Anchor Hanover Group (202530774)
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Decision |
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Case ID |
202530774 |
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Decision type |
Investigation |
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Landlord |
Anchor Hanover Group |
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Landlord type |
Housing Association |
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Occupancy |
Assured Tenancy |
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Date |
23 March 2026 |
Background
- The resident lives in a flat within a block of flats owned by the landlord. He uses a mobility scooter. In March 2025, he asked the landlord to programme double doors leading into the block’s carpark to allow both doors to open at once as he had difficulty passing through them on his scooter. The landlord refused to do this as it said they would not be secure. It later invited residents of the block to vote on whether they would be willing to fund the works. By a majority, they refused.
What the complaint is about
- The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
- The resident’s requests for modifications to the automatic doors leading to the car park and bin stores.
- The complaint.
Our decision (determination)
- We have found that there was:
- Severe maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests to improve access through a pair of automatic doors in the block.
- Maladministration in the handling of the complaint.
We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.
Summary of reasons
Handling of requests for repairs or adaptations to automatic doors
- The landlord failed to investigate the resident’s claim that the automatic doors made it difficult for him to access the car park because of his disability. Instead it asked residents to vote on whether they were prepared to pay for works to alter the doors. It failed to consider its duties under the Equalities Act 2010 (the Act).
The complaint
- The landlord failed to investigate the complaint appropriately. It therefore did not address the resident’s concerns in its complaint responses focusing, instead, on the ballot process.
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.
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Order |
What the landlord must do |
Due date |
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1 |
Apology order The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure:
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No later than 20 April 2026 |
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2 |
Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £750 comprising:
This must be paid directly to the resident and the landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date. |
No later than 20 April 2026 |
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3 |
Specific action order The landlord must consider the resident’s request for modifications to the double doors leading to the parking area and bin store in accordance with its duties under the Equality Act 2010 and its own policies. It must then confirm its position relative to the resident’s request to the resident and us, together with the reasons for its decision. If it decides to carry out works to the doors it must provide a timebound action plan in relation to this work. If it decides not to complete this work it must provide suitable alternative access options supported by an assessment of the resident’s needs.
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No later than 20 April 2026 |
Recommendations
Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.
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Our recommendations |
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We recommend that the landlord provides training to staff about the need to consider making reasonable adjustments where appropriate and its duty under the Equality Act 2010. |
Our investigation
The complaint procedure
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Date |
What happened |
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25 March 2025 |
The resident told the landlord that he used his mobility scooter to get to his car in the underground car park. He said only one of the double doors into the car park opened. He added that this meant his scooter could not get through the door and he could not access his car. |
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25 March to 25 April 2025 |
The landlord arranged for a vote among residents to see if they would agree to pay for works to the double doors. Residents voted not to approve the works. |
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25 April 2025 |
The resident complained about the landlord’s response to his request. He said residents should not have had to pay for them. |
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15 May 2025 |
The landlord sent a stage 1 complaint response. It said that it had arranged the vote according to its policy. It was only fair to ask residents to approve the work as they would be recharged for the works. |
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11 June 2025 |
The resident asked to escalate his complaint as he did not consider the stage 1 response addressed his complaint appropriately. |
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12 June 2025 |
The landlord acknowledged the escalation request. |
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16 June 2025 |
The landlord sent a stage 2 complaint response. It said it maintained its decision from stage 1. |
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15 July 2025 |
The landlord asked the landlord to review its response and saying that it had discriminated against him under the Equality Act 2010 (EQA) |
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15 October 2025 |
The resident asked the Ombudsman to investigate. He said the landlord’s failure to adapt the doors had, effectively, trapped him in the property. He said he wanted us to make it carry out the works and to pay him compensation. |
What we found and why
The circumstances of this complaint are well known to the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We have only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.
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Complaint |
Requests for repairs or adaptations to automatic doors |
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Finding |
Severe maladministration |
- The resident has lived at the property for approximately 10 years. He uses a mobility scooter and a wheelchair. The records show that the landlord was aware prior to the complaint that he was a wheelchair user. He says he used to ride the scooter through double doors in the block’s basement to the underground car park where he keeps his car.
- In his referral to us, the resident said that, about 2 years ago, the landlord replaced the existing doors and installed automatic, push-button double doors to the car park. Initially, this caused no problem as the doors opened in tandem and the scooter could pass through. However, he says that, shortly afterwards, the landlord changed the programming of the doors. It also locked one door in the closed position so only one would open. This meant that his scooter could not pass through.
- The resident said in an email to the landlord of 25 March 2025 that he had sent several previous emails about the subject to the landlord. Whilst we do not dispute the resident’s version of events, we do not have evidence of this previous communication, therefore we are unable to make a determination on this point.
- Also, in an email of 25 March 2025,the landlord said thatithad asked a surveyor to investigate options to allow both doors to open safely. The surveyor hadadvised that “due to the size and design of the door, it is not feasible or safe to enable operation from both sides.”It suggested that the resident could take the lift to the ground floor and then drive his mobility scooter down a ramp to the basement. There is no evidence that it carried out any assessment of whether this would be possible for the resident, for example by commissioning an occupational therapist’s report.
- The landlord later decided to ask residents of the block to vote on whether they wanted the doors to be altered. Prior to the vote, it sent information about the works to residents and explained that they would have to pay if they approved the works. On 24 April 2024, they voted by 66% to 33% not to proceed.
