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Incommunities Limited (202411510)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202411510

Incommunities Limited

25 March 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 communications regarding temporary accommodation between October 2023 and January 2024.

Background

  1. The resident lives in a one-bedroom bungalow. She has an assured tenancy that began on 7 February 2022. The landlord was aware before the complaints process that the resident has fibromyalgia, asthma, anxiety, and is hard of hearing.
  2. During 2023 the resident had raised a series of concerns with the landlord relating to damp and mould at her property. The resident was engaging with the landlord through her solicitors to have the property inspected. This was to identify the cause and extent of damp and mould at her property
  3. On 3 October 2023 the landlord arranged for a damp survey to be completed but could not gain access to the property. It called the resident to discuss this. The resident said she was unaware of the appointment. On 23 December 2023, the landlord agreed with the resident to carry out another survey. The resident says that the landlord advised her during this call that it would provide her with temporary accommodation while the prospective remedial work at the property took place.
  4. On 16 January 2024, the landlord called the resident to discuss the follow on work as this was due to be completed by a different contractor. The resident explained that she thought she was going to be moved into temporary accommodation and the landlord would provide her with boxes to help her pack her belongings. The landlord said to her “this was not the case” and it had discussed “works with [the previous contractor] but they could no longer proceed”.
  5. The resident made a complaint on 22 January 2024. She said:
    1. she had been assured that she would be relocated during the remedial work and was promised boxes would be provided to pack her belongings.
    2. she felt this assurance was a “relief” because she was concerned about the disruption and inconvenience of the work.
    3. she later “discovered the promise had been reneged” and that she had misunderstood the agreement because there was no provision for her to move temporarily.
    4. she felt this “contradiction” caused her distress and inconvenience and placed her in an “awkward” position as she felt her “integrity” had been questioned and that the landlord thought she had “fabricated the promise of relocation”.
    5. she asked the landlord for a formal apology.
  6. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 30 January 2024. It said:
    1. a survey was due to take place on 3 October 2023, but it could not gain access. During the same day, Environmental Health Officers had surveyed and passed on their recommendations to the resident.
    2. it apologised for distress and inconvenience around the conversations she had with its officer about temporary accommodation while the work was completed.
    3. however, it only proposed to replace extractor fans in the kitchen and bathroom which would only take 2-3 hours to do.
    4. it would only offer temporary accommodation if there was more “disruptive” work such as “lots of plastering”.
    5. it was aware the resident had “gone down solicitors” to raise concerns separately for remedial work due at the property for damp and mould. For this matter, it was waiting for an inspection to be arranged.
    6. it apologised for any misunderstanding and inconvenience.
  7. In April 2024 the resident made a Subject Access Request (SAR) to the landlord, to ask for recordings of calls with her that took place between October 2023 and January 2024. In response, the landlord advised that no such recordings were held. It said this was because the calls were made on mobile phones, and they did not have the facility to record calls made in this way.
  8. The resident escalated her complaint on 15 May 2024 because:
    1. she felt it had not fully resolved her concerns.
    2. she said she was told by the legal team that some calls would not be recorded if they were made via a communication platform, such as Microsoft Teams, or mobiles. However, she felt it would have a call archive on the mobile phone to show she was contacted by the landlord.
    3. she wanted to have the call recordings and conversations she had with officers on 18 and 20 April 2024.
  9. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 13 June 2024. It said:
    1. it had previously advised her it would be upgrading her extractor fans in the kitchen and bathroom, and it would not be necessary to move her to carry out these works.
    2. it had spoken to the damp and mould department, who confirmed that the “general advice” they give is that they “may” move residents depending on the work required and based on their personal circumstances.
    3. it had spoken with the relevant officer concerning the call she had complained about. This was done over Microsoft Teams and was not recorded because it “did not have the capacity” to record calls on this medium or via mobiles.
    4. call recording was limited to calls into its contact centre. During those calls it said it had a duty to advise callers that their calls would be recorded.
    5. it could not find any records that suggested a decision was taken to move her into temporary accommodation before the survey was carried out as part of her ongoing disrepair claim.
    6. as part of its response to her SAR, it provided screen images of one of the outbound calls in May 2024, along with case entries into the tenancy database. It “hoped” that because these were created before her complaint this would “provide some transparency about the conversations”.
    7. it noted the resident had made several enquiries on the same day, after being advised her enquiry had been passed to the relevant team. It acknowledged she may have done this out of frustration but that repeated calls created duplication and disproportionate time on a case which increased the chance for poor communication.
    8. it asked her to allow 5 working days for staff to process her enquiry and to contact it after this if she had not received a response.
    9. it could have provided the evidence of the case entries for the calls during its stage 1 response to have clarified its position sooner.
    10. it could also have provided this as part of its response to her SAR.
    11. it apologised and offered her a goodwill payment of £70 for its poor communication and “the perceived barriers” she had faced.
  10. The resident escalated her complaint to us on 23 December 2024 because:
    1. she wanted to move out while the landlord conducted wider damp and mould work, but she said it was sending confusing messages about whether it would do this.
    2. she remained unhappy with the landlord’s initial communications around temporary accommodation.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. Part of the resident’s complaint was about the data shared by the landlord when she made her SAR.
  2. We are unable to investigate how the landlord handled the resident’s SAR. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is responsible for dealing with complaints about information rights and data privacy. This includes how a SAR is handled by public bodies. Therefore, the resident may wish to refer her complaint about this matter to the ICO for investigation. However, we have assessed how the landlord communicated with the resident in relation to the SAR.
  3. The resident made a separate complaint to the landlord about its handling of repairs to her property to treat damp and mould. This complaint completed the landlord’s complaint procedure on 20 March 2025. However, at the time of writing this report, the resident has not referred this complaint to us for investigation. The resident can ask us to investigate her complaint about this matter up to 12 months after completing the landlord’s complaint procedure. Accordingly, this investigation has focused on and assessed the circumstances of the complaint referred to us as set out above in ‘the complaint’ section.

