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The Guinness Partnership Limited (202402421)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202402421

The Guinness Partnership Limited

24 October 2024


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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:

a.     Reports of damp and mould at the property.

b.     Reports of unacceptable behaviour by the resident.

c.      Reports in relation to the resident’s dogs.

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured tenancy agreement. The property is a 1-bedroom flat on the ground floor.
  2. The resident has various mental health conditions.
  3. The landlord visited the resident on 5 July 2023 following disputes between him and a neighbour concerning anti-social behaviour (ASB). Following this meeting, the landlord sent an unacceptable behaviour letter (UBL) to the resident. This warned the resident about his conduct. The landlord sent a further letter on 12 July 2023, informing the resident that no dogs were allowed in the communal gardens at any time.
  4. The landlord sent another letter to the resident on 4 December 2023, advising him of the law on dangerous dog breeds, believing his dog was a bully XL. The resident called the landlord on 12 December 2023 to raise new repairs relating to damp and mould in the property. As the landlord had previously sent a UBL to the resident, the landlord was unable to raise these at the time and said it would call the resident back.
  5. The resident called the landlord on 7 February 2024 to raise a complaint. He was unhappy with the ongoing damp and mould in the property and that the landlord had not completed any repairs relating to this. He was also unhappy that the landlord sent him the UBL and that it said his dogs were no longer able to use the communal garden.
  6. The landlord acknowledged his complaint on 9 February 2024 and provided its complaint response on 19 February 2024. It did not uphold the resident’s complaint. It said that the first time he had reported damp and mould was on 6 February 2024, and it had attended to the property on 15 February 2024 to perform a mould wash. It also said it had acted within its policies in relation to sending him a UBL and the correspondence about his dogs not being able to use the communal garden.
  7. The resident and the landlord exchanged various e-mails about his complaint, escalating this to stage 2 of the complaints process on 6 March 2024. He said he felt the landlord had lied to the police about the incident on 5 July 2023 and that it had banned his dogs from the garden out of spite following this. The resident also sent in evidence that he had attempted to report the damp and mould at an earlier date.
  8. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on the same day and provided its stage 2 complaint response on 4 April 2024. It awarded the resident £25 for failing to follow up a call back request following the stage 1 complaint response. It also offered him £100 for failing to follow up on the repairs reported in December 2023. The landlord said it had arranged the necessary repairs to deal with the damp and mould. It added that it felt it had acted in line with its policies in dealing with the UBL and his dogs.
  9. The resident wrote to the Ombudsman on 15 April 2024, asking us to consider his complaint. The resident said the landlord had failed to communicate with him properly regarding his dogs and the UBL. He added that he attempted to report damp and mould for a significant period of time before the landlord took any action about this. The resident has said that, to resolve his complaint, he would like the landlord to help him move out of the property to one without damp and mould and where his dogs have access to a garden.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of reports of damp and mould

