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The Guinness Partnership Limited (202335557)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202335557

The Guinness Partnership Limited

25 April 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

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
    1. The resident’s request to replace kitchen cupboard doors.
    2. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord. The property is a flat.
  2. The landlord replaced an unknown number of kitchen cupboard doors on 1 September 2020. The doors were not uniform in colour and were described by the resident as ‘mismatched’.
  3. On 10 April 2023 the resident complained to the landlord about the mismatching cupboard doors. The landlord attended on 14 April 2023 and authorised the replacement of 3 kitchen cupboard doors.
  4. On 27 April 2023 the landlord issued a stage 1 complaint response. It said that it would not respond to the resident’s complaint about issues from 2020. It offered £20 compensation for a delay in issuing its stage 1 complaint response.
  5. The resident escalated his complaint on an unknown date. The landlord issued a stage 2 complaint response on 13 May 2023. It upheld the decision it had made in its stage 1 complaint response.
  6. On 19 June 2023 the landlord attended to measure the cupboards and ordered the materials needed to replace the cupboard doors. It attended on 31 July 2023 to replace the doors. The resident refused the repair because the doors were different colours and sizes.
  7. The landlord attended on 30 August 2023 to take measurements of the cupboard doors. The resident complained on the same day, because he had expected the appointment to be to replace the doors. He was unhappy with the length of time the issue had been ongoing. He also raised concerns about the original fitting in September 2020.
  8. The landlord issued a new stage 1 complaint response on 31 August 2023. It stated that:
    1. its policy did not require it to replace the cupboard doors with exact matches
    2. a senior staff member had reviewed the pictures of the cupboards and decided that the replacement should be cancelled, because the doors were functional
    3. it offered £75 for complaint handling failures (a delay in issuing its stage 1 response) and £25 for ‘poor communication and failed promises’.
  9. The landlord logged a new complaint on an unclear date in September 2023. It issued a new stage 1 complaint response on 18 September 2023. It said that:
    1. it was sorry for the confusion about the purpose of the visit on 30 August 2023
    2. it had cancelled the replacement after this visit because the doors did not need replacing
    3. it was sorry that it did not inform the resident that the repair had been cancelled
    4. it was sorry for a delay in acknowledging his complaint from 30 August 2023 to 5 September 2023
    5. it offered £25 compensation for its complaint handling and £25 for its communication around the repair
  10. The resident asked to escalate his complaint to stage 2 on 18 September 2023 because he remained unhappy. The landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response on 22 September 2023. It upheld its stage 1 decision. The resident asked us to investigate on the same day.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s request to replace the kitchen cupboard doors

  1. The landlord’s Responsive Repairs Policy states that it will aim to complete routine repairs within 28 days. The landlord agreed to replace the resident’s kitchen cupboard doors on 14 April 2023. Once it agreed this with the resident, these timescales should have applied. However it did not attend to complete the repairs until 31 July 2023. This delay was unreasonable and was a failing.
  2. The landlord’s Responsive Repairs Policy states that it ‘will not normally replace elements in good working order to secure an exact match to an element that has been replaced. For example, we will not normally replace all kitchen cupboard doors because one cupboard door needs replacing. However we will seek to make a reasonable match with existing items wherever possible’. The policy states that the landlord has discretion when to apply this element of its policy.
  3. Despite the landlord’s policy, it agreed to the replacement because the doors were not matching. It was unreasonable therefore that the landlord attempted to replace the doors with ones which did not match on 31 July 2023. This was a failing which led to a further delay of 31 days until the next appointment.
  4. There is no evidence that the cupboard doors were not functional. Therefore the landlord’s later decision to cancel the replacement on 30 August 2023 was in line with its policy. However, by initially agreeing to the replacement and later changing its decision, it caused unnecessary frustration, time and trouble to the resident. This was a failing.
  5. We published our Spotlight Report on Complaints about Repairs in March 2019. It highlighted the importance of clear communication and of keeping residents updated about the progress of repairs. The landlord should have explained to the resident that it had cancelled the replacement of the cupboard doors on 30 August 2023 and explained why. It should also have managed the resident’s expectations around the purpose for the visit on 30 August 2023.
  6. The evidence shows the landlord had already attended to take measurements previously, so it is unclear why further measurements were required. It was understandable that the resident believed that the doors would be replaced on 30 August 2023. The landlord’s communication with the resident was unclear, so when the doors were not replaced as expected, it caused additional inconvenience and frustration to the resident. The landlord was correct to apologise for this confusion.
  7. In conclusion, the landlord’s failings resulted in avoidable frustration, inconvenience, time and trouble to the resident. In all of its complaint responses, the landlord offered £50 in respect of its handling of this repair. The evidence however shows delays of around 3 months in concluding the repair, resulting in at least 4 unnecessary appointments. The resident’s expectations were not appropriately managed. The landlord acknowledged some of its failings, but not all of them. For example the delays in attending to replace the cupboard doors.
  8. Our Remedies Guidance states ‘where there has been a failing which leads to frustration, time, trouble and inconvenience’, compensation of at least £50 should be considered. The landlord therefore made an offer of compensation which provided reasonable redress in respect of its handling of the resident’s request to replace the kitchen cupboard doors.