- The resident had asked for an adaptation to be made on account of his disability but the landlord treated his request as a request for an improvement for the benefit of all residents. It failed to consider his assertion that he was unable to leave the building. It therefore failed to consider its duties under the Equality Act 2010 (the Act).
- The landlords Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy (the Equality Policy) and its Reasonable Adjustments, Auxiliary Aids and Adaptations for Residents Policy (the Reasonable Adjustments Policy), are relevant to these events and set how it should carry out its duties under the Act.
- The Equality Policy says that the landlord will attempt to ensure that all residents can access all its properties equally. The Reasonable Adjustments Policy says that, when a resident requests an adjustment, it will consider providing it. It says it expects its employees to “recognise when a reasonable adjustment, or adaptation is being requested and to respond positively to such requests”. It says it will pay for, or contribute towards, the cost of such repairs.
- The landlord’s decision to put the matter to a vote was not in accordance with either the Equality Policy or the Reasonable Adjustments Policy.
- The resident emailed the landlord on 24 and 25 April 2025. On each occasion he made it clear that he was dissatisfied with the landlord’s overall response to his request. On 24 April 2025, he said the matter was having an effect “on my quality of life and my mental health due to not being able to get access to my car to go anywhere”.
- The landlord treated these emails as a formal complaint and sent the matter to its complaints team. However, the only matter that it investigated at stage 1 was whether it had conducted the vote to approve the works in line with its policy. It failed to consider the resident’s claim that he was unable to leave the building. On 15 May 2025, it sent its complaint response saying that the vote had been held correctly and that it did not uphold the resident’s complaint.
- On 11 June 2025, the resident asked the landlord to escalate his complaint to stage 2 of its internal complaints process. He said he wanted to do so as the landlord had not addressed his complaint appropriately at stage 1.
- In its stage 2 response on 16 June 2025, the landlord said the resident had not made them aware of any reasonable adjustments needed due to a disability. However, the landlord’s records show it was already aware the resident had a physical disability and was a wheelchair user.
- The resident wrote to the landlord again on 15 July 2025. He said that it had failed to consider his rights under the Act as a disabled person. He asked it to carry out works to allow access through the doors within 7 days or he would complain to us.
- The landlord then wrote to the resident on 19 August 2025 asking for evidence of his disability. Given the known vulnerability of the resident, we would have expected the landlord to ensure that it understood his needs at a much earlier stage. Further it did not try to gain a greater understanding of how these disabilities affected him.
- The landlord would be expected under the Equality Act 2010 to demonstrate it had taken steps to ensure that it understood the needs of the resident. It would also have been expected to demonstrate it had responded to those needs in the way it provided its services and communicated with the resident.
- In its response to our enquiries, the landlord recognised that its approach had been inappropriate. It said it had discussed the matter with the relevant staff member who liaised with the resident. Nonetheless, we have recommended that it provides training to staff about the need to consider making reasonable adjustments where appropriate and its duty under the Act. The landlord has told us that it received proof of the resident’s health issues in January 2026.
- The landlord failed to consider the resident’s request to reprogramme the doors as a reasonable adjustment. It later suggested an alternative method of exiting the building but failed to assess whether the resident would be able to use it. It failed to evidence that it properly considered its duties under the Equality Act 2010 or followed its own policies. The resident reports that the issue remains ongoing.
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Complaint |
The handling of the complaint |
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Finding |
Maladministration |
Our Complaint Handling Code (the Code) sets out when and how a landlord should respond to complaints. Our findings are:
- The landlord’s complaints policy complies with the Code. It says that landlords should acknowledge complaints within 5 working days and provide a complaint response within 10 working days of a complaint. It must acknowledge a request to escalate a complaint to stage 2 of its process within 5 working days and provide a stage 2 response within working 20 days of the request. It can ask for a maximum of 20 extra working days to deal with complex complaints which require further investigation.
- The resident complained on 25 April 2025. The landlord did not acknowledge receipt. This was a failure. Theacknowledgment is an opportunity for landlords to set out their understanding of complaints and gives residents the chance to explain their complaint further if their landlord has misunderstood their concerns.
- In this case, the failure to check the complaint definition meant that, when it provided its stage 1 complaint response on 15 May 2025, the landlord addressed the wrong issue. It dealt only with the way in which the vote on the works had been conducted. This was not the resident’s concern. He wanted the landlord to make adaptations to the building on account of his disability.
- The stage 1 complaint response came 13 working days after the complaint. This was slightly outside the landlord’s policy commitment, however any additional distress or inconvenience to the resident caused by the slight delay would have been minimal.
- The resident asked to escalate his complaint to stage 2 on 11 June 2025. In the request, he said that the landlord had “not addressed the problem”. The landlord acknowledged the escalation request on 12 June 2025 in line with its policy, however it did not provide a complaint definition saying only that he did not agree with the stage 1 decision.
- The landlord’s failure to clarify the reasons for the escalation meant that, at stage 2 it failed again to address his concerns. While the response met the time requirements of the Code, it was, again, an inappropriate complaint response. It failed to address the resident’s concerns or consider its duties under the Act and its own policies.
Learning
- It is clear that the landlord failed to consider its duties under the Equality Act 2010 despite having policies that required it to do so. The landlord should, therefore, consider ensuring its existing policies reflect its obligations under the Act and that employees are fully aware of its implications.
Knowledge information management (record keeping)
- The landlord provided poor records in response to our request for information. The landlord should consider assessing itself against our spotlight report on knowledge and information management.
Communication
- The landlord provided poor records in response to our request for information. The landlord should consider assessing itself against our spotlight report on knowledge and information management.