Windrush Alliance UK Community Interest Company (202331964)

Background

1. The resident had a licence with the landlord, and she lived in supported accommodation. She asked the landlord to replace a broken bed. The resident complained that she suffered a back injury because the landlord did not replace the bed quickly enough. She was unhappy with the landlord’s final offer of compensation and the length of time it took to receive a final response to her complaint.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about:
   1. the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about a broken bed.
   2. the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about a broken bed.
4. There was maladministration in the landlord’s complaints handling.

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

Summary of reasons

5. The landlord delayed and mishandled the resident’s report of a broken bed. It failed to investigate or document the repair properly and communicated poorly, asking the resident for information it should have had on record. It did not consider the resident’s vulnerable circumstances in supported accommodation. It also failed to explain the difference between its complaints process and its personal injury claims procedure.
6. The landlord failed to maintain, publish, or communicate a clear complaints policy between August 2022 and December 2023. It did not keep adequate records of all complaints correspondence. The landlord failed to investigate the resident’s complaint in 2022, and without our intervention it would not have provided a response to the complaint. It took the landlord over 2 years to provide a final complaint response. The landlord’s complaint handling was not in line with its complaints policy and the Housing Ombudsman’s 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.

What we have not looked at

7. The resident told us that the broken bed injured her back. It would be fairer, more reasonable and more effective for the resident to make a personal injury claim for any injury caused. The courts are best placed to deal with this type of dispute as they will have the benefit of independent medical advice to decide on the cause of any injury and how long it will last. We’ve not investigated this further. We can decide if a landlord should pay compensation for distress and inconvenience.

