Birmingham City Council (202321183)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202321183

Birmingham City Council

6 June 2025


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

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about subsidence and structural issues in her property.
  2. We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of a 3 bedroom house. Her tenancy started in September 2022. She lives in the property with her 2 children.
  2. The resident raised concerns about structural issues with her property in March 2023. The landlord’s records say that there were issues with the corner of the bedroom floor, the window ledge, and the downstairs kitchen floor sloping. They all slopped in the same direction.
  3. The resident then raised her complaint with the landlord on 13 July 2023. The landlord did not provide us with a copy of the complaint. It provided its stage 1 response on 5 August 2023 and said:
    1. It could see there were multiple repairs relating to damage caused to her property including 1 repair raised for structural issues. It passed this to its subcontractor, who were meant to inspect the property, but they cancelled this on 16 June 2023.
    2. As it was outstanding for more than 30 working days, it was unable to recall the works to the contractors. It had however raised a new works order, and they would schedule an appointment with her within 30 working days.
    3. It upheld her complaint, apologised for the inconvenience caused, and it would contact her once it had scheduled an appointment to ensure that the contractor followed procedures in rectifying the issue.
  4. The resident remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response and escalated her complaint on 11 August 2023. The landlord has not provided a copy of her escalation request. She emailed it several times requesting a response, but it did not respond. The resident contacted us and explained the situation. We contacted the landlord and asked that it provide its stage 2 response.
  5. The landlord provided it stage 2 response on 6 December 2023. It apologised for the delay in its response and acknowledged this was not in line with its complaints process. It recognised the inconvenience and stress that chasing an update on the complaint had caused the resident and it apologised for its handling of her complaint. It explained its approach, the steps its contractor took to find the best approach to the works. It also tried to reassure her about the capabilities of its subcontractors. It acknowledged the length of time it took to try resolve the issue, the frustration caused, and the impact on her enjoyment of the property.

Post complaint

  1. The issue remained outstanding, and the resident approached her MP. Her MP wrote to the landlord on 7 February 2024. The landlord confirmed on 15 April 2025 that it had completed several of the works to the resident’s property.

