Hyde Housing Association Limited (202404575)

Background

1. The resident lives in a ground floor flat with her 2 daughters. She complained to her landlord in February 2024 that the communal light outside her door was not working. The landlord attended on at least 3 occasions to fix the light. The resident told the landlord she felt vulnerable for herself and her children due to it being dark. The resident wants the landlord to repair the light and offer more compensation.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
   1. A repair to a communal light outside the property.
   2. The associated complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. There was service failure in the landlord’s handling of a repair to a communal light outside the property.
4. There was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

A repair to a communal light outside the property

5. Although the landlord attended each of the service requests it failed to permanently fix the light and did not address the resident’s reported safety concerns. 

The associated complaint

6. The landlord handled the resident’s complaint in line with its own policies and procedures. Although the landlord offered compensation in its stage 1 complaint response for complaint handling, we have not identified any service failures.

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.

What we have not looked at

7. We may not consider complaints which are raised prior to having exhausted the landlord’s complaints procedure. The resident has raised concerns with us about continued issues with the communal intercom system. We have seen no evidence that the resident has raised these matters as a formal complaint with the landlord. Accordingly, these matters are not considered in this report, as it is important that the landlord has a chance to put things right prior to the Service’s investigation.

The landlord’s handling of a repair to a communal light outside the property

8. The landlord has not disputed it was responsible for the repair to the light at the entrance to the resident’s property. We have seen evidence it responded to service requests within the landlord’s responsive repair policy of 28 days for non-urgent repairs as follows:
   1. Reported on 15 December 2023 and attended within 20 days on 4 January 2024.
   2. Reported on 7 March 2024 and attended within 1 day on 8 March 2024.
   3. Reported on 19 March 2024 and attended within 8 days on 27 March 2024. It could not get access to the property on the original visit of 20 March 2024.
9. The resident however reports there has been further issues with the lighting outside the property which is currently not working. We have seen evidence of the resident reporting the light not working again within a month (27 April 2024). It would have been reasonable to expect the landlord to have made efforts to permanently fix the light, once it established it was a recuring problem. It is unclear if the landlord attended this service request or not however the resident recently told us the light has not been working for a year.
10. In the landlord’s complaint responses, it acknowledged it had failed to communicate effectively when it could not get access to the property on 20 March 2024. It offered the resident £50 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by its service failure. The compensation offered was insufficient as the landlord failed to acknowledge the resident’s report of her safety concerns for her and her 2 daughters. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to have offered the resident reassurance and monitored any repairs to ensure they were permanently fixed and reduced any safety risk.
11. The landlord’s failure to permanently fix the light has resulted in a service failure and we have ordered it to offer the resident additional £100 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused. This amount reflects the likely distress and inconvenience the resident experienced and is consistent with the landlord’s compensation policy, which states that awards should consider the severity, length of time suffered, number of people affected and vulnerability. It also aligns with our remedies guidance for cases where there was a failure which adversely affected the resident and the landlord has made some attempt to put things right. We have also ordered the landlord to take actions to permanently fix the light.

12. The landlord has evidenced it acknowledged the resident’s formal complaint and escalation request within the 5 days allowed under its complaints policy. Its stage 1 complaint response of 19 March 2024 was sent 6 days after it acknowledged the complaint on 10 March 2024 which was within the 10 days stipulated in its complaint handling policy at stage 1.
13. The landlord sent its stage 2 complaint response of 28 March 2024, 3 days after it acknowledged the escalation on 25 March 2024 which was within the 20 days stipulated in its complaint handling policy at stage 2.
14. The responses were reasonable and covered the areas the resident complained about other than the resident’s safety concern which is addressed above. We have found there to be no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint. The landlord offered the resident £50 in its stage 1 complaint response for its complaint handling. We have therefore recommended the landlord contacts the resident and re-offers her the £50 compensation (if not paid already) it committed to in its complaint response.

Learning

15. The landlord has been unable to demonstrate it considered the resident’s safety concerns and it should consider this in any future repairs at the property.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

16. It is unclear from the landlord’s record keeping if it has a system in place to identify recurring repairs which may require further investigation. The landlord should consider the issues highlighted in this report and make efforts to improve its service through good record keeping.

Communication

17. The landlord’s communication was good other than the issue identified, which the landlord rectified and offered compensation for.