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Poplar Housing And Regeneration Community Association Limited (202317888)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202317888

Poplar Housing And Regeneration Community Association Limited

8 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 which we have 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

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of noise nuisance caused by her neighbour.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of a 4-bed ground-floor maisonette, owned by the landlord. She lives with her extended family including her adult son and 2 grandchildren.
  2. The resident contacted the landlord in April 2020 to report noise from the property directly above her own. It said there was no evidence of antisocial behaviour (ASB) but it had asked her neighbour to be mindful. She reported further issues in December 2020 and submitted noise recordings throughout 2021 and 2022. She said that her neighbour’s laminate flooring was adding to the problem.
  3. The resident complained to the landlord on 30 August 2022 as she said it had not acted on her reports. It issued its stage 1 response on 16 September 2022, in which it said that the noise was not ASB so it could not take any enforcement action. However, it apologised for not explaining this clearly.
  4. The resident asked the landlord to escalate her complaint on 21 September 2022. She said it had failed to acknowledge the extent of the noise and had not followed up on previous warning letters which it had sent to her neighbour. It issued its stage 2 response on 3 January 2023 and said it would issue a notice to her neighbour to remove her laminate flooring, and it offered £50 in compensation for its communication failures.
  5. The resident referred her complaint to us in October 2023 as she was unhappy with the landlord’s final response and said it had reneged on its commitment to issue a notice to her neighbour.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. Both the resident and the landlord have provided evidence that she continued to report ongoing noise nuisance by her neighbour, and she raised a further complaint to the landlord on 23 October 2023. This investigation will consider the events from April 2020 when she made her first reports to the landlord up to its final response of 3 January 2023 to this complaint. If she remains dissatisfied following a final response to her second complaint, she can ask us to open another investigation.
  2. The resident said this has affected her son’s mental health and caused stress for the whole family. The courts are the most effective place for disputes about personal injury and illness. This is largely because independent medical experts are appointed to give evidence. They have a duty to the court to provide unbiased insights regarding the diagnosis, prognosis, and cause of any illness or injury. When disputes arise over the cause of an injury, oral testimony can be examined in court. Therefore, this element of the complaint is better dealt with via the court.