Landlord’s response to concerns about a broken bed

8. The resident’s licence says that the landlord’s objective was to provide medium term accommodation for vulnerable people. The resident’s licence agreement says that the landlord will provide “contents”, including furniture. We have not seen a copy of the schedule containing a list of contents, but there is no evidence that the landlord disputed that it was responsible for replacing the bed. The landlord’s website says that the timeframe for completing urgent repairs is 3 working day. It will complete routine repairs within 15 working days.
9. The resident has provided evidence that she reported the broken bed to her Housing Officer on 11 July 2022 by WhatsApp message. She chased a replacement on 13 July 2022, and the evidence shows she received a missed call from the landlord. On 19 July 2022, the resident sent a photo showing that the bed had collapsed and she later sought medical advice for an injured back. The evidence shows that the landlord only tried to contact the resident once between 11 July 2022 and 19 July 2022. It did not do enough to investigate the matter, or to get the issue resolved.
10. The resident emailed the landlord on 3 August 2022 with details of her injury. She attached medical evidence from an appointment on 2 August 2022. The landlord responded asking her to confirm when the broken bed was reported and how long it took to be replaced. This information should have been available to the landlord from its own records. The landlord should keep full, accurate and accessible records of all repairs. It was unreasonable that it had to request this information from the resident.
11. The landlord emailed the resident on 6 August 2022. It said it had reviewed the email trail about the bed, and it could not comment on how it was broken. The landlord said the issue had been resolved because the resident had been given a new bed. It did not say when this was provided. The landlord’s response was inappropriate because it did not answer the resident’s concerns about the delay in replacing the bed, and assess this against its obligations under the tenancy agreement, its policies and procedures. It also did not initially respond to her request for compensation for her back injury.
12. The landlord should have processes in place for handling personal injury claims, and it should have provided information about this to the resident. It is also best practice to suggest residents seek legal advice where they believe the landlord’s actions or inaction has caused an injury. The landlord should have separately considered whether there had been any service failure in its response, and whether a payment of discretionary compensation for distress, inconvenience and/or time and trouble was appropriate.
13. It took the landlord 20 working days to replace the bed after it was reported broken on 11 July 2022. This was outside both its urgent and routine repair timeframes. The landlord should have acted sooner. In the circumstances, because the resident was vulnerable and her sleep may be affected, it should have treated the repair as urgent and arranged for a replacement within 3 working days.
14. The resident also asked about compensation for her back injury. It would have been reasonable for the landlord to explain that personal injury claims cannot be resolved through its complaints process and to provide clear information about how the resident could pursue such a claim, including insurer details. The landlord did not do this. As the resident had provided evidence of a medical appointment about her back injury, the landlord should have been clear what further evidence it needed to consider her claim. It was not enough to repeat its request for medical information and to say she had not provided evidence of the landlord’s negligence.
15. On 21 November 2023, the resident emailed the landlord attaching the email chain from 2022 about her broken bed and back injury. She asked the landlord to consider providing financial compensation before she approached us or pursued a claim for personal injury. She chased a response from the landlord on 2 December 2023. There is no evidence that it responded to her request. The landlord’s communication with the resident was poor. It should have responded to her to confirm its position and/or raised a complaint.
16. The landlord raised a stage 1 complaint about the broken bed after we contacted it on 13 December 2023. In its stage 1 response, sent on 1 February 2024, it repeated that the resident had not provided evidence that the back injury was caused by the broken bed. It said it had attempted to resolve the issue in a fair and timely manner, but it is not clear what this conclusion was based on, given the lack of evidence of its actions.
17. The landlord’s stage 2 response of 13 November 2024 referred to the lack of evidence to conclude that it had acted appropriately. The landlord’s response was unreasonable. The landlord had not kept sufficient records to conclude that it had acted appropriately. If the resident’s bed was in an unusable or dangerous condition when it collapsed on 19 July 2022, or beforehand, it would not be reasonable to wait until 6 August 2022 to provide a replacement.
18. The resident was living in supported accommodation for vulnerable people. This makes it even more important that a landlord responds promptly to repairs requests, and that it considers the individual needs of residents when deciding how to respond. In this case, there is no evidence that the landlord considered the resident’s individual circumstances when deciding how to respond to her concerns.
19. There was maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about a broken bed. There is no evidence that it responded appropriately when the matter was first reported, it failed to keep adequate records to allow it to investigate the resident’s concerns, and its communication with the resident was poor. The landlord did not provide advice to the resident about making a personal injury claim or explain how this was different to considering redress under its complaints process.
20. We have ordered the landlord to apologise and pay £250 compensation to the resident. This amount reflects the distress and inconvenience the resident experienced. 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.
21. We have also recommended that the landlord review its processes for handling personal injury claim, and that it considers how to communicate with residents and provide appropriate advice where a complaint includes a report of personal injury.

