Social Tenant Access to Information Requirements (STAIRs) consultation is now open. 

Take part in the consultation

Orbit Housing Association Limited (202347409)

Back to Top

 

A blue and grey text AI-generated content may be incorrect.

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202347409

Orbit Housing Association Limited

29 August 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 the resident’s reports about other residents placing bins in a position which restricted access to her property.
  2. The Ombudsman has also investigated the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident was an assured tenant of the property, a 4-bedroom house, and lived there with her 2 children from May 2023 until August 2024. The landlord had no vulnerabilities on record. The resident has advised us, however, that she has multiple vulnerabilities including being registered disabled with mobility issues.
  2. The resident reported issues on 23 November 2023 about bins being placed in a passageway near where she lived, causing obstruction and making access difficult for her and her family. The property manager (PM) sent a letter to residents about the issue on 1 December 2023. On 7 December 2023, the resident logged a complaint as she believed the letter sent to the residents was unclear about where the bins should be stored.
  3. The landlord responded to the stage 1 complaint on 22 January 2024. It said that individuals involved would be contacted about a breach of tenancy as the instructions of the letter were not followed. The landlord partially upheld the complaint and awarded £50 for poor complaint handling as it identified a service failure in escalating her complaint to stage 1. The landlord said that the PM had followed the process and there had been no delays with dealing with the request.
  4. The resident responded on the same day and disputed the stage 1 response. She was unhappy with the response as she felt that the landlord should have acted sooner and said it failed to address all the issues she had raised.
  5. On 9 May 2024, the landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response. It said it did not uphold the complaint as the landlord had taken appropriate action to resolve the issue about the bin placement.
  6. The resident escalated her complaint to the Ombudsman on 25 July 2024 as she remained unhappy with the landlord’s complaint handling and enforcement of the issue concerning the bins. The resident wanted the landlord to enforce its orders, ensure the bin area was kept clear and compensate her for the stress.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of reports about other residents placing bins in a position which restricted access to the resident’s property

  1. The landlord said that on 23 November 2023, the resident reported that other residents were placing their bins in a position which restricted access to her property. We have seen no evidence of this report, as no evidence was provided prior to 6 December 2023.
  2. On 7 December 2023, the resident raised a complaint and sent multiple emails. She said that:
    1. The landlord had overlooked her disability.
    2. The landlord’s letter to residents should have been clearer about where the bins should not be stored.
  3. The landlord’s policy for Anti-Social Behaviour does not consider bin obstruction to be ASB. It says that there is a fine line between ASB and a neighbour dispute. In this case, the landlord said that a letter was sent out to the residents on 1 December 2023. Although we have not seen a copy of this letter, the content was detailed in the landlord’s response on 7 December 2023. The landlord said that if the letter made no difference and access was still being blocked then further action could be taken. This is considered a reasonable response to the issue as a first attempt at resolution.
  4. The resident contacted the landlord to request updates multiple times from 14 December 2023 without response until 15 January 2024. The landlord apologised that she had not been contacted and said that it would contact her within 48 hours. The resident received no further contact from the landlord until it sent the stage 1 complaint response on 22 January 2024. This was a missed opportunity to provide updates to the resident.
  5. The landlord sent a stage 1 response to her complaint on 22 January 2024. Within this, it explained:
    1. It was unable to fully uphold the complaint as the PM had followed the correct process by sending a letter to help resolve the issue.
    2. The complaint was partially upheld as a service failing was made in response to the request to escalate a previous service request to stage 1. The landlord awarded £50 for poor complaint handling.
    3. The case would be forwarded to the Tenancy Services as a breach of tenancy and individuals involved would be contacted.
  6. The resident disputed the stage 1 response on 22 January 2024. She said:
    1. The other residents had stopped placing the bins in a way which restricted access, but the landlord should have stopped this immediately by stating it was a breach of tenancy.
    2. She felt that the PM had not considered her disabilities or the upset and stress caused to her family.
    3. The compensation offered was very little considering the landlord had failed to address all issues that she raised.
  7. This was not raised as a stage 2 complaint, and the resident contacted the landlord again on 31 January 2024 to request a call back as the issues had not been resolved. There was no evidence of a call back.
  8. There was no further action on the case until 22 March 2024, when the landlord sent the resident a copy of a breach of tenancy letter that was addressed to another resident. The letter said that bins were being left in an incorrect area and requested removal by 8 April 2024. This shows that the landlord was following up with notices where the bins were still being left in the wrong place. We are unaware whether the letter was re-sent to the right resident. There was no further contact recorded until the resident emailed the landlord on 8 April 2024 to report issues about the bins again and dispute the stage 1 response again.
  9. On 10 April 2024, the resident contacted the landlord and said that she was waiting for a response from her complaint and her other issues had never been responded to. The landlord failed to respond to her, though internal emails show that the landlord acknowledged that the resident contacted it in January 2024 and wished to escalate the complaint to stage 2. A stage 2 complaint response was provided on 9 May 2024. It said:
    1. The complaint was not upheld as the landlord had acted accordingly.
    2. The case had been passed to the Tenancy Services team to investigate as a breach of tenancy.
    3. A case handler would visit the resident to discuss the issues further on 23 May 2024.
  10. The landlord told us that its policy is that it does not get involved with neighbour disputes that are not anti-social behaviour which includes wheelie bins and parking. It said it sent a letter asking that people stored their bins in a way as to not cause nuisance, but as with many schemes, there simply was not the space for people to store them elsewhere. It requested more evidence from the resident that the bin placement was causing a nuisance or obstruction to the resident, but this was not provided. Therefore, no anti-social behaviour or breach of tenancy was identified in relation to the bins.
  11. The landlord said that the bins were reported on 23 November 2023, and a letter was sent to residents on 1 December 2023. This is considered a reasonable response time. Although the resident told the landlord on 6 December 2023 that the neighbouring residents were still restricting access with the bins, we acknowledge that the residents may not have received the letter prior to 6 December 2023 or taken immediate action. It is also noted that on 22 January 2024, the resident said that the issues had stopped with the bins. It is accepted that the landlord acted reasonably in response to reports about the bin obstruction.
  12. However, when the resident raised further concerns about the bins on 8 April 2024, it took 31 days for the landlord to provide a response. The stage 2 response on 9 May said that case had been passed to the Tenancy Services team again. The case handler visited the resident on 23 May 2024 to discuss the issues further and opened a ASB case following the visit. This was not considered a reasonable response time, however it’s actions in transferring the case to the tenancy services team to investigate the breaches of tenancy was the appropriate action to take.
  13. After considering the evidence of the case, we determine that there were service failures in relation to the landlords:
    1. Poor communication.
    2. Failure to act promptly when it received information.
  14. In accordance with our remedies guidance, the Ombudsman orders the landlord to pay £100. This is because the landlord did not act promptly on occasions when it received information from the resident in relation to the bin obstruction. There were also unnecessary delays in the landlord responding to update requests.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint

