Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (202434309)

Background

1. The resident lives in a house with a garden which shares a boundary fence with the neighbour. The landlord did work to the fence in late 2023 which caused a disagreement between the resident and the neighbour. As a result the work was not finished. The resident raised concerns with the landlord about the state of the fence and her neighbour’s behaviour.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
   1. The resident’s requests for the fence to be made good.
   2. The resident’s concerns about the neighbour’s behaviour.
   3. The associated complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. We have found that:
   1. The was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests for the fence to be made good.
   2. There was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the neighbour’s behaviour.
   3. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

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

Summary of reasons

The handling of the resident’s requests for the fence to be made good

4. The landlord unreasonably delayed delivering the fence panels as promised to the resident so the fence could be made good.

The resident’s concerns about the neighbour’s behaviour

5. The landlord acted reasonably in handling the resident’s concerns about the neighbour’s behaviour by investigating the reports of unpleasant behaviour and acting in accordance with its anti-social behaviour policy.

The complaint handling

6. The landlord delayed responding to the complaint in line with its policy timeframes. It did not appropriately request an extension at stage 2 nor did it recognise the resulting impact to the resident from its 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.

7. Given its repair policy the landlord was not obliged to do work on the fence, as it says that the resident is responsible for the repair and replacement of boundary fences, gates and hardware. The landlord appropriately communicated this to the resident at stage 1. However, given it did do work to the fence and it made commitments to do further work, it was reasonable to expect it to follow through on its commitment to the resident.
8. In its stage 2 response the landlord said it would honour the verbal agreement the resident had with its staff member, and confirmed its offer to supply fence panels for the resident to install themselves. The landlord said it would make arrangements for these panels to be delivered. This was an appropriate response to alleviate the resident’s concerns and it was a resolution proposed by the resident. However, the landlord did not make appropriate contact with the resident to arrange delivery and the panels were only recently delivered in September 2025. This was 10 months after the landlord had confirmed its offer. This delay was unreasonable.
9. The resident raised in her complaint that she wanted the landlord to explain to the neighbour why the original agreement for the fence was not followed and for the neighbour to be told that it was not the resident’s fault. The landlord said in its stage 2 response that it had done this, however we do not have evidence that it did communicate with the neighbour about this issue. Given this we order the landlord to check if it has clarified its position with the neighbour, and if not, it must consider whether it is appropriate to do now.
10. Even though the landlord was not obliged to do work to the fence, it did commit to doing the work requested by the resident and it agreed to supply fence panels to rectify the work it had not completed. Given this promise was made, it should have made arrangements for the fence panels to be delivered within a reasonable timeframe. For this reason, we find service failure in the way the landlord handled the resident’s requests to make the fence good. We order the landlord to pay £100 compensation in recognition of the inconvenience caused to the resident.

11. The landlord’s antisocial behaviour policy says that it will investigate anti-social behaviour, visit the parties, and try and reach agreement where possible. The policy also says that anti-social behaviour is behaviour which amounts to harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not in the same household. It further clarifies that anti-social behaviour is not minor disputes between neighbours, unless the dispute amounts to abuse, harassment and/or intimidation.
12. The resident raised in April 2024 that the landlord only investigated the social media posts after the neighbour had complained about a Facebook post the resident had posted in March 2024. Given the resident reported risk of anti-social behaviour in her complaint on 16 February 2024, the landlord should have responded to this and communicated more readily with the resident. While the landlord did act to address the resident’s concerns in early March, the landlord did not acknowledge the delay of 15 working days in responding to her initial concerns raised. It is important that reports of anti-social behaviour are assessed for risk level and are responded to in a timely manner. Given this, we recommend the landlord apologise to the resident for its delay in responding to the resident’s initial report of anti-social behaviour.
13. The landlord acted appropriately to send a community protection officer to visit both parties separately in early March 2024 to discuss the anti-social behaviour concerns and agree a way forward. The officer requested any offensive comments be removed from social media about the fence. It also advised that a case would be kept open to continue to monitor the situation, and for the resident to report any further concerns, if they arose. The landlord reported at stage 2 that no further concerns were reported. These actions were reasonable for the landlord to take to ensure the situation was de-escalated and monitored. In doing so, the landlord acted in accordance with its anti-social behaviour policy.
14. The resident also reported in her complaint that her neighbour was ‘slating’ her on the community WhatsApp group. The landlord looked into this report and found that a neighbour did post on a social media group asking if the new fence panels would fade. Although we have not seen this evidence, the landlord said the post did not personally mention the resident, and this was not disputed by the resident. The landlord also explained in its stage 2 response that the tenancy agreement says that anti-social behaviour constitutes, for example, malicious communications over social media, and this was not found in this case. Even where it had minimal evidence and limited actions it could take in respect of issues relating to social media, it was appropriate of the landlord to investigate the concerns raised by the resident and to explain that anti-social behaviour had not been identified by its investigation in this scenario.
15. Overall the landlord could have acted sooner to investigate the resident’s initial report of anti-social behaviour, but once it did, it acted to address the resident’s concerns and explain its decision making in respect of its anti-social behaviour policy. It also acted to visit the parties to de-escalate and address any concerns, and it made steps to monitor the situation. This was a reasonable and measured response, and we find that there was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the neighbour’s behaviour.

16. The resident raised her complaint on 16 February 2024. The landlord drafted its stage 1 response on 20 June 2024. However, the resident was not sent the response until 23 October 2024. Therefore it took 176 days for the landlord to send the response to the resident. This was well outside of its policy timeframe of 10 working days. The resident also expended time and trouble across February to April 2024 in chasing the landlord’s response to her complaint. Although the landlord recognised its failure to deliver the response to the resident at stage 2, it did not advise how it would put things right or suggest any improvements to its complaints service. This was unreasonable.
17. The resident escalated the complaint on 25 October 2024. The landlord requested an extension on 5 December 2024 until 20 December 2024. However this was after 29 working days had already elapsed from the resident’s escalation request. This was contrary to the Complaint Handling Code which requires an extension to be made within 20 working days. This meant the response was further delayed and the landlord missed an opportunity to recognise its failures and the resulting impact to the resident.
18. Overall the landlord unreasonably delayed both complaint responses, it did not appropriately request an extension at stage 2, and it did not fully recognise its complaint handling failures or the resulting impact to the resident. We therefore consider there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Learning

19. It is important where a landlord commits to doing something during its complaints process that it follows through on its commitment to completion. This can be done by assigning monitoring actions to a complaint handler to ensure that actions are progressed and completed in a reasonable timeframe.