  1. The landlord’s damp and mould policy says that it will ‘provide dry, warm, healthy and safe homes for our residents which are free from any hazards’. It also states that, in line with its compensation policy, it will ‘pay compensation’ as a result of ‘failure to deliver the service that it committed to’. It says ‘this includes where furniture or belongings has been damaged and/or distress and inconvenience has been caused’.
  2. The landlord’s damp and mould policy does not have timescales for dealing with damp and mould. It is therefore reasonable that the landlord should complete works within the timescales set out in its repairs policy. Its repair policy has 2 timescales for dealing with repairs. For emergency repairs, it says it will attend within 24 hours to make safe the property and will return within a reasonable timeframe to complete the repair. For routine repairs, the landlord says it will aim to complete these within 28 calendar days.
  3. The earliest evidence the Ombudsman has seen of the resident reporting damp and mould was in December 2023. The landlord appears to have logged the resident’s repair report on 12 December 2023 but there is no evidence that it took any action following this. The earliest action taken by the landlord was on 15 February 2024 when its contractors attended and performed a mould wash. The landlord’s contractors noted that there was damage to the plaster on the walls due to damp but the resident did not want any action taken regarding this until the landlord had identified the cause of damp and mould.
  4. The landlord also performed a property defects inspection on 18 March 2024. However, this does not appear to have diagnosed a cause of the damp problems or provided the landlord with any works it needed to undertake to rectify this. The landlord did not book any follow up works or a specialist survey of the property to determine the cause of the problem, or the extent of the necessary works to eradicate the issue. The landlord’s failure to do so was a clear failure in service.
  5. The local authority did however visit the property and identified the cause of the damp and mould as ‘rising damp’. This is listed in the landlord’s damp and mould policy as something that it was responsible for. The local authority contacted the landlord on 26 February 2024 and highlighted that the damp and mould in the property represented a hazard under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System (HHSRS). The local authority also provided a full list of the works the landlord needed to complete and asked it for an update on this.  It is unclear if the landlord responded to this request, nor is there any evidence that following this e-mail it raised the repairs it needed to.
  6. The landlord recognised in its stage 2 complaint response that it had failed to respond to the resident’s reports in December 2023, offering £100 compensation for this failure. It also provided him with £25 compensation for failing to make a call back when it should have. However, this is an insufficient offer of compensation considering the distress and inconvenience the ongoing damp and mould in the property had on the resident.
  7. The landlord clearly failed to deliver the service it had committed to and to provide a ‘dry, warm, health and safe’ home for the resident. The landlord failed to act upon recommendations given by the local authority or to undertake itself a survey of the property. This meant that the problem had been ongoing for over 5 months by the end of the complaints process with no meaningful repairs work completed in the meantime.
  8. The resident has informed the Ombudsman that at present the landlord had completed no works to combat the damp and mould. The landlord said in its stage 2 complaint response that it would be addressing the delays with the repairs team but it does not appear to have followed up on this. The landlord has provided evidence that it has made offers to the resident to decant him from the property, but he declined these offers. The landlord needs to write to the resident to outline how it intends to deal with the repairs, along with how it intends to ensure a suitable decant for the resident.
  9. The landlord should pay the resident £650 compensation for its failure to handle his reports of damp and mould. It did not adhere to both its damp and mould policy and repairs policy and throughout the complaints process made little progress with diagnosing or rectifying the root cause of the damp and mould. This amount is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance which recommends figures in this range where there was a failure which had a significant impact on the resident.

The landlord’s handling of reports of unacceptable behaviour by the resident

  1. The landlord has an unacceptable behaviour policy. It describes unacceptable behaviour as: ‘aggressive or abusive behaviour towards our employees’. It goes on to say that this does not ‘just mean physical harm’. It also includes any ‘behaviour or language that may make our employees feel afraid, intimidated, threatened, or abused.’ The landlord’s policy for dealing with this involves taking informal action, such as a warning letter or meeting to discuss the action. If the unacceptable behaviour continued, it may then escalate this to legal action against perpetrators.
  2. The landlord’s policy also says that after 28 days (unless more time is required to assess behaviour), it will conduct a review to assess if the behaviour has stopped because of the action taken.
  3. When considering complaints relating to unacceptable behaviour, it is not the role of the Ombudsman to reach a decision on whether unacceptable behaviour has occurred. Instead, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the landlord has taken reasonable and appropriate steps to respond to reports in line with its policy.
  4. The landlord and the resident both dispute the exact circumstances of what occurred during its meeting on 5 July 2023. The landlord reported that the resident shouted at the landlord’s member of staff following a disagreement. The landlord also called the police and reported that it felt that the resident was also stopping it from leaving the area.
  5. The landlord has a duty towards its staff to ensure that they are able to work without fear of harm. Given the staff member’s reaction to the altercation, it was reasonable for the landlord to follow its unacceptable behaviour process. This involved providing the resident a written warning about his behaviour being unacceptable. Given this was the first instance of such behaviour, it was reasonable that the landlord only took informal action at this stage. The Ombudsman is unable to say that the landlord acted unreasonably or in a heavy-handed manner in sending the USB letter to the resident.
  6. However, the landlord’s policy states that it will conduct a review after 28 days to assess if the behaviour has stopped. There is no evidence that the landlord followed its policy in doing so. The landlord’s failure to complete this meant that there was a warning on the resident’s account that meant it was difficult for him to contact it and raise repairs. The landlord’s failure to follow all of the steps in its policy and review the case unfairly hampered the resident’s ability to engage with it.
  7. The landlord’s failure to follow its policy in this instance represented service failure. It caused the resident distress and inconvenience and impacted his ability to report repairs concerns. This represented service failure from the landlord. For this failing, the landlord should pay the resident £100 compensation. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance which recommends figures in this range for failures which adversely affected the resident.

