The Guinness Partnership Limited (202314900)

Background

1. The resident has disabilities that affect her mobility and her memory. She complained to the landlord about a kitchen replacement and damage she said it had caused to her belongings during this.

What the complaint is about

2. The landlord’s handling of:
   1. A kitchen replacement.
   2. The complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. The landlord has made a reasonable offer of redress for its handling of the kitchen replacement.
4. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

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

Reasons

What we did not investigate

5. The resident said she caught covid due to repeated visits from the landlord’s contractors and suffered epileptic fits due to stress caused by the work. It would be fairer, more reasonable, and more effective for the resident to make a personal injury claim for any impact on her 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 injury and how long it will last. We have not investigated this further. We can decide if a landlord should pay compensation for distress and inconvenience.
6. The resident has raised complaint issues which have occurred since the complaint exhausted the landlord’s complaint procedure. We have no power to investigate complaints which the landlord has not had the chance to put right first. The resident said the landlord damaged her cooker and there are further issues with the kitchen flooring. There is no evidence these complaints have completed the landlord’s internal complaint process. Therefore, we have no power to investigate issues relating to those complaints.

What we did investigate

Kitchen replacement

7. The resident raised a complaint on 13 December 2021 as the landlord had not returned her call about kitchen replacement work. In the landlord’s stage 1 response it acknowledged its failing and apologised that it did not return her call within its 2 working day timescale. It put things right by confirming it would contact the resident within the next 2 working days. This was reasonable.
8. The kitchen replacement work was started on the 11 March 2022, and the landlord confirmed it was completed on 21 March 2022. However, the resident explained she was still confined to her bedroom in May 2022 due to ongoing work in the kitchen. The evidence suggests that the landlord was still dealing with issues over a year later.
9. The resident contacted the landlord on multiple occasions between May 2022 and May 2023, raising issues about the quality of work, the length of time it was taking and damage to her belongings. The resident said the kitchen units were too high, there were issues with the kitchen flooring and a door, the living room carpet and her appliances had been damaged. The resident said she had to move items between the kitchen and living room 18 times due to the work taking place, which caused a great deal of inconvenience and distress. She said she was restricted to her bedroom for 5 weeks, as her living room was not safe due to food and items from the kitchen being stored there. When kitchen replacements are carried out residents must expect a certain level of disruption. Landlords usually advise residents to set up a temporary kitchen in another room so they can make meals. This is reasonable.
10. The landlord carried out multiple repairs however commented that each time they were completed, the resident raised other issues. The landlord confirmed it lowered the kitchen units, and it altered the door due to the higher floor level. It is not clear whether the landlord discussed the heights of the kitchen units with the resident during the design process, which would have been good practice considering her vulnerabilities. The landlord explained it replaced the kitchen flooring as the resident said it did not look straight. It also offered to replace the living room carpet where this was damaged, but it said the resident refused the offer as the company which had fitted the carpet had agreed to replace this. The resident explained she did not sign the kitchen off and there are still repairs outstanding. The landlord appears to have tried to put right all the issues raised to it during the complaint process; however, we have made a recommendation for it to confirm whether any further issues are outstanding.
11. The landlord initially arranged an inspection to assess the damage to the kitchen appliances and any remaining issues with the kitchen replacement in October 2022.The inspection was delayed until February 2023 due to the resident’s availability. While the resident complained about the damaged appliances in an email on 26 May 2022, she may have reportedthe issue before this. In an internal email dated 9 June 2022, the landlord confirms the resident mentioned the damage to an appliance to a manager when they previously visited the property.
12. The landlord’s compensation policy details the process for claims of damage to belongingsand states “We will acknowledge the claim within two working days. We will contact the customer with the outcome within ten working days of receipt of the claim unless further actions are required before compensation can be considered.”The landlord informed the resident itwould not provide compensation for the appliances following its inspection; however, there was an unreasonable delay in doing this. This was not in keeping with its policy.
13. The resident’s repeated emails and calls demonstrated her frustration over the delays. There was a high volume of communication from the resident through various avenues as well as requests not to deal with certain members of staff. This affected the landlord’s ability to respond within its 2 working day timescale. The landlord identified its communication failures in the stage 2 response and offered redress for these. The landlord was responsible for some delays; however, the evidence shows there were also occasions when the resident did not provide access to the property which contributed to these.
14. When investigating complaints, we look at all the evidence to decide if the landlord followed our dispute resolution principles to be fair, put things right, and learn from outcomes. The landlord identified its service failures and demonstrated it tried to put things right by completing further work to the kitchen beyond the usual snagging issues. It identified there were delays and communication failures which caused inconvenience to the resident however it offered reasonable redress for these. We recommend the landlord pays the resident £500 as previously offered in the stage 2 response. The finding of reasonable redress is dependent on this amount being paid.

Complaint handling

15. The resident raised a complaint on 13 December 2021. The landlord provided a stage 1 response 2 working days later. This is within the timescales expected in its policy and the complaint handling code (the Code).
16. The resident raised a further complaint on 26 May 2022 and continued to contact the landlord expressing her dissatisfaction over the following 12 months. While it is clear the landlord was trying to resolve the issues raised, it did not appear to raise a formal complaint. The complaint handling code (the Code) in place in 2022 said “Landlords must ensure that efforts to resolve a resident’s concerns do not obstruct access to the complaints procedure or result in any unreasonable delay”. The landlord did not act in keeping with this or its own policy.
17. On 16 May 2023, the resident emailed the landlord to refuse an offer of compensation. The resident’s email clearly demonstrated she was not satisfied, so the issue should have been progressed accordingly. Instead, the landlord emailed the resident to ask if she wanted to escalate her stage 1 complaint. On 26 June 2023, the landlord emailed her to confirm it would escalate her complaint to stage 2.
18. The landlord has not explained why it decided to reopen and escalate a case closed 18 months earlier instead of raising a new complaint. The Code in place at the time stated that “Where residents raise additional complaints during the investigation, these should be incorporated into the stage one response if they are relevant and the stage one response has not been issued. Where the stage one response has been issued, or it would unreasonably delay the response, the complaint should be logged as a new complaint.” We would have expected the landlord to raise a new complaint in this situation.
19. The landlord issued a stage 2 response on 19 July 2023. It reviewed the stage 1 response; however, the complaint included new matters it had not previously included in the original stage 1 response. The landlord has not provided any evidence that an updated stage 1 response was issued therefore as mentioned above, we would have expected the landlord to raise a new complaint. The landlord’s handling of the complaint prevented the resident from escalating the issues relating to the kitchen replacement works. This meant that its first response on these matters was also its final one. This is not in keeping with the 2 stage complaints policy that its policy and the Code require.
20. Due to the landlord’s failure to appropriately log a complaint in May 2022, and its decision to inappropriately escalate the historical complaint on unrelated matters, we have found maladministration. We have ordered the landlord to pay £150 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident. This is in keeping with our remedies guidance for failures which have adversely affected a resident without causing permanent impact.

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.