Sovereign Network Group (202504481)

Background

1. The resident lives in her property with her daughter, who has respiratory issues. She reported issues with the windows and balcony door in her property, which she said caused draughts. She also told the landlord that both her kitchen and bathroom needed renewal due to their condition. She was unhappy with the time the landlord took to complete repairs, so made a complaint.

What the complaint is about

2. This complaint is about how the landlord handled repairs in the resident’s property, including:
   1. A kitchen window handle.
   2. Draughts from windows and doors.
   3. The resident’s request for a kitchen and bathroom renewal.
3. We have also assessed the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. We find there has been:
   1. Maladministration in the landlord’s handling of repairs in the resident’s property.
   2. A reasonable offer of redress for the landlord’s complaint handling failings.

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

Summary of reasons

5. The landlord accepts that the repairs the resident reported in November and December 2023 were unreasonably delayed. It has apologised and offered compensation. The compensation offered was sufficient for delays up to the stage 2 response, but the repairs were not resolved at the time. It has also not shown it considered the resident’s reports that its delays in resolving the repairs led to increased energy bills. As such, it has not shown it did enough to put things right.
6. The landlord’s complaint responses were delayed. It acknowledged this, and made an appropriate offer of compensation 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.

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.

What we have not considered

7. The resident has raised a number of further concerns when contacting us. Those include ongoing repairs (such as recent issues with the windows, the kitchen cupboards, and a blocked kitchen sink in July 2025), and a lack of communication from the landlord about either those repairs or the kitchen and bathroom renewal. Our scheme rules say we may not investigate a complaint which has not completed a landlord’s internal complaints process. This means we cannot assess these further concerns as part of this investigation. We can only consider the specific issues raised as part of the complaint, up to the stage 2 response.
8. The resident said the way the landlord handled the repairs, and the related draughts, affected her daughter’s health. The courts are best placed to deal with disputes related to personal injury as they will have the benefit of independent medical advice to decide the cause of any injury and how long it might last. We therefore won’t investigate any reports of personal injury. But we can decide if a landlord should pay compensation for distress and inconvenience.

Assessment – kitchen window handle

9. It’s common ground that the resident reported problems with a kitchen window handle on 27 November 2023. The landlord said it arranged a make safe repair on the same day, and booked a follow on appointment on 14 December 2023. It said its contractors reassessed the window and ordered parts. It accepted in its stage 2 response that the appointment was a waste of the resident’s time. There is no evidence of any of these reports or appointments in the repair records the landlord provided, which indicates problems with record keeping.
10. Following the 14 December 2023 appointment, the landlord took no action until February 2024, and it booked in to complete the works on 15 March 2024. The resident confirmed that the landlord replaced the handle at that time. But there is again no evidence of this in the landlord’s repair records, showing its poor record keeping continued. The landlord has also provided no evidence of any meaningful communication with the resident at that time, or of providing any updates.
11. The landlord accepts the repair was unreasonably delayed, and has apologised to the resident. We have considered whether it has done enough to put things right below.

Assessment – draughts

12. The resident reported problems with the windows and balcony door on 6 December 2023. She said there was a bad draught, and the handles may have been installed incorrectly. She said her daughter has asthma, so she needed the repairs completed as soon as possible. It’s common ground that the landlord arranged an inspection for 18 December 2023. It says the contractors found defects with the windows and the balcony doors, and the seals needed renewal. It has not provided a copy of the survey report to us.
13. Following that inspection, the landlord took no further action until 2 February 2024 when it logged a repair to renew the seals on the balcony doors. It booked an appointment for 22 April 2024, agreed a quote for the repairs on 7 May 2024, and booked a repair for 21 May 2024. It said the resident had to cancel that appointment, so it rescheduled for 6 June 2024. It recorded that the repairs were resolved at that point. The resident disputes this, and says there were ongoing issues until around April or June 2025.
14. The landlord accepted in its stage 2 response that the time it took to complete repairs was unreasonably delayed. We have considered whether it has done enough to put things right below.