22. At the time of the complaint, the landlord did not have a live, published complaints policy. In an email dated 3 August 2022 the landlord said that its complaints process was “under review”. The landlord did not advise the resident of its timescales for providing a response or explain how to escalate her concerns if she was not satisfied. This was inappropriate. If the published policy was under review, the landlord should have explained its interim process for dealing with complaints.
23. On 3 August 2022 the landlord acknowledged that the resident had made several attempts to raise a complaint, but we have not seen evidence of this. The landlord is reminded to of the need to keep complete, accurate and accessible records of all complaint correspondence.
24. The landlord did not formally respond to the complaint 2022. It later said that this was because the resident had not provided medical evidence. Without that information, the landlord could still have investigated whether there was service failure and provided a written response setting out its findings. As it failed to do so, the resident was unable to escalate her complaint, or to refer the complaint to us to investigate.
25. After our involvement, the landlord issued a stage 1 complaint response on 1 February 2024. The response was delayed by 18 working days after our deadline of 8 January 2024. The landlord did not provide an explanation for the delay. The landlord included a copy of its complaints procedure, dated December 2023. Its stage 1 response did not explain what complaints handling processes were in place between August 2022 and December 2023 or assess its actions against its policy.
26. The landlord initially offered the resident £500 to recognise the effect of the delay in dealing with the complaint. The landlord should have escalated the complaint when the resident said that she had changed her mind about accepting the compensation. It was unreasonable to insist that it could not do so because she had agreed to the amount.
27. The resident asked the landlord to escalate her complaint on 20 February 2024. The landlord said it would not increase its offer of compensation, but it was not clear whether this was intended as its final response to the complaint. If the landlord was not intending to provide a full stage 2 response, it should have written to the resident explaining why and referred her to us if she was still dissatisfied.
28. The landlord did not provide a stage 2 response until 13 November 2023, after we issued a Complaint Handling Failure Order (CFHO) on 6 November 2024. This was 152 working days after we first wrote to the landlord on 9 April 2023 to ask it to provide a final complaint response. The Code says a landlord should provide a stage 2 complaint response within 20 working days. An unexplained delay of 132 working days is unacceptable.
29. The landlord increased its offer of compensation to £750, to recognise the further delay. It did not explain how this was calculated. It provided a copy of its compensation policy, which the resident had requested, on 26 November 2024. The landlord repeatedly told the resident and us that its complaints and compensation policies were “under review”. It could have provided the previous versions of its policies in response to the resident’s requests. The landlord’s responses did not reassure the resident, or us, that it had a fair and consistent approach to dealing with complaints, or to calculating compensation.
30. The stage 2 response offered the resident 2 options, which were to accept the £750 compensation, or to provide additional evidence to support her personal injury claim. This was inappropriate. The landlord accepted that there was service failure because of the unreasonable delay. The resident should not have been asked to choose between accepting compensation for poor complaints handling and pursuing her complaint about the condition of the bed and her injury. The complaints process is not a settlement negotiation, it is an opportunity for the landlord to put things right for residents and to learn from outcomes.
31. There was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling. Without our intervention, the landlord would not have responded to the complaint. It took the landlord over 2 years to provide a final response. The landlord has not provided an explanation for the delay, which on the evidence was unreasonable and avoidable. The landlord failed to maintain adequate complaint handling policies and procedures between August 2022 and December 2023. Its complaint responses did not adequately address the complaint, and its offer of redress was conditional, which was inappropriate.
32. We have not ordered the landlord to pay additional compensation. This is because its offer of £750 compensation is more than the range set out in our remedies guidance where we have found maladministration and a landlord’s failings have adversely affected a resident. We have ordered that the landlord apologise and recommended that it re-offer the £750 compensation to the resident, if this has not already been paid to her.
33. Given that the resident no longer lives at the property, and the landlord has now evidenced that it has published complaints and compensation policies, we have not made any other orders in respect of this complaint. We have made a finding of maladministration, as this reflects the seriousness of the landlord’s failings and its failure to identify these during the complaints process, or to learn from outcomes.

Learning

34. The landlord can learn from its complaint handling in this case. It must make sure that it follows its published policies and procedures, and that it responds to complaints within the timeframes set out in the Code. The landlord should have a process for handling personal injury claims and communicate this to residents where appropriate. The landlord should also make sure that it has processes in place to take into account a resident’s vulnerabilities when deciding how to respond to a repair request.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

35. The landlord failed to keep adequate repairs and complaints records, which has hindered our ability to fully investigate the complaint and to assess its actions. We made an order in another complaint brought by the resident under complaint reference 202310419 that the landlord carry out a senior management review and assess its Knowledge Information Management (KIM) processes against our spotlight reports. We understand that the landlord has now complied with this order and made changes to its processes to improve its service.

Communication

36. The landlord’s communication with the resident and our service was inconsistent, unclear and largely ineffective. It missed opportunities to adequately investigate and respond to the resident’s concerns. It gave confusing advice about how to pursue a complaint and/or a claim for personal injury. The landlord repeatedly ignored requests from the resident and this Service. The landlord treated the complaints process as a negotiation, instead of seeking to understand the resident’s concerns, to assess its actions, and to put things right.