Assessment and findings

Subsidence and structural issues

  1. The resident raised several concerns in her complaint. These included concerns with the landlord’s contractors and their ability to appropriately complete the necessary works. She also raised dissatisfaction with the landlord’s approach to measuring the subsidence and movement at her property. She wanted it to complete a bore hole test, and it opted to complete a tell–tale test instead.
  2. The landlord appropriately provided its reasons for opting for the tell-tale test, rather than the one she suggested. Its contractor consulted with an independent company about both options and the company recommended the tell-tale test. This was a suitable approach to take, as the landlord relied on the informed advice of its contractor, as it is entitled to do, in reaching its decision on its approach which was reasonable.
  3. The landlord also appropriately reassured the resident of the subcontractor’s abilities to complete the necessary tasks. She further raised concerns that the property showed obvious structural damage, and its contractor and subcontractor tried to repair cracks but did not want to address the floor joists or investigate the cause of damage. It appropriately explained that operatives attended her property on 29 August 2023 and told her about the necessary works and the best process to resolve the issues. They told her that some of the cracks in the building may be historic due to a previous issue with the property. Despite this however there were some failings in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns.
  4. Through our investigation, we have seen that the landlord failed to meet its repair deadlines on several occasions. For example, as it acknowledged within its stage 1 response, it did not complete its inspection of the resident’s property within the 30 day timeframe provided in its policy. Other examples include a further survey raised on 5 August 2023 which it recorded as completed on 11 October 2023 but then recalled.
  5. This was because the resident told it that nobody had attended, and the work remained outstanding. This raised concerns with its record keeping and monitoring practices. We would expect the landlord to ensure it was aware of the outcome of any such inspection. It should not take the resident notifying it, for it to realise that the work remained outstanding. It then did not complete the survey according to its records until 4 January 2024. This represents a delay of 4 months, and this was unreasonable.
  6. There were also delays in the landlord fitting the tell–tale equipment to the resident’s property. Its records show that it raised the works to fit them on 27 October 2023, and it completed the works on 7 November 2023. However, another entry shows that it raised the works to fit them again on 4 January 2024 as it did not fit them previously. It completed these works on 19 February 2024. The original priority was an urgent repair based on its policy, as it provided the timescale for completing them as 7 days. This represents a delay of over 3 months, and this was inappropriate and not in keeping with its policy.
  7. There were also concerns with the landlord’s communication with the resident, as despite the reported delays, it has not shown that it informed the resident of any reasons for them. She also raised concerns following its stage 2 response that on several occasions, its contractors had raised appointments but then not shown up. She reported such an occurrence on 16 October 2023. We would expect that where a contractor is unable to make an appointment, they contact the resident, explain this to them, and provide a reason. The landlord has not shown that this occurred. Its actions around its communication with the resident were inappropriate.
  8. Within its stage 2 response, the landlord reiterated to the resident that she should allow its subcontractor to complete works recommended by a survey. It however did not detail what these works were. It also did not provide a copy of the survey to us. As such it is unclear what works the survey recommended.
  9. By the end of the complaint process the resident’s concerns remained outstanding. The landlord had not taken the necessary actions to begin to rectify the issues with the property. It acknowledged its failings throughout the complaints process and apologised for the inconvenience caused to her. It however did not offer the resident any redress and this was unreasonable.
  10. The resident remained dissatisfied and disputed its proposed plan on 7 December 2023. She said it had told her to allow its contractor to complete planned works, but there were no planned works, and it was meant to have fitted the tell tale equipment the previous week but did not. She reported a worsening in the subsidence and raised concerns for her safety.
  11. Two months later, the resident’s MP wrote to the landlord and reiterated her concerns about the structural issues and subsidence. It provided a response detailing its actions in February 2024, and another on 15 April 2024. It found that the only outstanding issue was in relation to a UPVC door, and that it completed several works to rotten floors, stair timbers, a door, wall, brick and block, and joists between February 2024 and 10 April 2024.
  12. It is however unclear from the records whether the works completed by the landlord related to the survey mentioned in its stage 2 response. What is however clear is that matters remained outstanding between March 2023 and at least February 2024, a period of 11 months, and this was unreasonable.
  13. In summary, there were delays in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns. There were also concerns with the landlord’s communication around the issue. In total there was a delay of at least 11 months around the landlord’s handling of the issue. There were also some concerns with its record keeping. Based on this we find that there was maladministration.
  14. The landlord’s compensation policy says that where it and its contractors fail to meet the standard of providing a good quality service to resident, it will take reasonable action to put this right as quickly as possible. It will make any offer of compensation in accordance with the remedies guidance. It says it may make discretionary compensation payments to recognise the inconvenience caused by a service failure to show that it is committed to making amends and restore good relations.
  15. It says that an example of where it may make a discretionary compensation payment may be where there is failure or delay in providing a service, for example completing a repair, meet target response times, failure to follow its policies or procedures, or poor complaint handling.
  16. In this instance, the landlord did not meet the response times within its policy causing delays, inconvenience, distress to the resident due to concerns for safety within the property, and a failure to abide by its repairs policy. The matter remained outstanding for some time following the conclusion of the complaint. Based on this we order that the landlord pay the resident compensation for the failings in its handling of the matter.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord operates a two stage complaints process. It says it will assign a complaint and aim to contact a resident within 48 hours of receiving the complaint to acknowledge receipt. It will investigate and respond at stage 1 within 15 working days of receiving the complaint. It will respond at stage 2 within 20 working days of receiving the stage 2 complaint.
  2. The landlord did not provide us with a copy of the resident’s original complaint, raising concerns with its record keeping. It however said in its stage 1 response that she raised her complaint on 13 July 2023. It provided its response 2 days later than it should and this was a slight delay. However, we have seen no evidence of significant detriment to the resident.
  3. The resident then escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 11 August 2023. The landlord did not provide us a copy of the resident’s escalation request, nor did it provide any evidence of an acknowledgement. It also did it respond to the resident’s complaint within the timescales in its policy. This led to her chasing it for a response in October 2023. When the resident did not receive a response, she contacted us, and we asked the landlord to provide a response.
  4. The landlord’s response was outstanding for over 3 months and this was unreasonable. It however apologised for the delay in its stage 2 response on 6 December 2023 and acknowledged the inconvenience chasing a response caused the resident. This was a reasonable approach for it to take, however this was not sufficient to put things right.
  5. In summary, there were delays at both stages of the landlord’s complaints process. At stage 1 there was no evidence of significant detriment. However, at stage 2 the resident chased the landlord, and it failed to respond within the timescales stated in its policy. It also did not offer her adequate redress around the issue. Based on this we find that there was a service failure. We order that the landlord pay the resident compensation.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was:
    1. Maladministration with the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns of subsidence and structural issues in her property.
    2. Service failure with the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of this report the landlord must:
    1. Provide the resident with an apology around the failings found in this report.
    2. Pay the resident compensation of £750 broken down as:
      1. £650 for its handling of the resident concerns around subsidence and structural issues in her property.
      2. £100 for its complaint handling failings.