Origin Housing Limited (202449971)

Background

1. The resident complained to the landlord about its handling of her reports of antisocial behaviour (ASB) involving inconsiderate parking and noise nuisance. She had been reporting the ASB for 2 years and felt the landlord had not taken enough action to resolve it. She also raised concerns about the conduct of a Neighbourhood Manager who the landlord had assigned to oversee her case. She was not satisfied with its final response to her complaint and asked us to investigate.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about:
   1. Staff conduct.
   2. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s ASB reports.
3. We have also investigated the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

Our decision (determination)

4. The landlord provided reasonable redress to the resident’s complaint about staff conduct.
5. The landlord provided reasonable redress to the resident’s complaint about its handling of her ASB reports.
6. There was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

We have not made orders for the landlord but we have made a recommendation.

Summary of reasons

Staff conduct

7. The landlord acknowledged that a Neighbourhood Manager made unreasonable demands of the resident when they were first assigned to her ASB case. It put things right by addressing this with relevant staff, reviewing its case management arrangements and reasonably compensating the resident for the distress caused by the Neighbourhood Manager’s communications.

Handling of the resident’s ASB reports

8. The landlord acknowledged that it had delayed in obtaining legal advice about seeking an injunction. It put things right by obtaining the legal advice, acting upon it and reasonably compensating the resident for the distress its delay caused her. It otherwise handled the resident’s reports of ASB, during the timeframe we investigated, in line with its ASB policy.

Handling of the complaint

9. The landlord processed the resident’s complaint in line with its complaints policy.

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.

10. The landlord carried out a thorough investigation into the resident’s concerns about the conduct of the Neighbourhood Manager it assigned to her case in September 2023. The stage 1 complaint handler, who was a Head of Service, spoke to the Neighbourhood Manager and her line manager (the Neighbourhood Team Manager) during her complaint investigation. She identified that the Neighbourhood Manager had not received a detailed handover when she took over the case. She also found the Neighbourhood Manager had not fully reviewed the extensive ASB file before she first contacted the resident.
11. The landlord recognised this as a failure within its stage 1 response. It acknowledged that it led to the Neighbourhood Manager asking the resident for information within her introductory emails that the resident had previously provided. It accepted that this placed an unreasonable burden on her. It agreed with the resident that the Neighbourhood Manager was “poorly equipped” when she made this request and acknowledged that it caused the resident unnecessary distress.
12. The landlord attempted to put things right and restore the resident’s confidence in its management of her case, by reviewing its oversight arrangements. It decided that given the case complexity and the resident’s personnel concerns, the Head of Service investigating the stage 1 complaint would oversee the ASB case moving forward.
13. The landlord explained these oversight arrangements to the resident in its stage 1 response. It acknowledged that she did not want the Neighbourhood Manager and Neighbourhood Team Manager to have any further involvement with her case. However, it explained it was confident in the ability of both these staff members to continue working on the case. It assured her that that the Head of Service would oversee their work, all decisions would go through her, and she would be the resident’s main point of contact. This was a reasonable response to the resident’s concerns.
14. Within its stage 1 response the landlord offered the resident £500 compensation for its “poor handling” of the ASB case and for the time and trouble she spent in pursuing a complaint. In line with the Housing Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance, this was a reasonable and proportionate compensation offer for the identified failings, including distress caused by the Neighbourhood Manager’s emails.
15. Within its stage 2 response the landlord upheld its stage 1 findings. It told the resident its offer of £500 compensation, which she had previously declined, remained open. We do not know if it has since paid this. If it has not, we recommend that it does so now.

What we have not looked at

16. On 30 October 2023 the resident received a stage 2 response to a complaint about the landlord’s handling of her ASB case. She referred that complaint to us and we investigated it under case reference 202336405. Our investigation looked at the landlord’s handling of her ASB reports between 1 March 2023 and 30 October 2023. We completed our investigation in November 2025 and found there was maladministration by the landlord. We ordered it to apologise, compensate the resident and complete a case review, which it did in December 2025.
17. Given this, we have limited the scope of this current investigation to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s ASB reports from 31 October 2023 until it issued its stage 2 response on 26 July 2024. This is to ensure that we do not reinvestigate matters we have already looked at and made a decision upon.

