A2Dominion Housing Group Limited (202122257)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202122257

A2Dominion Housing Group Limited

12 May 2023

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

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
1. Reports of antisocial behaviour.
2. Associated complaint.

Background

The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord whose tenancy began on 31 October 2011. The property is a two bedroom second floor flat.
The resident’s daughter lives at the property with her. The resident’s daughter is autistic and has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

Scope of investigation

The complaint relates to antisocial behaviour reported by the resident from several neighbours in her block of flats and the wider street. This included drug use, misuse of communal areas and intimidating, threatening and abusive behaviour. Both the resident and the landlord have stated that issues between multiple parties had been ongoing for some time at the point the resident’s formal complaint was logged on 6 January 2022.
This report will consider events from 31 August 2021, when the resident made a report of antisocial behaviour which was recorded by the landlord. This is within a reasonable time frame of the resident making her complaint, and reflects the period considered by the landlord in its complaint responses.

Antisocial behaviour policy

The landlord’s antisocial behaviour policy states that it aims to respond to complaints of antisocial behaviour within 48 working hours to take details of the complaint and agree an action plan. It aims to keep fortnightly contact with complainants of live cases using their preferred method of contact.
The landlord says it will consider the views of victims, witnesses and complainants when deciding what actions to take. It states that, where appropriate, it will try to agree actions, keep complainants updated and review matters when the case is closed.
The policy states that, where they are dissatisfied with the landlord’s response to their antisocial behaviour complaint, complainants have a right to request a review of their case using the community trigger via the local authority. The landlord commits to working with partners to review cases where the community trigger is raised.

Complaints policy and procedure

The landlord operates a two stage complaints process. Its policy and procedure provide no time frames for it to issue its response at either stage.
The complaints policy states that a complaint will only usually be considered if it is made within six months of the date that the complainant first became aware of, or experienced, the problem.
The complaints procedure states that, where a complaint is upheld or partially upheld, the landlord will refer to its compensation policy to review if compensation should be awarded.

Compensation policy

The landlord’s compensation policy allows it to make discretionary payments to residents where an appropriate level of service has not been delivered. It includes an example of the landlord taking appropriate action, but delaying in doing so and the delay causing detriment.
The policy includes a “payment schedule”. For instances of service failure towards general needs rented residents this outlines categories of “stress/inconvenience” (with awards ranging from £50 to £100) and “time and trouble” (ranging from £25 to £75 for a delay of up to three months). It states that a total award for service failure should not exceed £150.

