A2Dominion Housing Group Limited (202210765)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202210765

A2Dominion Homes Limited

30 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:
1. The resident’s report of damaged cladding.
2. The associated complaint.

Scope of investigation

The resident has set out a very specific outcome which he seeks to resolve his complaint. This is that a review is carried out by the landlord, headed by a senior member of staff who oversees all the departments which demonstrated failings in this case, and that a programme of training is undertaken by the relevant staff. The resident has also expressed concern over a “silo culture” within the landlord’s organisation which may be indicative of wider failings across its operations.
When the Ombudsman investigates a complaint and finds evidence of failings, we may order or recommend that the landlord review its processes and identify areas for improvement. If appropriate, it may be ordered to provide evidence of this to the Ombudsman. Landlords are generally able to choose the specific internal processes undertaken to comply with such orders and recommendations based on what is practical for them given the makeup of their organisation and the existing procedures and systems which they have in place. The Ombudsman would not generally order a landlord to approach any process of evaluation and improvement in any particular way provided that it provided the necessary results to drive improvements within the landlord’s organisation.
Therefore, the specific resolution sought by the resident, as set out above, is not within the Ombudsman’s remit to order. This investigation will also not consider whether there are wider failings across the organisation, as consideration of the complaint will focus only on the circumstances surrounding the issues which affected the resident and his property. It should be clarified, however, that the Ombudsman does monitor the complaints brought to our attention and carries out systemic investigations of landlords when there are sufficient grounds to do so. We also share information with the Regulator for Social Housing where appropriate so that the regulator can carry out its own investigations into landlords’ practices where it considers that multiple residents may be affected by a particular issue.

Background

The resident is a tenant of the landlord. The property is a flat within a block of flats.
The resident reported to the landlord on 5 May 2021 that a piece of cladding was loose and hanging off the balcony above his. He made ten further reports of the loose cladding, which he described as progressively loosening in the winds, between 12 October 2021 and 16 February 2022, highlighting the danger if it were to fall into the street below. His final report submitted a video of the loose cladding now striking against his window in the wind.
The loose cladding was removed on 16 February 2022 and the resident raised a complaint with the landlord the following day alleging its “complete incompetence and the fact that it endangered lives by inaction”. The landlord clarified that he was unhappy with its lack of action in dealing with the repair which was a “risk to life and property” and that he was unhappy with the lack of response to his reports and “inappropriate” questions about the repair.
The landlord issued its stage one complaint response to the resident on 4 April 2022 which acknowledged that the delay in resolving the repair was “unacceptable” as it may have led to serious harm. It explained that the delay was due to contractual delays and identifying which contractor or company should address the repair. The landlord confirmed that feedback had been given to the teams involved and it offered £200 compensation to the resident for distress and inconvenience.
The resident corresponded with the landlord from 4 May 2022 to escalate his complaint. In the ensuing exchanges, he said he wanted the landlord to acknowledge that its inaction had put lives and property at risk. The resident also wanted confirmation that a senior member of staff, with authority over all departments involved, would oversee a review of the landlord’s processes, involving a “90-day training and procedure review”. It informed him, on 24 May 2022, that it would not be escalating his complaint.
The landlord subsequently issued a final stage response to the resident on 2 May 2023, after the complaint had been accepted by the Ombudsman. This increased its offer of compensation to £730, made up of £290 for complaint handling and £440 for its handling of the repair. It explained why his complaint had not been escalated previously, and explained there had been poor management of jobs and poor communication with stakeholders. The landlord advised it had fed back the resident’s request for increased functionality of its website for reporting repairs and confirmed it had inspected his windows on 27 April 2023 and found no evidence of damage.
On 8 May 2023, the resident advised this Service that he remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response because:
1. Its final response was inconsistent with its previous explanation of why his complaint was not escalated.
2. The landlord had yet to accept the consequences of its failures.
3. The landlord did not inspect his window for damage until recently.
4. There was no commitment by the landlord for a top-level review by someone who had oversight of all departments involved.
5. Its chronology of events was inaccurate.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s response to the resident’s report of damaged cladding

