Your Housing Group Limited (202337131)

Background

1. The resident lives in a one-bedroom flat in a retirement village. The resident moved into this flat in June 2023 just after the landlord completed planned works to completely renew the communal heating system. Due to some blockages in the system, it asked residents to contact it if they had any issues and contractors on site would attend to resolve this. The resident first reported heating loss on 26 October 2023, and the landlord attended and completed the repair the same day. However, the resident reported further instances of heating loss.

What the complaint is about

2. This complaint is about the landlord’s response to:
   1. The resident’s reports of heating loss.
   2. The resident’s complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. We have found that there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of heating loss.
4. We have found there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s response to the resident’s complaint.

We have not made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

Reports of heating loss

5. We found that the landlord could not have investigated or repaired any heating issues in summer 2023 as we have seen no evidence the resident reported this repair. The landlord responded to the resident’s report of full heating loss report on 26 October 2023 the same day, and her next reports of partial heating loss within its heating policy timeframes. It has acknowledged its unclear communication about communal pipe cleaning in late October. It apologised and offered £50 as a goodwill payment which was sufficient to put things right.

Complaint handling

6. The landlord had apologised for various delays and poor communication in its complaint handling. These failings caused frustration and inconvenience for the resident. It apologised and offered £250 in compensation. While we have identified some additional failings such as delays and a factual error, this was a sufficient payment to put things right.

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.

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. The resident complained to the landlord she believed the heating was not workingover the summer period. She told us she believed this because while she did not test it over summer, it did not work when she first tried it in October. The resident did not report any heating issues to the landlord before October 2023.We cannot expect the landlord to have investigated or repaired an issue we cannot see the resident made it awareof.
8. The resident first reported heating loss to the landlord on 26 October 2023. The landlord appropriately attended and completed the repair within its 24-hour emergency heating loss policy timeframe. It bled the radiators and noted there was some black sludge and foul-smelling water as it would expect given the renewal work. It noted a contractor would attend 2 working days later to clean the communal pipes. We have seen evidence this happened but there is no evidence it communicated this to the resident. We can see she sent an email later frustrated it had not told her it completed this.
9. The landlordapologised in its stage 2 response for not clearly communicating this to the resident. It offered a £50 goodwill payment in line with its compensation guidance, which was enough to put things right. This is also within the suggested range for service failure within our Remedies Guidance, which sets out our approach to compensation.
10. The resident has also confirmed the landlord provided her with a temporary heater after her first report of heating loss. She said she had no extra costs associated with this. This was an appropriate step and showed the landlord considered how to mitigate the impact on her.
11. The resident told us her heating then stopped working again on 28 October 2023. We have seen no evidence she reported this to the landlord. We cannot expect the landlord to complete a repair it was not made aware of.
12. After the resident complained, she made 2 partial heating loss repair requests before the landlord’s stage 1 response. The Landlord responded to both reasonably. It responded within its 3 working day urgent repair timeframe to her lounge radiator not working on 29 November. When it could not access her flat, it proactively called her the next day to check if the radiator was working. It responded within 6 working days to her report of intermittent heating on 5 December. While this was slightly outside its urgent timeframe, it noted this delay was due to the resident’s availability, so this delay was not inappropriate.
13. Overall, the landlord responded reasonably to the resident’s heating repair requests. While we appreciate the resident says there were other instances of heating loss, we cannot expect the landlord to investigate and repair an issue it is not made aware of. The landlord apologised and offered appropriate compensation to put right its lack of communication about the communal pipe cleaning.

14. The landlord apologised in its complaint response that it:
    1. Had wrongly treated her complaint on 27 October 2023 as a service request which delayed it acknowledging and investigating her complaint for over a month.
    2. Had significantly delayed contacting her after logging the service request until 21 November 2023, far outside of the 2 working day response timescale in its policy.
    3. Had delayed responding to the resident’s correspondence after its stage 2 response and telling her it would reopen the complaint.
    4. Had not called her in July 2024 as it had promised to do.
15. We have also identified the landlord delayed from 20 December 2023 until the resident contacted it again on 14 January 2024 to escalate her complaint. It also made a factual error in its stage 2 response saying it had not contacted the resident after its acknowledgement until 22 December, when its records show it spoke to her on 20 December.
16. These failings meant both complaint stages took around 40 working days each. This is outside its policy timeframes of 10 working days at stage 1 and 20 working days at stage 2. This caused detriment to the resident through unnecessary inconvenience and frustration from waiting for contact from the landlord. She then experienced further delays and distress with the gaps in communication when it reopened the stage 2 complaint, demonstrating it had not taken learning from its acknowledgement of earlier delays.
17. It is positive the landlord increased its compensation when it investigated further in April 2024. However, the landlord should have identified its failings sooner during its first stage 2 investigation, acknowledged these, and calculated appropriate compensation at the time. This would have avoided further months delays with the resident waiting for the landlord to reconsider its final response.
18. Taking this into account, the landlord’s apology and final offer of £250 in August 2024 is still a considerable step to acknowledge the impact of its overall failings. While the landlord made this offer following the end of its process this was not prompted by our involvement. This level of compensation is in line with its compensation policy and is within the suggested range for maladministration inour Remedies Guidance. This is an appropriate level of compensation to remedy the failings the landlord acknowledged, the additional failings we identified, and the associated detriment to the resident.

Learning

19. The landlord should make sure it considers its own complaint handling at stage 2 in light of the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. It should consider how it can resolve complaints at the earliest possible opportunity.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

20. The landlord should keep clear records during its complaints handling process. This will enable it to internally keep track of its own actions and communication and provide an efficient response to the resident.

Communication

21. The landlord has positively identified a majority of its communication issues with the communal pipe cleaning and complaint handling. It should make sure to take active learning from this going forward to prevent this reoccurring.