Complaint handling

  1. Our Complaint Handling Code (the Code) states that stage 1 complaint responses should be acknowledged within 5 working days and responded to within 10 working days. Stage 2 complaint responses should be responded to within 20 working days.
  2. The Code states that it may be fair and reasonable for landlords not to respond to complaints about issues which occurred more than 12 months previously. It was not a failing therefore that the landlord did not respond the resident’s concerns about events which took place in 2020. It was important that the landlord dealt with the resident’s outstanding concerns in the complaint by inspecting the cupboard kitchen doors, which it did on 14 April 2023.
  3. In its complaint responses the landlord acknowledged some complaint handling failings, such as:
    1. a delay of 3 working days beyond the timescales set out in the Code in responding to the resident’s complaint on 10 April 2023
    2. a delay of 1 day in acknowledging the resident’s complaint made on 30 August 2023
    3. an unclear complaint handling delay referenced in its complaint response of 31 August 2023. It is likely that the resident raised a further complaint between 13 May 2023 and 29 August 2023 which was not seen by this investigation
  4. In addition to the failings that it acknowledged, there was a further failing in that the landlord issued an unnecessary complaint response. The Code states that ‘if all or part of the complaint is not resolved to the resident’s satisfaction at stage 1, it must be progressed to stage 2 of the landlord’s procedure.’ It also states that if ‘new issues (are raised which) are unrelated to the issues already being investigated, the new issues must be logged as a new complaint.’
  5. Therefore it was reasonable that the landlord chose to raise a new complaint when new issues arose after its initial stage 2 response on 13 May 2023. However it should have raised a stage 2 complaint response on 18 September 2023, instead of raising a new stage 1 complaint. This is because it had issued a stage 1 complaint response about the same issues, and some closely related issues, on 31 August 2023. The landlord issued a further stage 2 response on 22 September 2023, so this led to only a 4 day delay in the resident receiving a final response.
  6. In conclusion, the resident experienced minor delays and unnecessary time and trouble as a result of the landlord’s complaint handling failings. The landlord offered a total of £120 compensation in respect of these failings across its 5 complaint responses. Our Remedies Guidance states that where there has been a service failure which lasted a short duration, compensation of at least £50 should be considered. Therefore, the landlord made an offer of reasonable redress in respect of its handling of the associated complaint.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of reasonable redress for its handling of the resident’s request to replace the kitchen cupboard doors.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of reasonable redress in relation to its handling of the associated complaint.

Recommendations

  1. Findings of reasonable redress has been made in on the basis that the £170 offered for its failings has already been paid. Therefore it should pay this amount to the resident if it has not been paid already.