The landlord’s repairs policy provides for two categories of repairs; urgent repairs, which are to be responded to within 24 hours, and standard, which are carried out at the next available convenient appointment for the resident.
The above policy does not specify what constitutes an urgent repair; however, the Ombudsman would expect any repair which presents an immediate hazard to people or the property to be considered an urgent or emergency repair which should be responded to, and made safe, within 24 hours. We would expect routine repairs to be carried out within one month, in line with industry best practice although it is accepted that some repairs may take longer than this for example if parts need to be ordered or specialist equipment is required.
It would have been appropriate for the landlord to have treated the loose cladding as an emergency repair and made this safe within 24 hours of the resident’s first report. It was a significant failure by the landlord that it did not make safe the repair until after nine months had elapsed, despite the potential hazard this could cause to the resident and passers-by.
The landlord’s final stage response mentioned that the repair had been initially treated as a latent defect in the structure of the building, when the building was constructed. During the first two years after a new building is constructed, it is generally the responsibility of the developer which built the property to correct any defects. After two years, there may be a buildings warranty policy in place which covers repairs to defects for a set period of time, typically until the building is ten years old. Where a repair is a latent defect a landlord may invalidate this warranty if it carries out work which would be the developer’s responsibility to resolve. However, this does not absolve the landlord of responsibility to facilitate a repair; for example, by liaising with the developer or insurer to expedite an emergency repair. There was no evidence of the landlord progressing the matter in any way or communicating with the resident to update him and manage his expectations. Given that there was a potential health and safety risk, it was unreasonable that there was no progress in the resolution of the repair for nine months.
If there had been uncertainty on the landlord’s part about whether the loose cladding was or was not a potential danger then, in the first instance, it should have satisfied itself of this through an urgent inspection. It was a failure by the landlord that there was no evidence of the landlord attending the property to inspect the cladding until 16 February 2022, when it completed work to make the cladding safe. It was also a failure by the landlord that it did not carry out an inspection of the resident’s windows and window frames until more than a year after his report that the loose piece of cladding had been striking his windows.
It was unreasonable of the landlord to repeatedly request more information from the resident, in response to his reports of the repair between 12 October 2021 and 16 February 2022, instead of inspecting the cladding for itself. It should have done this from at least October 2021, if not earlier, given the resident’s reports that the cladding was “hanging off and is yet to drop” and that this was from a fifth-floor property above a footpath and main road. Where a repair is reported to be a health and safety risk, a landlord would be expected to take a proactive approach.
When the landlord advised the resident on 6 December 2021 that it was seeking urgent attendance to remove the loose cladding, it still did not complete this until 16 February 2022, over two months later. It was understandable then, that the resident sought assurances from the landlord that it acknowledged the severity of the failure and would learn from its failings.
The landlord acknowledged, in its stage one complaint response, that the loose cladding reported by the resident was a hazard and noted that, had the piece of cladding fallen loose, this “could have fallen on someone below” and “would cause a lot of damage”. The landlord’s stage one response, subsequent correspondence, and final complaint response all relayed that feedback had been provided to the relevant teams to enable learning from the complaint.
The Ombudsman’s dispute resolution principles are to: be fair; put things right; and learn from outcomes. While the landlord said that feedback had been provided to the relevant teams about its failures, this did not go far enough to evidence that it had learnt from the outcome of the complaint. There was no specific explanation given in the final response about why the delay had occurred, and the stage one response gave only a brief explanation that there had been contractual delays and difficulties identifying who should deal with the repair. Given the implications of the potentially dangerous repair being delayed by nine months, it was unreasonable that the landlord did not provide a thorough explanation of how the delay had come about. This may have included an explanation of:
1. What contractual issues caused the delay in responding to the repair. (it is expected that the landlord may be limited in the specific details it could provide due to confidentiality but it could have given more information than it did)
2. Why it was not recognised and responded to as a potential emergency repair.
3. Why there was difficulty in identifying which part of its organisation should respond to the repair.
4. Why the repair was initially closed when it was considered to be a latent defect and why it was not followed up on.
5. What measures it would put in place to prevent a reoccurrence of these issues.
Had the landlord’s responses included this information, this may have allayed the resident’s concerns about, and restored confidence in, its handling of emergency repairs. In light of the severity of the failings exhibited by the landlord, it will be ordered to write to the resident and the Ombudsman to set out an action plan to address the failures identified from the complaint. As explained above, it will be for the landlord to decide how it draws up this plan, provided it includes the necessary information about what the landlord has learnt from this complaint and the improvements it will make going forward to prevent similar issues occurring again.
The landlord offered the resident a total of £440 compensation for its failures in the handling of the repair; £200 at stage one and a further £240 in its final response. This total amount is broadly in accordance with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, available to view online, which provides for awards of between £100 and £600 for failures over an extended period of time which caused detriment to the resident which did not necessarily have a permanent impact on him. The landlord will be ordered to pay this compensation, if it has not done so already.
While the compensation offered was reasonable to recognise the level of distress and inconvenience experienced by, and the expenditure of time and effort by the resident in pursuing the repair, this alone does not amount to reasonable redress in light of the circumstances and therefore a finding of service failing has been found. This is because the landlord did not do enough to resolve the complaint at the time as it should have been clearer in its responses concerning the reasons why errors occurred and the learning it had taken from this complaint.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

