London Borough of Islington (202512850)

Background

1. The leaseholder is the non-resident leaseholder of a 1-bedroom property, of which the landlord is a freeholder. The property is situated on the 1st floor of a building owned by the landlord, in which there is 1 other property.
2. The leaseholder was letting out the property to sub-tenants at the time of the complaint. Her sub-tenants were reporting anti-social behaviour from the landlord’s tenant who lived in the ground floor flat below the property. The leaseholder’s sub-tenants ended their tenancy shortly after she made her complaint to the landlord.

What the complaint is about

3. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the leaseholder’s:
   1. Reports of anti-social behaviour.
   2. Request for reimbursement of legal fees and loss of earnings due to her sub-tenants moving out of the property.
   3. Associated complaint.

Our decision (determination)

4. There was maladministration in the landlord’s response to the leaseholder’s reports of anti-social behaviour.
5. The leaseholder’s request for reimbursement of legal fees and loss of earnings is outside of our jurisdiction and so we have not been able to investigate it.
6. There was no maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

Response to reports of anti-social behaviour

7. The landlord has not shown that it followed its ASB policy in responding to the leaseholder’s reports of anti-social behaviour. There were also delays in it taking action which caused detriment to the leaseholder.

Response to the leaseholder’s request for reimbursement

8. This aspect of the complaint is outside of our jurisdiction. This means that we have not been able to investigate it. This is because we may not investigate complaints that, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, concern matters where the complainant is seeking an outcome which is not within the Ombudsman’s authority to provide.

Response to the associated complaint

9. The landlord complied with its policy and our Complaint Handling Code in its response to the leaseholder’s complaints.

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.

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 considered

10. The leaseholder has told us that she has reported instances of anti-social behaviour for several years. The landlord’s records support this assertion. However, under our Scheme rules, we may opt to scope our investigation to 12 months prior to the date that the stage 1 complaint was made.  This is appropriate in this case, as prior to the leaseholder’s report of anti-social behaviour in April 2024, the landlord’s records show that there were no reports for 5 months prior. We have therefore scoped our investigation to commencing from 12 months prior to the leaseholder making her stage 1 complaint.
11. The leaseholder has told us that her sub-tenants were also impacted by the anti-social behaviour that she reported to the landlord. We cannot consider the impact on individuals that are not party to the leaseholder’s referral to our service. We have therefore not considered this aspect of the leaseholder’s complaint.
12. The leaseholder has told us that she has experienced an impact on her mental health because of the landlord’s handling of her reports of anti-social behaviour. It would be fairer, more reasonable and more effective for the resident to make a personal injury claim for any injury caused to her mental health. 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 such injury and how long it will last. We’ve not investigated this further. We can, however, decide if a landlord should pay compensation for distress and inconvenience.
13. The leaseholder has told us that since her sub-tenants moved out of the property in April 2025, her family have been staying at the property a few nights a week. She told us that because she has been spending time at the property herself, she has directly experienced anti-social behaviour. This issue was not included within the leaseholder’s stage 1 or stage 2 complaints and as such has not been considered by the landlord within its internal complaint procedure. The Ombudsman may not consider complaints which in the Ombudsman’s opinion have not exhausted a member’s complaints procedure. We have not investigated this further.