Reports of noise nuisance

  1. The landlord’s ASB and nuisance behaviour policy states that it will investigate reports of frequent loud noise and shouting, but will not investigate reports of babies crying, children under the age of 16 playing, or noise caused by typical day-to-day activities. It gives the following definitions:
    1. Antisocial means behaviour which causes, or is likely to cause, harassment, alarm, or distress.
    2. Nuisance means behaviour which unreasonably and substantially interferes with peaceful enjoyment.
  2. A landlord has 2 main duties when it receives a report of ASB. The first is to gather evidence and undertake a proportionate investigation. The second is to balance that evidence and decide what action it should take. Our role is to determine if it investigated fairly and took appropriate action.
  3. Additionally, matters involving noise nuisance can be challenging for a landlord to manage, particularly where household noise may be a factor. In practice, the options available may not meet the resident’s preferred outcome. By closely following its ASB policy, a landlord can make sure it is acting fairly, even if this does not lead to the outcome the resident has asked for.
  4. The resident contacted the landlord on 17 April and 20 May 2020 to report banging sounds, children crying, and adults shouting in the flat directly above, which it also owned. It asked her to submit recordings via its noise app but closed her case on 10 June 2020, as it said she had not provided any recordings or other evidence. She contacted it again on 7 December 2020 to report similar issues and it asked her to provide 1 week’s worth of recordings. It closed her case again on 22 January 2021, as it said she had only sent 2 recordings which did not capture any evidence of nuisance or ASB. This was in line with its ASB policy, which states that it will close a case after 1 month if the issue has not reoccurred, or if it cannot take enforcement action.
  5. The resident contacted the landlord on 3 February 2021 to dispute its reasons for closing her case as she said the noise was unbearable, but smartphone microphones were unreliable. It replied to her the same day to say its noise app was credible in court and it used this in all cases. It added that the recordings she sent were infrequent and only captured sounds such as footsteps and children crying, which it did not consider to be a nuisance. We do not dispute the resident’s comments however it was reasonable for the landlord to trust its professional judgement when assessing the recordings.
  6. However, the landlord sent a warning letter to the resident’s neighbour on 22 February 2021, as she had submitted 3 recordings which captured loud noises in the late evening. She sent 12 more recordings throughout May and June 2021, and the landlord wrote to her neighbour again on 29 June 2021 to ask them to lay thick rugs over their laminate flooring. There is no evidence that it followed this up, and the conditions of its warning letter are not clear.
  7. The resident submitted a further 16 recordings between July and September 2021. The landlord updated its records throughout this time to note that these only captured faint noises and children’s voices. There is no evidence that it contacted her at any point to explain why it was unable to act on her reports. This indicates poor communication or record keeping issues by the landlord.
  8. It would have been helpful if the landlord had considered other options at this point, to potentially resolve the matter. It could have considered offering mediation, as outlined in its ASB policy. There is no evidence to suggest that it offered this to either party. Mediation can be a useful tool to help resolve neighbour disputes and prevent the situation from escalating. It could also have signposted her to the local council’s environmental health team, who might have installed recording equipment or issued diary sheets. In addition, it could have checked whether her neighbour had laid adequate insulation underneath their flooring or followed up on its request that they lay rugs. We have therefore made a recommendation about this.
  9. The resident emailed the landlord on 25 September 2021 to report that children from another address were riding bikes or scooters on an outside landing. It updated its records to state that she had given a different flat number to the one in her previous reports, so concluded it must have written to the wrong neighbour in June 2021. However, context strongly implies that she was reporting a new issue about a second household. It is unlikely that it could have taken any action regarding children playing as per its ASB policy, and the evidence shows that it had sent its warning letters to the correct address. Therefore, there was no detriment to the resident at this stage, however this led to confusion as the case progressed, which we have addressed later in this report.
  10. The resident contacted the landlord again on 2 and 30 November 2021 to report that she did not think her neighbour had changed their flooring and the noise problems had continued. The resident’s tenancy agreement states that a tenant must obtain the landlord’s express permission to lay laminate flooring if there is a property below, and it is reasonable to infer that her neighbour was subject to the same term. It responded to her on 6 December 2021 to say it had visited her neighbour and asked them to remove their flooring. It did not specify a deadline or put this in writing until 1 February 2022, after she had sent 8 more recordings.
  11. In its letter to her neighbour, the landlord gave 28 days’ notice to remove their flooring and lay carpets. However, it contacted them 2 days later to ask that they return the letter unopened as it had marked this for the attention of the wrong person. It said it would reissue the letter, however there is no evidence that it did so, which was a failing. It emailed her neighbour on 9 March 2022 to say it was still receiving reports of noise nuisance, but it needed to restart its investigations due to its error with the notice. It said it therefore needed to visit them again to inspect their flooring. It is reasonable for a landlord to gather sufficient, recent evidence. However, it had only been around 1 month since its mistake, and the situation had not changed. It is therefore unclear why it decided to start its investigations again. Additionally, this would not have been necessary if it had reissued the notice at the time.
  12. The landlord asked the neighbour to confirm their availability 4 times before it visited them on 9 May 2022, 2 months later. It was reasonable to arrange a mutually convenient date, however it placed too much onus on her neighbour to respond, which caused further delays for the resident. It could have scheduled a visit sooner and left it open to them to get in touch if this was not convenient. Its records do not explain the outcome of the visit however it contacted the resident the next day to say it was closing her case. It said she had only sent in 1 noise recording since 24 March 2022 of a baby crying, which it did not deem to be ASB.
  13. The resident said she had not sent further recordings as she believed the landlord had started enforcement action. It should have explained its position in detail as she was expecting it to take further steps, so was understandably frustrated. She submitted 23 further recordings between May and August 2022, which it said also did not evidence ASB, and her case remained closed. There are no records to show that it contacted her during this time to explain this, which suggests poor communication by the landlord.
  14. In her complaint of 30 August 2022, the resident said she was not happy with the landlord’s handling of her reports and said the issue was still ongoing. In its stage 1 response of 16 September 2022, it gave a comprehensive account of the recordings she had submitted, and explained why it did not consider that they evidenced ASB. It also recognised that it had not kept her informed well enough, apologised, and said it would feed this back to the officer who had dealt with her case, which was appropriate.
  15. However, in its response, the landlord also said it had sent the floor removal notice of February 2022 to the wrong property, as the resident had given a different address in her report of 25 September 2021. The evidence provided to this Service shows that it had written to the correct address but named the wrong person. This highlights the confusion caused by its failure to clarify the situation in September 2021 and demonstrates that it did not check its records thoroughly enough when investigating her complaint. The resident has commented to the landlord and this Service that she felt it had blamed her for giving the ‘wrong’ information. Its tone and phrasing indicated that she had made a mistake, which was not appropriate and this is likely to have added to her concerns.
  16. The resident asked the landlord to escalate her complaint on 21 September 2022 and sent 4 more recordings. She said it had downplayed the noise and asked why it had not reissued its notice to her neighbour to remove their flooring. She said it had not shown understanding of how the situation had affected her and her family, and repeated her earlier concerns over the adequacy of the noise app.
  17. The landlord’s complaints policy, applicable at the time, states that it will invite the resident to a panel meeting to review the complaint at stage 2. This will consist of 2 senior officers. The resident met with the panel on 19 December 2022, and it issued its stage 2 response on 3 January 2022. It said its panel agreed with its earlier assessments of the noise clips, but it had also agreed to reissue the floor removal notice to her neighbour. It apologised for its communication failures and offered £50 in compensation.
  18. Overall, the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports was poor, and we do not consider that its compensation offer was reasonable redress. It may not have been able to act on her reports due to the reports not meeting the threshold for nuisance or ASB. However, it failed to communicate this to her adequately and its mismanagement caused understandable frustration and concern for the resident. It also failed to recognise her day-to-day experiences or consider alternatives, despite being aware that laminate flooring can lead to noise transference even if the noise itself does not constitute ASB. We cannot assess whether it was correct when it concluded that there was no ASB or other nuisance. However, we have made a failure finding regarding its handling of the matter.
  19. We understand that, since its final response, the landlord has said it could not reissue the floor removal notice after all. We have not considered this development in this investigation as this was not part of its actions under this specific complaint. As explained in paragraph 7 of this report, the resident can bring a new complaint about its handling of the case from 3 January 2023 onwards.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, we find service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of noise nuisance caused by her neighbour.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. The landlord must pay the resident the total sum of £150 within 4 weeks of this decision, in respect of its service failures. It may deduct £50 from this total if it has already paid that amount as offered in its final response. It should pay this to her directly unless she agrees otherwise.
  2. The landlord must provide evidence to this Service that it has complied with this order.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should review its approach to neighbour disputes, to ensure that it considers any alternative remedies in cases where it cannot take any particular action. This may help it to manage issues from an early stage, to prevent the situation from escalating.