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Karibu Community Homes Limited (202339475)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202339475

Karibu Community Homes Limited

30 September 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. Repairs.
    2. The resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the property, a house owned by the landlord.
  2. Between 27 November 2023 and 9 January 2024, the resident requested multiple repairs including damp in the toilet, boxing in of kitchen pipes and a faulty plug socket. The landlord raised and booked appointments for all repairs.
  3. The resident complained to the landlord on 22 December 2023 and again on 2 February 2024. She reported contractors missing appointments or arriving without tools. She said there were multiple outstanding repairs and reported a contractor gave her PVA glue and told her to do the repair herself.
  4. The landlord sent its stage 1 complaint response on 15 February 2024. It apologised on behalf of its contractors for missed appointments and poor service. It instructed its contractors to rebook the appointments soon. It offered £100 compensation for the service failure.
  5. The resident escalated her complaint on 15 February 2024. She said works remained incomplete and the landlord’s compensation offer was insulting.
  6. On 19 March 2024, the landlord sent its stage 2 complaint response. It apologised for not ensuring its contractors had completed repairs to the required standards. It was unable to find which repairs remained outstanding from its records. It asked to visit her to assess the required repairs. It offered £250 compensation for the distress and inconvenience of repair delays. It offered to discuss this offer with her during its visit.
  7. The resident remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response as she did not receive a visit. She told us repairs remained outstanding. She is seeking the completion of all works, a new kitchen and toilet, and an increased compensation offer.

Assessment and findings

Repairs

  1. It is good practice for a landlord to keep accurate records of reports it receives, and its actions in response. This enables it to effectively manage any issues raised by its residents as well as fulfilling its obligations as a landlord. Neither us nor the landlord can thoroughly investigate and respond to complaints without accurate and comprehensive records. The lack of records meant it was not possible to fully understand what the landlord did or why. This affected our ability to conduct a thorough investigation of this issue.
  2. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance policy sets out its response time for repairs. It says it will respond to routine repairs within 20 working days. These are repairs to restore the working order of fixtures and fittings which are not an immediate health and safety threat.
  3. When the resident requested works to box in gas pipes in the kitchen, the landlord raised these with a target date of 6 February 2024. It cancelled the works, but it is unclear why from the evidence provided. As such, we are unable to assess whether this was a fair and reasonable decision.
  4. On 22 December 2023, the resident complained to the landlord. She said contractors did not attend an appointment to repair kitchen skirting on 11 December 2023. When they then attended on 12 December 2023 as arranged, they arrived close to 5pm and did not have the necessary tools. She said the contractors told her they did not receive wages for work after 5pm.
  5. There is no evidence the landlord rescheduled this repair. This was unreasonable as the resident told the landlord she was unhappy about its failure to complete works.
  6. The resident reported damp in her toilet room on 25 December 2023. The landlord raised works with a target date of 6 February 2024. It raised the works again on 8 and 9 January 2024. It booked an appointment for 2 February 2024. Considering it originally raised works on 25 December 2023, this appointment exceeded its repairs policy timescale.
  7. On 9 January 2024, the landlord also raised works to fix a faulty plug socket and the outstanding works to box in kitchen gas pipes. It booked an appointment on 2 February 2024 for the carpentry works but said it was waiting to book the socket works due to limited electrical contractor appointments. It said appointments could change but contractors would contact the resident if this happened.
  8. The resident contacted the landlord on 2 February 2024 to report its contractors had not arrived for the scheduled appointment, despite saying they had. She later complained about the landlord booking appointments for multiple repairs but not starting works. When it contacted her for more information on 6 February 2024, she told it the contractors gave her PVA glue and told her to complete the boxing in repair herself.
  9. In the landlord’s stage 1 response, it apologised for the service it provided to the resident. It said it told its contractors to rebook works but was not specific about what these were. It offered £100 compensation for the service failure.
  10. The landlord’s complaint response was brief but fair. It did not send us any guidance it uses to calculate compensation offers. However, its £100 offer was in line with our published remedies guidance for a service failure over a short duration.
  11. The resident rejected the landlord’s compensation offer and asked the landlord to escalate her complaint on 15 February 2024.On 22 February 2024 she said its contractors caused damage during works, but it is unclear what was damaged.
  12. The landlord apologised to the resident for not completing repairs to required standards in its stage 2 complaint response. It could not find which repairs remained outstanding in its records and offered to visit the resident to assess what it needed to complete. It offered £250 additional compensation for failure or delay providing a service which caused inconvenience and stress. It offered to discuss this amount with her during its visit.
  13. The landlord’s stage 2 response lacked detail. Its inability to find which repairs remained outstanding demonstrates poor record keeping. Its offer to visit the resident was fair in the circumstances and its compensation offer was in line with our remedies guidance for maladministration. However, when the resident contacted it on 12 April 2024, she said it had not visited her and the works remained outstanding. This was almost a month after it sent its complaint response. There is no evidence it tried to arrange a visit.
  14. When we spoke to her on 18 September 2025, the resident told us she completed a number of the repairs herself. She was dissatisfied with the landlord’s record keeping and the frequency of housing officer changes.
  15. Overall, there were failures in the landlord’s handling of the repairs. Its record keeping was poor and meant it could not effectively manage the residents reports and expectations. Its stage 2 offer of redress was reasonable. However, it did not visit and assess the outstanding repairs as offered. Therefore, we find maladministration and will order additional compensation and a property survey for outstanding repairs.