Communications about temporary accommodation between October 2023 and January 2024

  1. The resident’s complaint centres around an exchange between her and the landlord, where she said it had told her it would provide her with temporary accommodation. This was while it carried out remedial work on her property. The resident has expressed concern that the landlord withdrew its promise and told her she had misunderstood the arrangement. As a result, she felt that “her integrity had been questioned” and that it had acted as though she had “fabricated the promise of relocation”.
  2. For context, around the time she said this conversation occurred, the resident was in the process of agreeing to wider remedial work that needed to be completed to resolve ongoing damp and mould issues. However, the landlord had not completed a survey of the property in relation to this. A survey was due to take place on 3 October 2023, but it said it could not gain access to do this.
  3. The evidence shows the landlord had 3 calls with the resident on 3 October 2023, 23 December 2023, and 16 January 2024. Its case management system reflected it had the following discussions with her:
    1. 3 October 2023 – it called her to discuss the failure to access the property to conduct a survey that day. It noted the resident said she did not know about the appointment. And that she said she had reported “the damp” to environmental health who had surveyed the property. It noted it had tried to speak with the environmental health officer to discuss this.
    2. 23 December 2023 – it called her to agree that a specific contractor would carry out a survey, and it would then “agree on a way forward”.
    3. 16 January 2024 – it called her to discuss “damp [and] mould works” as the resident was “going through section 11”. It also advised that there was a change of contractor for the work. It noted “she [said it] had advised she would be moved, and [it] would be providing boxes to help her pack up her belongings. This is not the case as [it] had discussed work with the previous contractor, but they can no longer proceed with [the] work”.
  4. The landlord said in its complaint responses that:
    1. there had been “some possible confusion”, and that it would only relocate residents where the work being carried out is “extremely disruptive”. It said it only intended to replace kitchen and bathroom fans which would take 2-3 hours to complete.
    2. it could not find any records to suggest a decision was taken to move her to temporary accommodation before it surveyed the property in February 2024.
    3. it was not suggesting the resident had lied, but “possibly heard the words you may be moved and considered this to be the case”.
  5. We acknowledge the resident’s concerns that she felt the landlord had made a promise to her about temporarily accommodating her. However, there is no evidence it had promised to do this during its calls between October 2023 and January 2024.
  6. There is also no supporting evidence that the landlord was required to consider temporary accommodation at this time. When the calls had occurred, it had only agreed to install extractor fans in the bathroom and kitchen. It had not surveyed the property, nor had it agreed to carry out any work that would reasonably give rise to the need for it to consider temporary accommodation. As such, we cannot be satisfied that the landlord failed to do what it said it would do or raised her expectations around this.
  7. Further, the landlord reasonably responded to the resident’s concerns by reviewing its records and explaining its position about whether it would provide temporary accommodation and why. The landlord recognised that this matter had caused her “frustration and distress”. It apologised for this and for “possibly raising [her] expectations at any point” and offered the resident £70 as a goodwill payment. This was a proportionate award in the circumstances.
  8. The resident made a SAR request for “the full telephone records” of the conversations she had with officers from 3 October 2023. The landlord responded and said it did not hold any call recordings from the discussions between her and the relevant officers around this time.
  9. The resident explained to her landlord that she felt it should have recorded all the calls it made to her. She also said it ought to have had an archive which showed the calls it had made. The landlord explained in its complaint responses that it did not have the facility to record calls outside of those made through its contact centre. It said the calls the resident wanted access to were made via Microsoft Teams and work mobiles. It provided her with a screenshot of the calls she made to its contact centre. And the notes it had taken for the calls it had made to her outside of the contact centre.
  10. We consider the landlord acted reasonably when it explained which calls it recorded through which mediums. And providing the resident with the evidence it had about the calls in question. We recognise that had the landlord recorded the calls made through Microsoft Teams and officers’ mobiles, it would have been in a better position to respond to the resident’s overall concerns and to allay her frustrations about the discussions it had. However, the landlord is not obligated to record all the calls it makes to residents. Therefore, we are unable to find fault with the landlord for not doing so.
  11. In light of the above, we found reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of communications about temporary accommodation between October 2023 and January 2024.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the landlord’s handling of communications about temporary accommodation between October 2023 and January 2024 satisfactorily.

Recommendation

  1. If it has not already done so, the landlord should ensure it pays the resident the £70 compensation it awarded during the complaint process.