Summary of events

On 31 August 2021, the resident contacted the landlord to report issues with neighbours using illegal drugs and having parties.
On 25 October 2021, the resident sent a letter recorded delivery to the landlord’s offices, with a copy also sent by email. This detailed multiple incidents of ongoing antisocial behaviour involving several neighbours including:
1. Drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes and cannabis inside the communal areas of the block;
2. Taking over the communal garden for frequent loud, drunken parties and intimidating other residents who attempted to use it;
3. Aggressive and intimidating behaviour;
4. Tampering with the communal doors to leave them insecure;
5. Vandalism of the resident’s car;
6. Ableist remarks and behaviour towards the resident’s daughter.
The letter stated that the impact of these behaviours had left the resident’s daughter unwilling to leave the house for fear of having to pass through communal areas, and experiencing depression and panic attacks. The resident stated that the antisocial behaviour was also damaging her own mental health and leaving her unable to sleep at night.
The resident states that she emailed the landlord on 2 November 2021, 26 November 2021, 29 November 2021, 10 December 2021, 15 December 2021 to update it on new antisocial behaviour incidents and request an action plan to deal with the issues. She also says she provided photographic and video evidence to the landlord via the ‘Whatsapp’ messaging platform, with screenshots dated 1 December 2021 provided to this Service.
On 17 December 2021, the resident contacted the landlord to report further issues with the same neighbours shouting at her and making threats towards her and a relative of hers. The landlord logged an antisocial behaviour case.
The resident states that she made telephone calls to the landlord on 21 December 2021, 22 December 2021 and 23 December 2021 to make further complaints of anti social behaviour against the neighbours. She says that each time she was promised a call back within twenty four hours which she never received.
On 6 January 2022, the resident contacted this Service. She expressed dissatisfaction with the landlord’s handling of the antisocial behaviour she had reported, and the fact that she had not received responses to her complaints about this matter. On the same day, this Service contacted the landlord by email asking it to log her complaint, if it had not done so already, and issue a written response.
On 24 January 2022, the landlord emailed the resident acknowledging receipt of her complaint. It advised it aimed to provide its written response within ten working days.
On the same day, the landlord provided its stage one complaint response. It stated that:
1. Following the resident’s report on 31 August 2021, it had unsuccessfully attempted to contact her by telephone on 14 September 2021, and then a further two times, before it had closed the case on 14 October 2021.
2. The antisocial behaviour case raised on 17 December 2021 had been automatically allocated to a member of staff who was on leave. The landlord had not discovered this until 21 January 2022.
3. The case had since been reallocated to another member of staff who would be in contact with the resident, and the landlord was currently working with the police to get full disclosure on the situation and see what actions police were taking.
4. It wished to apologise for the service failure in communication and offer her compensation of £50.
On 28 January 2022 the landlord attended a multiagency meeting after the resident successfully requested a community trigger via the local authority. During the meeting the landlord stated it had only two reports of antisocial behaviour made by the resident on record (from 31 August 2021 and 17 December 2021).
As part of the action plan agreed at the meeting, the landlord committed to writing to all residents about the use of communal gardens and smoking inside communal areas, liaising with the resident about the possibility of installing CCTV in the area and working with the police to enforce against reported antisocial behaviour.
On 31 January 2022, the landlord sent an antisocial behaviour warning letter to one of neighbours identified in the resident’s complaints.
On 2 February 2022, the resident asked the landlord to escalate her complaint to stage two of its process. She claimed the stage one response had failed to recognise multiple other occasions where she had reported incidents, provided evidence and requested call backs, without receiving them. The resident stated that the antisocial behaviour had been ongoing for years and escalating due to the landlord failing to address it. She expressed dissatisfaction with the level of compensation offered.
On 4 February 2022, the landlord acknowledged the resident’s request to escalate her complaint to stage two of its process. It advised it would issue its response by 4 March 2022.
On 16 March 2022, the landlord provided its stage two response. It apologised for the late response and said that:
1. Since the resident’s antisocial behaviour case had been reassigned, in January 2022, the new case officer had been in regular contact with the resident.
2. A community trigger meeting had been held on 28 January 2022 and it had completed all agreed actions, with no further incidents reported by the resident since then.
3. It was aware of a long history of issues on the resident’s street with neighbours making counter allegations against each other, with little evidence, which are difficult for a landlord to resolve.
4. It intended to offer mediation to involved parties should any future issues arise.
5. It wished to increase its offer of compensation to the resident to £100 for service failure and offer a further £75 for the time and trouble in making her complaint.

Assessment and findings

Reports of antisocial behaviour

The resident first made contact with the landlord (that is considered within the scope of this report) on 31 August 2021 to report drug use and parties. The landlord did not make its first attempt to contact her until two weeks later, on 14 September 2021. This is significantly longer than the target response of 48 hours outlined in its antisocial behaviour policy.
The landlord made two further attempts at contacting the resident before closing the case. Although the landlord’s antisocial behaviour policy is silent on the criteria for closure of a case, it is reasonable to do so after three failed attempts at contacting a complainant.
However, this Service has seen no evidence that the landlord varied its method of contact, by writing to or emailing the resident, to attempt to engage her or to notify her that it had closed the case. The resident continued to experience incidents of antisocial behaviour throughout this period (evidenced by the fact that police disclosures obtained by the landlord show that she contacted police on at least two occasions) and wrote to the landlord shortly afterwards. It is therefore reasonable to assume she would not have wilfully disengaged from the landlord and ignored its contact.
The resident has provided evidence of multiple further reports, including photographic and video evidence sent to the landlord between September and December 2021. She says she was advised that the landlord could not locate, or no longer had access to, these despite them being sent through a number of channels. This includes the letter posted recorded delivery to its offices on 25 October 2021, which the landlord apologised for not correctly processing in its stage two complaint response.
The landlord logged a new antisocial behaviour case after the resident made a report of antisocial behaviour on 17 December 2021. The landlord has acknowledged that a computer error saw the case assigned to an officer who was away from the business and this was not discovered until 21 January 2022, after the resident had made her complaint. The landlord’s failures in regard to the correspondence submitted in October 2021 and the December 2021 indicates that its record-keeping was insufficient and it did not follow up to ensure that it was actively investigating the resident’s reports.
When the computer error was discovered the landlord acted appropriately in immediately attempting to contact the resident,obtaining disclosures from local police and sending a warning letter to the neighbour involved.
The landlord also participated in the community trigger meeting and stated in its stage two complaint response that it had completed all actions it had agreed during this. However, the landlord failed to provide this Service with any evidence of the completion of said actions, nor in relation to the community trigger meeting itself.
The landlord’s stage two complaint response awarded the resident £100 compensation, for service failures in its communication with her. This the highest level of award set out under its compensation framework for ‘stress/inconvenience’, however this Service is not bound by limits set within the landlord’s policy and procedure.
The resident has described a “horrible existence” due to the antisocial behaviour reported, saying she felt at “rock bottom” due to the “stress of this environment” with “no escaping it”.
The detriment to the resident’s daughter is also acknowledged in the outcome letter from the community trigger case review meeting. This advised that a safeguarding referral would be completed for the resident’s daughter, to ensure children’s services were aware of the impact of the antisocial behaviour on her and could offer any appropriate support.
Owing to the landlord’s failures in communication and record keeping, the resident’s reports were not addressed by it until nearly five months after she began reporting. The full scale of the detriment to the resident, and extent of its failures, were not acknowledged by the landlord in its complaint responses or reflected in the level of compensation offered by way of redress.
The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance sets a starting point of £100 compensation for failures which adversely affected a resident. The severity of the case, as evidenced by the fact that it met the threshold for a community trigger, along with the distress that has clearly been experienced by both the resident and her vulnerable daughter mean that a significantly higher award would be appropriate.

