Cornwall Housing Limited (202441209)

Background

1. The resident lived in a one-bedroom flat and reported noise nuisance from the neighbour above. She moved out of the property in July 2025.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to:
   1. Reports of noise nuisance.
   2. The resident’s complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. We found that:
   1. There was service failure in the landlord’s response to reports of noise nuisance.
   2. There was no maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s complaint.

We have made an order for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

Reports of noise nuisance

4. While the landlord worked proportionately to try to resolve the noise nuisance, there were missed opportunities. The landlord did not respond to 2 initial reports that the resident made. It also did not discuss the noise or floor coverings with the neighbour.

Complaint Handling

5. The landlord responded to the resident’s complaint in line with its policy and our Complaint Handling Code (the Code).

Putting things right

Where we find service failure, maladministration or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.

Orders

Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

What we found and why

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

6. The purpose of this investigation is not to establish if ASB has occurred or if the resident’s neighbour breached their tenancy agreement as that is not within our remit. We will assess whether the landlord responded appropriately and reasonably to the resident’s reports.
7. The resident told the landlord she had been reporting ASB for 10 years. We would not normally consider events that have happened more than 12 months prior to them being raised formally with the landlord. So, we have only considered the landlord’s actions during the 12 months leading up to the resident making the complaint.
8. This investigation will look at the resident’s reports of noise nuisance. While the resident reported her neighbour had been smoking in the communal areas, it was only noise nuisance that was raised at stage 2 and exhausted the landlord’s complaints procedure.
9. In its stage 1 response the landlord stated the resident reported noise nuisance from her neighbour on 1 February 2024 and 12 March 2024. We have not seen records of reports of noise nuisance submitted on these dates. The landlord stated the resident did not receive a response to these reports and apologised for this. It said it should have been more proactive in dealing with the resident’s reports.
10. It was appropriate that the landlord apologised as it had not acted in line with its policy. The landlord’s policy states reports of ASB will be responded to within 5 working days.
11. The resident reported more noise nuisance on 3 occasions between 6 April 2024 and 8 April 2024. She described slamming doors, moving furniture around, stomping in heavy boots and scraping and scratching noises. The landlord responded to these reports on 10 April 2024. This timeframe was in line with its policy.
12. The landlord explained it took an evidence-based approach to ASB. It said if the resident wanted to start officially recording the noise nuisance, she would need to use a noise recording app and complete noise diaries. This was an appropriate response to ensure evidence was gathered.
13. The resident advised the landlord that she would not use a noise app or diaries as she said these had been ignored by the landlord before. She said a previous use of noise apps had provided inadequate recording quality.
14. The landlord told the resident it would need evidence to be able to investigate the matters as ASB. It told the resident she could use her phone to make recordings if she did not want to use the app. The landlord offered to meet with the resident to explain the noise app, if she wished. This was an appropriate offer of support.
15. It appeared the resident decided to use the noise app as on 28 June 2024, the landlord told the local council’s environmental protection team that it had received 20 noise app recordings from the resident.
16. The landlord told the environmental protection team that it had listened to all the recordings. It said it did not believe anything recorded was ASB. The landlord asked the environmental protection team if it could listen to the recordings. It was reasonable and appropriate for the landlord to seek a second opinion on the recordings.
17. The environmental protection team said the noise on the recordings was neither continuing in nature nor affected health. It did not believe the level of noise interfered with the resident’s use or enjoyment of the property. It said the noise did not reach a threshold for ASB and advised the case to be closed.
18. The landlord closed the case on 3 September 2024. This was reasonable due to its own decision about the noise and the second opinion it had received from the local council’s environmental protection team.
19. The landlord closed the case in line with its policy. It appropriately informed the resident of this decision explaining the reasons why. The landlord offered to speak to the resident’s neighbour about the noise, which was reasonable. The resident agreed to the landlord speaking to the neighbour. However, there were no records that show the landlord did this.
20. When the resident continued to report noise nuisance, the landlord arranged for a surveyor to attend the property. This was to establish if there were any defects at the property which could contribute to noise transference. This was a resolution-focused approach from the landlord.
21. The landlord surveyed the property on 27 November 2024. It found that there were no defects in the structure of the property which could cause undue levels of noise transference.
22. The resident told the landlord that her neighbour had hard flooring. The surveyor did not have access to the neighbour’s property so was unable to confirm this. The surveyor advised hard flooring would increase noise whereas a soft floor covering such as carpet would dampen it.
23. The landlord’s stage 2 response said it could talk to tenants about using appropriate floor coverings, but it could not enforce any changes. However, the landlord did not talk to the neighbour about his flooring. This was a missed opportunity to potentially resolve the reports of noise nuisance.
24. The landlord’s tenancy agreement does not have any clauses relating to hard floor coverings. The landlord is encouraged to consider recommendations 3, 14, 22 and 23 of our Spotlight Report on noise complaints which was published in October 2022.
25. On 4 February 2025 the landlord told the resident it had forwarded the noise nuisance diaries she had submitted to the local council’s environmental protection team. It had requested the local council fit noise monitoring equipment in the resident’s property in order to gather evidence. This was a reasonable next step for the landlord to take in trying to resolve the resident’s concerns.
26. The landlord stated the local council had said there would be a delay in fitting the noise monitors due to the availability of equipment. Any delays in the equipment being fitted are reasonable as this was outside of the landlord’s control. In the meantime, it asked the resident to use the noise app to record any noise she wanted to report. The landlord’s stage 2 response reiterated these points.
27. It was unclear whether the noise monitoring equipment was fitted or if the resident moved out of the property before the equipment became available.
28. The landlord accommodated the resident’s requests for certain staff members not to be involved in her case. It allocated a neighbourhood enforcement officer to be the resident’s point of contact. This was appropriate and in line with the landlord’s policy.
29. The resident was dissatisfied that the landlord did not take any action against her neighbour regarding the noise nuisance. The landlord explained in its stage 2 response that any action had to be evidence based and proportionate. This was reasonable.
30. We have ordered the landlord to pay the resident £50 compensation. This is to recognise the likely distress and inconvenience caused when the landlord did not follow through on contacting the neighbour to discuss noise when it had offered to do so and the resident welcomed the landlord making this contact.

31. When the resident raised additional complaints during the stage 1 investigation these were incorporated into the stage 1 response as the matters were related. This was appropriate and in line with the Code.
32. To ensure these additional matters were fully investigated, the landlord extended the response time for the stage 1 response by 6 working days. This was reasonable and the extension timeframe was in line with its policy and the Code.
33. The landlord communicated this clearly with the resident and issued its stage 1 response by the new deadline. This was appropriate.
34. There were no failings identified in the landlord’s response to the resident’s complaint at either stage 1 or stage 2.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

35. Some records submitted for this investigation showed gaps and inconsistencies in what was logged. More robust record keeping would be beneficial for the landlord to manage ongoing ASB cases and to help with any future investigations.

Communication

36. The landlord considerately accommodated the resident’s requests for certain staff members not to be involved in her case. However, at times this did not seem to have been effectively communicated with internal stakeholders which caused confusion. It also caused short delays in the resident receiving responses when clarity was sought on who should communicate with the resident. Better communication and record keeping may have prevented this.