What we looked at

18. The landlord identified in May 2023 that it should consider seeking an injunction, but it took until December 2023 to seek legal advice about this. It acknowledged this in its complaint responses. It apologised to the resident for this delay and included this failing within its compensation offer of £500 which, as we have explained above, was reasonable and in line with our Remedies Guidance.
19. The landlord put things right by ensuring that by the time of its stage 1 response, it had sought legal advice about issuing an injunction. It also said in its stage 1 response that it had made an internal recommendation that any ASB cases requiring legal action should be closely monitored by senior management officers. This demonstrated it had learnt from the complaint. It put the learning into practice by assigning a Head of Service to oversee the resident’s ASB case going forward.
20. Other than this delay in seeking legal advice, we have found no other failings in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s ASB reports between 31 October 2023 and 26 July 2024. In line with its ASB policy it:
    1. Continued to record and respond to the resident’s reports of further incidents.
    2. Liaised with the police who were also dealing with ASB reports from the resident.
    3. Took action to try and resolve the ongoing issues. This included sending the neighbour a final warning letter in December 2023, initiating injunction proceedings and then later attempting to secure a legal undertaking.
    4. Carried out regular case management reviews.
    5. Offered the resident support and signposting advice. This included making a referral to its Support Hub in June 2024 and encouraging her to use a mediation services.
21. The landlord followed through on the commitment made in its stage 1 response that the Head of Service would retain oversight of the case. Between 31 October 2023 and 26 July 2024, the Head of Service was in regular contact with the Neighbourhood Management Team and the landlord’s legal advisors. She sought updates from them and agreed next steps. She provided the resident with regular updates by both email and phone and responded promptly to any queries or concerns the resident raised.
22. The resident complained in her escalation request in June 2024 that the landlord had not yet secured an injunction. However, the reason the injunction hearing was still pending at that time was because of due process, in which the defence had to be allowed time to submit its case, and court timetabling. The delay in obtaining an injunction was therefore outside of the landlord’s control.
23. The resident also complained in her escalation request about the landlord’s decision to seek a legal undertaking from the neighbour. The landlord made this decision based on legal advice about what was reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances. We understand the resident may have been concerned about the effectiveness of an undertaking compared to an injunction. However, it was reasonable for the landlord to explore this option given the legal advice it had received.
24. While exploring the undertaking option, which involved sending a draft undertaking to the neighbour for her consideration, the landlord continued with its injunction application. This meant that it was not solely relying on one enforcement method being successful. It would have prevented later delays in progressing an injunction application had its attempts to secure the undertaking been unsuccessful. This was good case management.
25. We understand that approximately 4 months after the landlord issued its stage 2 response, the neighbour gave a legal undertaking to the court regarding her behaviour. This meant that the landlord discontinued its application for an injunction. We have not investigated the conclusion of these proceedings or the landlord’s subsequent enforcement of the undertaking given it falls outside the timeframe of our investigation.

26. The landlord was required by its complaints policy and the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) to acknowledge new complaints within 5 working days. It was then required to issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days of the acknowledgement. It was not permitted to extend the response deadline by more than a further 10 working days unless it had “good reason” to do so.
27. In this case, the landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint the day after receiving it but then took over 2 months to issue its stage 1 response. However, this was due to it agreeing with the resident that:
    1. It would not issue the stage 1 response until after the complaint handler (the Head of Service) had met with her to discuss the complaint.
    2. The meeting would not go ahead until after it had issued 3 outstanding stage 2 responses.
28. The landlord acknowledged within both its complaint responses that it had taken over 2 months to issue its stage 1 response. It explained it did not consider this to be a complaint handling failure as the delay was due to it accommodating the resident’s wishes. We agree with this analysis and are satisfied that the landlord had a “good reason” in line with its policy and the Code for extending the response deadline.
29. Once the landlord received the resident’s escalation request, it acknowledged it and issued its stage 2 response within the timeframes set out in its complaints policy and the Code.
30. Overall, we have found the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint was good. It carried out thorough investigations and provided detailed responses. It also followed through on commitments made in its responses, acknowledged mistakes and provided redress to these. This was in keeping with our dispute resolution principles to be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

31. We found no record keeping issues in this case. The landlord provided us with records from its ASB case file, internal communications, correspondence with the resident and contact with other agencies. This enabled us to carry out a thorough investigation and find it had provided reasonable redress to the resident’s complaint.