Complaint handling

  1. At the time of the complaint, the landlord had a 2-stage complaints policy. It said it would reply to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days of receipt and stage 2 complaints within 10 working days of an escalation request. This policy was not compliant with out Complaint Handling Code (the Code). However, it has published a new policy which is compliant with the Code.
  2. The resident first complained on 22 December 2023. The landlord did not respond to this complaint. This was not in line with its complaints policy which defines a complaint as a customer being unhappy with its service.
  3. The resident complained to the landlord again on 2 February 2024. It responded on 15 February 2024. This was within its policy timescales. However, it did not acknowledge its failure to respond to her complaint from December 2023. It would have been good practice to apologise and offer compensation for this.
  4. The resident asked the landlord to escalate her complaint on 15 February 2024. The landlord contacted her to discuss her request on 22 February 2024. It did not formally acknowledge her complaint until 7 March 2024. It responded on 19 March 2024, 23 working days after her first request. This was outside of its policy timescale. It did not acknowledge this as it used its acknowledgement date of 7 March 2024 to calculate its response time. This contradicted its policy.
  5. While the delays in the landlord’s complaint acknowledgement and responses were minimal, it did not acknowledge them in its complaint responses. It did not apologise or offer any remedy to put things right. As such, we find service failure and will order £100 compensation and an apology for the delays and failure to respond to the resident’s complaint from 22 December 2023.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in respect of the landlord’s handling of repairs.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in respect of the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 28 days of this report, the landlord must:
    1. Pay the resident £600 compensation, comprising:
      1. £100 it offered for repairs service failures at stage 1 if it has not already paid this.
      2. £250 it offered for repairs service failures at stage 2 if it has not already paid this.
      3. £150 additional compensation for not visiting the resident to assess outstanding repairs.
      4. £100 for the complaint handling failures.
      5.  Pay the compensation directly to the resident unless she confirms she would prefer this paid to her rent account.
    2. Write an apology from senior management to the resident for the failures identified in this report.
    3. Arrange to visit the resident and assess the property for any outstanding repairs mentioned in this report. If it finds repairs are still outstanding, it must provide us and the resident with a schedule of works.
    4. Provide us with proof of compliance with the above orders.

Recommendations

  1. We recommend the landlord investigate whether there are more robust ways of recording repair completion dates to ensure clarity on the status of outstanding repairs.