to resolve the problem on two visits and you assured Mr. Hancock that the repair would be completed
	You completed the transfer of the property to Mr. Hancock in the full knowledge that the repair was not completed and that the fires at this property were dangerous and could have posed a danger to Mr. Hancock and his family
Under the circumstances we would appeal to you to re-consider your decision not to complete the outstanding repair and to contact Mr. Hancock immediately with a reasonable proposal to solve this issue.
We understand that Dudley Council replied quite quickly to Mr. Hancock but regretfully Mr. Hancock did not keep us informed and updated and he never passed on the Council's reply. They have, apparently, made a proposal to Mr. Hancock to supply and fit new fires but it is becoming more and more obvious that all Mr. Hancock wants is cash compensation from the Council and not rectification of the original problem. The aim and purpose of our website is to help and assist complainants to obtain their legal rights and we do not provide a free service for personal gain. In consequence, we have closed our file on this case

Complaint Status: closed	Overall Efficiency:
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