14. The landlord’s policy says that “medium risk” anti-social behaviour cases are those that involve a situation where either the reporter or the perpetrator has a vulnerability. In these cases, its’ policy says that it must complete an initial risk assessment within 10 working days. It says that the reporter of the anti-social behaviour must then be provided with a clear plan of action for addressing the issue within 15 days of the landlord receiving the initial report.
15. Its policy says that where residents cannot resolve disputes between themselves, the landlord can offer mediation “or other solutions” to help resolve the dispute. It says that in such cases, it will keep residents informed of the progress of their dispute and let residents know what actions it has agreed to avoid the dispute happening again.
16. It is clear that the landlord has not complied with its policy in this case. The leaseholder reported the anti-social behaviour to the landlord on several occasions. The first of these reports that we can consider was on 19 April 2024. She told the landlord that the alleged perpetrator’s behaviour was aggressive and unpredictable and was causing a disruption. She told the landlord that she thought that the alleged perpetrator was unwell and that she had concerns about the alleged perpetrator’s mental health. The leaseholder asked the landlord to respond as soon as possible. The landlord has provided this Service with no evidence to show that it responded to this report.
17. The leaseholder proceeded to contact the landlord again on multiple occasions in October 2024 and November 2024. The first evidence of the landlord responding to the leaseholder in any capacity was via email on 14 November 2024. This email was in relation to the counter-complaint that the alleged perpetrator made against the leaseholder’s sub-tenants, rather than to respond to the leaseholder’s reports of anti-social behaviour.
18. The landlord responded directly to the sub-tenants about the leaseholder’s reports of anti-social behaviour on 4 March 2025. This was almost 11 months after the leaseholder’s first report of anti-social behaviour that we can consider. This is a considerable failing by the landlord and an unreasonable delay in taking action.
19. The landlord emailed the leaseholder’s sub-tenant on 13 March 2025 to say that it recognised that the situation was causing “uncertainty and tension”. It said that it would ask the alleged perpetrator to “refrain from knocking on your door or causing any disruptions”. This is not compliant with the landlord’s own anti-social behaviour policy. It has not provided any evidence to this Service that it took any of the steps that it should have to help resolve the anti-social behaviour following the leaseholder’s reports such as offering mediation between the parties, or any other resolution to the problem.
20. The landlord’s complaint policy says that if it believes that reported behaviour does not constitute anti-social behaviour, the reporter will be told why and “advice will be given to enable self-resolution”. The landlord has provided no evidence to suggest that it did this. This demonstrates the landlord’s clear failure to follow its own policy. In the event that it did not think that the leaseholder’s reports constituted anti-social behaviour, for example if it thought that the sub-tenants themselves should be the ones reporting anti-social behaviour to it, the landlord should have let the leaseholder know this. It should have then provided the leaseholder with advice on how she could resolve the situation. No such steps were taken by the landlord.
21. The landlord’s policy recognises that some residents with support or medical needs may find it “more challenging to manage neighbour disputes” and that it is able to consider whether additional support is needed to help these residents. The landlord has not? provided this Service with evidence to show that it provided the leaseholder with guidance or support in her dealings with the alleged perpetrator. The leaseholder should not have, in any event, been expected to self-resolve this situation because of the alleged perpetrator’s vulnerabilities.
22. It is appreciated that the alleged perpetrator’s vulnerabilities would have made the handling of the reports of anti-social behaviour more complicated. This may have justified the landlord needing to take more time to consider how to best respond to the leaseholder’s reports. However, the 11 months that the landlord took to provide any response at all to the reports of anti-social behaviour is unjustifiable.
23. In addition, the landlord did not at any point keep the leaseholder updated as to what action it was taking, if any, in response to her reports of anti-social behaviour. The landlord’s policy says that it will keep residents informed of the progress of their dispute and what actions the landlord had agreed to take. The landlord did not do this. The onus was on the leaseholder to chase its response to her reports, to which the landlord failed to reply. This is despite the landlord’s policy saying that it will be “responsive and… deliver good customer service at all times”. The landlord’s policy says that its standard minimum contact for open cases is “monthly”. The landlord has not provided evidence to show that it complied with this. This is a failing by the landlord to adhere to its own policy and was a missed opportunity to manage the leaseholder’s expectations.
24. In its stage 1 complaint response, the landlord apologised to the leaseholder that she had not received the level of service that it expected and that her complaints had “not been followed through with the necessary action being taken”. It offered the leaseholder £225 in compensation.
25. In its stage 2 complaint response over 3 months later, the landlord said that it was sorry if the leaseholder had felt “unsupported” and that it had not communicated with her again after it issued its stage 1 complaint response. It upheld her complaint and offered her an additional £350 in compensation.
26. When considering whether the level of compensation offered by the landlord was reasonable, we not only consider the extent of the failures identified but also the impact those failures had on the resident. In this case, the resident has told us that the impact on her was considerable. This is evidenced by:

1. The landlord itself recognising in internal correspondence dated 24 April 2025 that it had not offered any support to the leaseholder’s sub-tenants or the alleged perpetrator and so had taken no action to respond to the leaseholder’s reports.
2. It also acknowledged that it had not responded to the leaseholder’s emails where she had requested help with her reports of anti-social behaviour. It said that it had spoken to the leaseholder’s sub-tenants directly but had not spoken to the leaseholder. The leaseholder therefore received no communication at all from the landlord for a period of almost 12 months until the landlord acknowledged her stage 1 complaint.
3. The leaseholder telling us that constantly chasing the landlord for a response had taken a considerable toll on her mentally.

27. Given the extent of the failures and the impact on the leaseholder, the compensation offered by the landlord was fair and reasonable at the time that the stage 2 was issued. This is because £575 is in line with the amounts set out in our remedies guidance for circumstances where there have been failures that adversely affected a resident and the landlord has made no attempt to put things right.
28. However, where the landlord has made commitments as part of its complaint responses, we will consider subsequent events in order to establish whether the landlord has acted in accordance with our Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair; put things right and learn from outcomes.
29. In this case, despite its commitment in both its stage 1 and stage 2 complaint responses to take action to resolve the anti-social behaviour that the leaseholder reported, we have seen no evidence to show that the landlord has taken these agreed actions.
30. Almost 20 months have now passed since the leaseholder’s report of antisocial behaviour in April 2024. In light of the landlord’s failure to do what it committed to do in its final response, within a reasonable period of time, and the understandable distress and inconvenience this would have caused the leaseholder, a finding of maladministration has been made. We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

31. We are not free to investigate all complaints referred to us. What we can and cannot consider is set out in the Housing Ombudsman Scheme and is called our jurisdiction.
32. Under the scheme rules, the Ombudsman may not investigate complaints that, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, concern matters where the complainant is seeking an outcome which is not within the Ombudsman’s authority to provide.
33. Whilst the Ombudsman can make orders for a landlord to pay compensation to the complainant, we do not have the authority to order reimbursement of legal fees or compensate for loss of income. The leaseholder may wish to seek legal advice and/ or consider an insurance claim in relation to this aspect of her complaint.
34. We have therefore found that this aspect of the complaint is outside of our jurisdiction. This means that we have not been able to investigate it.

35. The landlord’s complaint policy says that it:

1. Will acknowledge a stage 1 complaint within 5 days
2. Will provide its stage 1 complaint response within 10 working days of its acknowledgement email
3. Will acknowledge a stage 2 complaint within 3 days
4. Will provide its stage 2 complaint response within 20 working days of receiving the complaint
5. May extend the amount of time that it has to provide its stage 2 complaint response by up to 10 working days, but that any additional extension of time would need to be agreed upon by both parties.

36. The landlord acknowledged the leaseholder’s stage 1 complaint within 5 days but took 12 working days to provide its full stage 1 complaint response. We do not consider its delay of 2 working days to have caused significant detriment to the leaseholder.
37. The landlord acknowledged the leaseholder’s stage 2 complaint within 2 days but took 21 working days to provide its full stage 2 complaint response. As above, we do not consider its delay of 1 working day to have caused significant detriment to the leaseholder.
38. For this reason, we make a finding of no maladministration in relation to the landlord’s handling of the leaseholder’s complaint. This is because, whilst the landlord’s complaint responses were outside of the timeframe set by its policy, we do not consider these brief delays to have caused significant detriment or affected the outcome of the complaint.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

39. Landlords should consider the recommendations in our Spotlight Report on Knowledge and Information Management and implement them in their working practices.

Communication

40. Landlords should aim to have open and clear communication with residents. This is not only to keep residents up to date on the progression of their anti-social behaviour reports, but also to manage their expectations. In this case, as set out above, the landlord’s communication was poor which added to the leaseholder’s frustration.