Your Housing Group Limited (202105287)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202105287

Your Housing Group Limited

30 May 2022

 

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman, and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about:
    1. The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of antisocial behaviour (ASB).
    2. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. He raised eight ASB cases with it between 20 October 2020 and 17 June 2021 about issues from his neighbour (Mr A). These included Mr A: verbally abusing him; carrying out criminal behaviour; interfering with his shower temperature and television reception; and deliberately creating a humming noise to harass him. The landlord spoke to the resident about each of his reports and asked for him to keep incident diaries and provide evidence in the form of audio or video recordings, or statements from witnesses. There was no record of him providing these to it. The landlord closed each of the resident’s ASB cases, signposting him to other agencies in some instances.
  2. Through the Ombudsman, the resident raised a formal complaint with the landlord on 11 June 2021 about his dissatisfaction with its handling of his reports of the noise nuisance from Mr A. Its stage one complaint response did not uphold the complaint, stating that it had made numerous attempts to engage with him to discuss the reports, but he had not ben present for a prearranged meeting about the matter and had not responded to a letter about it. The landlord said that it had not received any evidence from the resident about his other reports and noted that it had signposted him to the Environmental Services Team.
  3. After the resident escalated his complaint to the final stage, the landlord issued its final response to him on 16 November 2021. It considered that of the eight ASB cases he had raised since 20 October 2020; it did not investigate six of these in line with its ASB policy as it could have provided more support to him with gathering evidence. It offered him £100 compensation for its handling of the ASB reports and £100 compensation for its delay in resolving the complaint.
  4. The resident informed the Ombudsman on 22 November 2021 that he continued to be dissatisfied with the landlord’s investigation of his reports of ASB. He said that he had been given the wrong contact details for the Environmental Health Team and it had not acknowledged that he had repeatedly said that he was unable to record the noise on a mobile phone. The resident felt that the landlord was not concerned with investigating the source of noise, otherwise it would have liaised with the Environmental Health Team to arrange for the installation of sound recording equipment.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of ASB

  1. The landlord’s ASB and hate crime policy states that it considers ASB to be any conduct that is likely to cause a nuisance or annoyance to anyone which interferes with the enjoyment of their homes. It considers noise nuisance to be an example of this. The policy provides for staff to consider whether a reported behaviour constitutes ASB and for them to refer the resident to external agencies if appropriate.
  2. When a resident makes a report of ASB to the landlord, the Ombudsman would expect it to interview the resident to understand the issue. If appropriate, its next step should be to contact to the alleged perpetrator about the allegations and for it to gather evidence of the ASB. If a landlord had a robust body of evidence that ASB was occurring, then it would be expected to take appropriate tenancy action. It would be reasonable for a landlord to provide support to a resident in gathering this evidence.
  3. The Ombudsman has been provided with information on eight ASB cases raised in response to the resident’s reports. The first case which appeared to be about his reports of the humming noise, was closed on 17 December 2020 after the landlord received no response from the resident regarding its request for incident diaries. The second case was closed on 1 March 2021, approximately six weeks after it asked him to provide audio or video recordings of the issue, or witness statements. Prior to closing this case, it signposted the resident to a number of external agencies to assist with his report of noise, criminal behaviour and interference with his amenities.
  4. A further two cases were closed by the landlord on 10 February and 9 April 2021 after it asked the resident to provide evidence of the humming noise he reported. Two cases were closed without any record of any actions taken on 9 April and 17 June 2021 and one case closed on 28 May 2021 after signposting the resident to the Environmental Health Team.
  5. There was no record that the resident provided evidence to the landlord in the form of recordings or incident diaries. Therefore, it was reasonable that it did not take further action in response to the reports. For a landlord to take action against a resident, it must have a sound body of evidence to inform the proportionality of its actions. This is because the ultimate conclusion of any formal tenancy action is legal action to remove a resident from their tenancy. A landlord would need to be able to evidence to a judge that any ASB was persistent, and it had taken all steps in its power to resolve it.
  6. While there was no record of the resident providing evidence of the noise issue he reported, given that he made repeated reports about the matter over eight months, it would have been helpful for the landlord to assist by liaising directly with the Environmental Health Team to arrange for sound recording equipment. It may also have attempted to witness the noise issue directly or to interview neighbours in the vicinity. This may have helped to conclusively determine whether the noise issue reported was indeed ASB and may have brought the matter to a close.
  7. The landlord acknowledged this in its final response to the resident, when it said that it had not taken all the steps it could have to gather evidence of the reported ASB and offered him £100 compensation for this. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, available to view online, provides for awards of £50 to £250 compensation for instances of failure which had an impact on the resident but were of short duration and did not affect the overall outcome for him. While the landlord did not do everything it could have done to investigate the ASB, it is noted that there was no evidence of significant engagement from the resident to provide evidence. Therefore, the offer of £100 was reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances of the case.
  8. It is noted that the landlord took appropriate actions after the conclusion of the complaint to investigate a further report of ASB from Mr A. It interviewed Mr A and identified that a longstanding dispute existed between the neighbours. When it found no evidence of ASB, it offered mediation between the two parties. This demonstrated that it has since made reasonable efforts to resolve the ASB reported by the resident.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The landlord’s customer feedback policy provides for a two stage internal complaints procedure. At stage one of this procedure, it is to provide a response to the resident within ten working days, at the final stage its is to respond within 15 working days.
  2. The resident’s stage one complaint was raised on 11 June 2021 which the landlord responded to on 9 July 2021, after 20 working days. It provided its final response to him on 16 November 2021, after 19 working days. It therefore failed to provide its responses in accordance with its customer feedback policy. Given that these delays were relatively short, and there was no evidence that the delays impacted negatively on the outcome of the resident’s complaint, the landlord’s offer of £100 for its handling of the complaint was reasonable and broadly in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, mentioned above.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, resolved the complaints satisfactorily concerning:
    1. Its response to the resident’s reports of ASB.
    2. Its handling of the associated complaint.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should:
    1. Pay the £200 compensation to the resident that it offered him in its final complaint response.
    2. Consider liaising with the Environmental Health Team or appropriate witnessing services to support the resident if he makes further reports of noise nuisance.