  1. The first entry in our records suggests that the resident made a complaint on 7 December 2023. The landlord provided no acknowledgment to this complaint and provided a stage 1 complaint response on 22 January 2024. This was a failure to follow its complaint policy which says that stage 1 complaints should be logged within 5 working days, and a stage 1 response should be sent within 10 working days. In this case there was no acknowledgement, and it took 30 working days to respond to the complaint.
  2. The resident responded to the stage 1 response on 22 January 2024. She gave reasons for why she was unhappy. Amongst other issues, she said that the landlord had failed to consider issues that she raised in general including:
    1. Whether other residents had been contacted with CCTV forms as she had.
    2. Her request for a letter to be sent out to the other residents about the speed that people were driving in the area.
    3. Her concerns about dogs being out without leads.
  3. There is no evidence that these issues were raised prior to the stage 1 complaint. However, as per section 6.8 of the Code, if these issues were raised after the stage 1 response, the landlord should have responded to these issues separately as a new complaint, which we have seen no evidence of. If the issues were raised prior to the stage 1 response, then it should have been acknowledged and responded to within the stage 1 response. There is no evidence that any of the above issues were responded to. This is a clear failure.
  4. The landlord failed to raise her escalation request and so the resident replied again on 31 January and 8 April 2024 to raise the issues. Still, the escalation was not raised until 11 April 2024. This was a clear failure to move the complaint forward for the resident and to offer her an acknowledgement within 5 working days as per the landlord’s complaints policy.
  5. The landlord completed a stage 2 response on 9 May 2024. This was 77 working days after the initial escalation request on 22 January 2024 and 14 working days after the escalation was acknowledged by the landlord on 19 April 2024. While it was issued soon after it was acknowledged, the landlords overall handling of this process meant that the resident was unable to obtain its final response for a prolonged period of time. The landlord did not compensate the resident for the inconvenience.
  6. Throughout the Internal Complaint Procedure (ICP), the landlord acknowledged a service failure in relation to its failure to escalate a complaint to stage 1 and awarded a compensation offer of £50. We have seen no evidence in relation to the landlord failing to escalate the complaint to stage 1, though it is clear the stage 1 response was not in line with Complaint Policy timescales. At this point in the complaint, the compensation figure was considered reasonable.
  7. Considering the above, we have found maladministration in the overall handling of the resident’s complaint. The landlord failed to acknowledge and respond to all issues raised by the resident and its actions were not in line with the timescales set out in the Complaint Policy.
  8. In accordance with our remedies guidance, we therefore order the landlord to pay £100 to the resident for:
    1. The landlord’s failure to respond to all complaints within policy timescales.
    2. Its failure to acknowledge or respond to all issues raised.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s reports about other residents placing bins in a position which restricted access to her property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord must:
    1. Pay £200 in compensation directly to the resident. This includes:
      1. £100 for poor communication and delays.
      2. £100 for distress and inconvenience, the failure to respond to complaints within policy timescales and failing to acknowledge and respond to all issues raised.
  2. The landlord is ordered to provide evidence of compliance with the above orders to the Ombudsman within 4 weeks of the date of this determination.