The associated complaint

The resident first contacted this Service on 6 January 2022. At this time, she advised that she had made several verbal and written complaints about the landlord’s handling of the antisocial behaviour without response.
This Service contacted the landlord by email the same day, requesting that it raise and consider the resident’s complaint in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. The Code specifies that a complaint should be logged and acknowledged within five working days of receipt with a stage one decision supplied within ten working days of receipt.
The landlord failed to acknowledge the complaint to the resident until 24 January 2022, the same day it provided its stage one response. Both of these fell outside of the required timescales and them being issued on the same day suggests that either the landlord delayed unnecessarily in acknowledging the complaint, or claims to have completed a full investigation and response within a matter of hours.
Although the Code allows for an extension of up to ten working days to provide the stage one complaint response, this is on the proviso that this is communicated to the resident. No evidence was provided that this occurred in this case.
The resident requested to escalate her complaint to stage two of the landlord’s process on 2 February 2022. The landlord appropriately acknowledged this two days later and advised that it would respond by 4 March 2022.
The stage two response was provided on 16 March 2022, outside of the 20 working days allowed by the complaint handling code and beyond the deadline given by the landlord in its acknowledgement. Again, no evidence has been seen of such an extension being communicated to the resident.
The landlord’s stage two response did offer apologies for failing to meet its response deadline of 4 March 2022, but offered no explanation for why this occurred.
The stage two response awarded the resident £75 compensation for the time and trouble taken in pursuing her complaint. This is the highest amount available under its compensation schedule for matters spanning one to three months. However, it did not acknowledge or offer redress for the wider issues in its complaint handling which led the resident to approach this Service for assistance several times as it delayed in logging and responding to her complaint.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s reports of antisocial behaviour.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s associated complaint.

Reasons

Although the landlord offered some redress for communication failures, it failed to acknowledge the full extent of these, or adequately consider the detriment experienced by the resident as a result.
The landlord failed to appropriately log the resident’s complaint until this Service approached it on her behalf. It then failed to manage her complaint in line with the Complaint Handling Code’s timeframes for responses.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

Within four weeks of the date of this report the landlord is ordered to:
1. Pay the resident compensation of £650 comprised of:
  1. £500 for the distress and inconvenience caused to her by the maladministration in its handling of her reports of antisocial behaviour.
  2. £150 for the time and trouble incurred by her due to the maladministration in its handling of her complaint.

The £175 total compensation offered by the landlord at stage two of its complaints process can be subtracted from this amount if payment has already been made to the resident.

Apologise to the resident for the maladministration identified in this report.
Review its complaints policy and procedure to ensure they reflect and comply with the current version of the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.

The landlord should reply to this Service evidencing compliance with these orders.

Recommendations

It is recommended that the landlord review its procedure around the closure of antisocial behaviour cases where it has been unable to make contact with the complainant.
The landlord should reply to this Service within four weeks of the date of this report to confirm its intentions in regard to this recommendation.