The landlord’s complaints procedure provides for a two-stage internal complaints process. No timeframe is specified for when a stage one complaint response should be provided to a resident. At the final stage, if a panel review takes place, this should be within 20 working days of receipt of the complaint escalation request, and a final response should be provided to the resident within five working days after this.
The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code), which member landlords are required to adhere to, sets out that a stage one complaint should be responded to within ten working days. At the final stage, the landlord should provide its response within 20 working days. If it is unable to meet either of these timeframes, the landlord should provide an explanation to the resident containing a clear timeframe for when the response will be received. This should not exceed a further 10 days without good reason.
The Code also sets out that when a resident remains dissatisfied with a landlord’s response at stage one of the complaints procedure, the complaint must be escalated, unless there is a valid reason not to. In this case it should explain to the resident why the complaint will not be escalated and provide details on how to refer the complaint to the Ombudsman.
The landlord’s complaints procedure states:
1. “If a complaint has been dealt with at a previous stage and upheld in full, it may not be appropriate for the complaint to be taken to the next stage of the complaints procedure. In these circumstances, the complainant will be advised in writing of the reasons why and given the contact details of the Housing Ombudsman Service”.
In light of the above, it was reasonable that the landlord did not escalate the resident’s complaint to the final stage of its procedure. It explained to him, in its email on 24 May 2022, that it had fully upheld his complaint at stage one and escalation of the complaint would not provide him with the specific outcome he sought. This was that he wanted the landlord to explicitly acknowledge that it “endangered lives and was completely incompetent”, confirm that a “senior member of staff that oversees all areas… has taken action, not that managers of separate teams have taken action” and “a 90-day training and procedure review is underway”. Furthermore, it is noted that the resident did not submit any new information for consideration. After further correspondence between the landlord and resident, it confirmed its position on 21 June 2022 and provided him with details of his referral rights to the Ombudsman.
The landlord responded to the resident’s escalation request reasonably in the circumstances; however, it may have been useful for it to have confirmed its position sooner, on 24 May 2022, to prevent excess expenditure of effort by the resident. This would have allowed the resident to seek external consideration of his complaint sooner, such as bringing it to the Ombudsman.
While the landlord acted reasonably and in accordance with its policy in not escalating the complaint, it did delay in providing the stage one response to the resident. He made his complaint on 18 February 2022 and this was acknowledged on 23 February 2022. The landlord then provided its stage one response to the resident on 4 April 2022; this was after 31 working days and was 21 working days in excess of the response timeframe set out in the Code.
It is noted that the landlord forewarned the resident on 23 February 2022 that it may exceed the ten-working-day timeframe for a response due to its workload. As specified by the Code, above, the landlord should have then provided a clear timeframe to the resident within which he may expect its response. There was no evidence of this, and the resident was required to chase the landlord on 23 March 2022, highlighting that 20 working days had elapsed, before it provided him with an update on 24 March 2022. This update again did not provide a clear timeframe for response, only relaying that it would respond “next week”.
It was reasonable that the landlord recognised the failings in its handling of the complaint in its final response and offered compensation of £50 for its delay at stage one. This was a reasonable offer which was in accordance with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, which provides for awards of £50 to £100 compensation where there was a failure by the landlord which was of short duration and did not significantly affect the outcome of the complaint.
The landlord offered a further £240 compensation in its final response for not escalating the resident’s complaint to the final stage. As discussed above, it acted reasonably and in accordance with its policy in this regard; therefore, this offer of £240 compensation was made in excess of its obligations. Given that it has already made this offer to the resident, it will be recommended to pay this to him, unless it has done so already.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its response to the resident’s report of damaged cladding.
In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered redress to the resident which, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, resolves the complaint satisfactorily concerning its handling of the associated complaint.

Orders

Within four weeks, the landlord should pay the resident the £440 compensation it offered him in its complaint responses for its handling of the cladding repair.
Within eight weeks the landlord should write to both the resident and the Ombudsman to explain why the failures occurred in this case and set out the steps it will take to ensure that these are not repeated in future.

Recommendation

The landlord should:
1. Pay the resident the £290 it offered him in its final response for its complaint handling failures unless this has already been paid.
2. Review its complaint handling procedures and training of complaints handling staff to ensure that complaints are handled in accordance with its policy and the timeframes set out in the Complaint Handling Code.