Assessment – kitchen and bathroom renewal

15. The Decent Homes Standard says that kitchens have an expected lifespan of 30 years, and are ‘reasonably modern’ if up to 20 years old. It says bathrooms have an expected life span of 40 years, and are ‘reasonably modern’ if up to 30 years old. However, this does not mean that any kitchen over 20 years old or bathroom over 30 years old automatically has to be replaced. A landlord only needs to replace a kitchen or bathroom if it is beyond economic repair (if it would cost more to repair than to replace). Any renewal outside of those circumstances would be an improvement, not a repair.
16. Improvements are outside of the landlord’s repairs policy, and it is for a landlord to decide when to replace older kitchens or bathrooms which are not beyond economic repair as part of its planned works programmes.
17. In this case, we have seen no evidence that the resident reported concerns with the kitchen and bathroom before her complaint. This means it was a service request rather than a complaint. However, the landlord used its discretion to consider her concerns as part of its complaint process. This was reasonable and resolution-focused.
18. The landlord told the resident that the kitchen was scheduled for renewal in the 2024-25 financial year, and that while the bathroom was scheduled for renewal in 2034, it would bring this forward to the 2024-25 financial year. This was reasonable, and there were no failings in how the landlord handled the renewal request up to its complaint response.
19. We understand the resident is concerned that the landlord did not complete the renewals within the stated timescale. She told us that the landlord has taken no action, and has not responded to any of her requests for updates. However, its actions after the stage 2 response have not gone through its complaints process. This means we cannot consider them, and the resident would need to make a new complaint to the landlord before we could consider her complaint about alleged delays in the renewal. However, we have made a recommendation in this regard.

Summary – handling of repairs

20. As set out above, we found there were no failings in the landlord’s handling of the kitchen and bathroom renewal prior to its complaint response. And any events after the stage 2 response fall outside of the scope of this investigation. However, there were a number of failings in its handling of repairs to the windows and doors.
21. The landlord accepted there were unreasonable delays in its window and door repairs. It apologised, and offered the resident a total of £559 compensation. This was £529 for delay, distress, and time and trouble, and £30 for a wasted appointment on 14 December 2023. This was calculated from 1 month after the resident’s reports (as it had a month to fix them under its repairs policy) up to 6 June 2024. While the landlord has calculated compensation up to 6 June 2024 as it believed the draughts were resolved at that time, its records show that was not the case. As such, we have assessed whether the compensation is enough for all delays up to the point of the stage 2 response.
22. The total delay in this case, allowing for a maximum of 1 month to complete repairs, was around 2-3 months for the kitchen window handle, and around 6 months for the draughts, up to the point of the stage 2 response. The resident was unable to provide access for around 3 weeks as she was away in February 2024, and had to cancel a 21 May 2024 appointment, which the landlord rescheduled for 6 June 2024.
23. The landlord is not responsible for those parts of the delay, as it was unable to access the property to complete the repairs during those times. But it has not shown that the rest of the delay was either reasonable or unavoidable. That means it is responsible for the rest of the delays.
24. The landlord has not shown that it appropriately communicated with the resident throughout that time, or provided meaningful updates. She said she had to tape up her windows to try to reduce the draught, and she was concerned that the draughts were making her daughter’s asthma worse. While we do not order compensation for personal injury, we acknowledge that the belief repair issues were harming her daughter’s health would inevitably be distressing for the resident. She was also concerned that the repairs were leading to an increase in her energy bills.
25. Taking into account all of the circumstances of the case, we consider the offer of £529 compensation (plus the £30 for a wasted appointment) is reasonable for all delays up to the stage 2 response. This is because it is in line with our compensation guidance for failings which adversely affect a resident, but have no permanent impact. It is also positive that the landlord recognised its failings, and apologised.
26. However, the evidence provided does not support that the repairs were complete by the time of the stage 2 response. The resident told the landlord 3 days after its stage 2 response that the issues were not resolved, and the landlord said it would send its repairs team back out. The landlord has not provided any evidence of when it completed those further repairs, but the resident told us the repairs were completed in either April or June 2025.
27. The resident also raised concerns that the repair issues led to her energy bills increasing as part of the complaint. The landlord has not shown that it considered whether its failings led to any increase in the resident’s energy bills, and whether it should also compensate for financial losses as a result.
28. As the repairs were unresolved at stage 2 and the landlord did not consider the resident’s reports of increased heating bills, the landlord has not shown it did enough to put things right. We therefore find maladministration in how the landlord handled repairs.

29. Under the Complaint Handling Code, the landlord must acknowledge a complaint or an escalation request within 5 working days. It must issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days of acknowledging the complaint, and a stage 2 response within 20 working days of acknowledging the escalation request.
30. The resident made a complaint on 23 February 2024, and escalated the complaint on 18 March 2024. The landlord’s stage 1 response had a minor delay of 2 working days, which had a limited impact on the complaints process. But its stage 2 response was delayed by 46 working days. This was unreasonable, and not in line with the Code.
31. The landlord has accepted that its complaint responses were unreasonably delayed, and offered £50 compensation for the delays. This is in line with our compensation guidance for failings of a short duration which did not affect the overall outcome.
32. We have seen no evidence that the delay caused the resident any specific detriment, or changed the outcome for her. This is therefore a reasonable offer of redress, and the landlord does not need to do anything further to put things right with its complaint handling.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

33. The landlord has provided incomplete repair records, which is indicative of poor record keeping. It would benefit from ensuring that all records are kept in a centralised system.

Communication

34. The landlord accepts that its communication with the resident was poor. It would benefit from ensuring it provides regular and proactive updates to residents with ongoing repairs.