The landlord’s handling of reports about the resident’s dogs

  1. The landlord has a pet procedure that sets out its positions about letting residents have pets in their properties. This says that tenants wishing to keep a pet in their home must do so in line with the conditions set out in their tenancy agreement. The resident’s tenancy agreement states that ‘You must not allow any pet or animal to foul inside your home or in any communal areas, including gardens, footpaths and play areas’. This also says that residents ‘must not allow any pet or animal that you keep at your home to cause a nuisance or annoyance or danger to anyone’. It says that if this is the case, it can withdraw permission at any time.
  2. The resident has 2 dogs. These are therapy dogs. They are a Great Dane and Mastiff cross. The landlord’s pet procedure says that ‘therapy dogs are not considered registered assistance dogs by the Department of Health and not entitled to claim the same public access rights that apply to assistance dogs’.
  3. The landlord sent the resident a letter on 12 July 2023, informing him that neighbours had reported his dogs as causing a nuisance and fouling in the garden. It asked him to not allow them to use the communal gardens in the future. The resident was unhappy with this, saying that his dogs needed somewhere to exercise and that if the landlord had told him this at an earlier stage, he would not have moved to the property.
  4. The resident’s tenancy agreement does not give explicit access to the communal gardens for pets. This means that the landlord is within its rights to restrict the resident’s dogs’ access to the gardens. As this is a communal area, it was fair of the landlord to take the actions it did, especially when receiving reports from other neighbours that the dogs were a nuisance and fouling in the garden. As the landlord’s policy says therapy dogs do not legally have the protection of public access rights, it is therefore at its discretion to decide whether to allow dogs to use the communal gardens.
  5. However, the landlord sent the resident a letter on 4 December 2023 highlighting concerns that neighbours had raised that his dogs were XL Bullys. This letter said ‘your dogs will be required to be kept on leash and muzzled whilst in the grounds to include communal gardens’. The resident’s dogs however are apparently not XL Bullys and the landlord’s letter saying his dogs needed to be on leash and muzzled undoubtedly caused distress and inconvenience to him. The landlord failed to properly investigate the neighbours’ concerns and instead sent the resident a letter containing incorrect information. The landlord failed to follow up when the resident informed it that his dogs were not XL Bullys.
  6. The landlord’s letter also did not provide clear information to the resident about dogs in the communal garden. The landlord should write to the resident clearly setting out its position on if it will allow dogs in the communal gardens at any time.
  7. The landlord’s failure to investigate the breed of the resident’s dogs and send a factually correct letter represented service failure. For this failing, the landlord should pay the resident £50 compensation. This is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance which recommends figures in this range for minor failures in service by the landlord which it has not appropriately acknowledged.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of reports of damp and mould.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of reports of unacceptable behaviour by the resident.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of reports about the resident’s dogs.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. It is ordered that within 4 weeks of the date of this letter, the landlord:

a.     Pays the resident a total of £800 compensation, inclusive of its previous offer of £125 made in its stage 2 complaint response. This consists of:

  1. £650 for its failures when dealing with reports of damp and mould;
  2. £100 for its failures when dealing with reports of unacceptable behaviour;
  3. £50 for its handling of reports about his dogs.

b.     Apologises to the resident for the failings identified in this report.

c.      Writes to the resident outlining its plan for completing the damp and mould repairs and its timescales for doing so. If it has not already done so, the landlord should arrange a survey of the property to determine the extent of the works. It should also outline whether it will be decanting the resident whilst it is completing these works.

d.     Writes to the resident clearly setting out its position on if it will allow dogs in the communal gardens at any time, regardless of their breed.

e.     Provides evidence to the Ombudsman that it has done so.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should write to the resident regarding compensation for any damaged items. It should request a full list of any items damaged by the damp and mould and any necessary evidence it requires to be able to offer compensation for this or direct the resident to its insurers.