Bolton at Home Limited (202214617)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202214617

Bolton at Home Limited

22 April 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

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for a copy of his tenancy agreement.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord.
  2. During June and July 2022 the resident asked the landlord to send him a copy of his tenancy agreement. He subsequently raised a complaint in July and escalated it in September as he had not received the information he had requested.
  3. In its complaint responses, the landlord said that:
    1. It was sorry that it had not responded to the resident’s initial requests to be sent the tenancy agreement. It said that the inbox the resident had sent the request to was monitored by a rota, and both staff members were on annual leave so his emails had been missed.
    2. It no longer had the resident’s initial tenancy agreement, due to the length of time he had been a tenant, but it had sent a letter confirming his tenancy details along with a blank tenancy agreement on 22 August 2022.
    3. In its final response on 21 October 2022, it said it was unable to explain why the resident had not received the letter sent in August. It apologised for the inconvenience and resent the documents.
  4. In the resident’s complaint to the Ombudsman, he said he remained dissatisfied with the amount of time taken by the landlord to send his tenancy information.

Assessment and findings

  1. The landlord’s tenancy policy states that it “will issue the customer with a tenancy agreement for their tenancy; this is a legal agreement between the customer and [the landlord]”. As such, when the resident requested a copy of the tenancy agreement from the landlord, it should have promptly responded and provided the resident with the requested tenancy information.
  2. It is not disputed by the landlord that it failed to appropriately handle the resident’s initial requests to be provided with a copy of his tenancy agreement, as it failed to acknowledge his requests. Where there are admitted failings by a landlord, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this the Ombudsman assesses whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
  3. In light of the delays in the landlord providing the requested tenancy information to the resident, it was appropriate that the landlord acknowledged its failings and offered an explanation as to why the resident’s requests were not responded to. It was also appropriate that following the resident’s complaint, the landlord took steps to fulfil the resident’s request by sending a letter with his tenancy information on 22 August 2022. As the resident had been a tenant since 2002 and a housing stock transfer from another landlord had since taken place, it was not necessarily unreasonable that the landlord did not hold the resident’s original tenancy agreement. However, the landlord still had an obligation to send the required tenancy information.
  4. The resident advised the landlord on 1 September 2022 that he had not received the letter. It is unclear why the resident did not receive this but as the landlord confirmed it was sent first class it is likely the delay was outside of its control. However, there was a substantial further delay in the landlord resending the information, as it failed to do so until 21 October 2022. In the intervening period the resident spent additional time and effort chasing the landlord for the information and he also contacted the Ombudsman for assistance in progressing the matter.
  5. Furthermore, the resident advised the landlord that he required the letter confirming his tenancy details for a legal matter. It is unclear whether the landlord’s failure to promptly provide the tenancy agreement had a detrimental impact on the legal matter, but it is evident the delay would have caused frustration and inconvenience to the resident.
  6. The landlord has demonstrated that it has learned from the complaint and taken steps to improve its service delivery by providing additional staff training to ensure all correspondence from residents is responded to. It also acknowledged that it should have sent the letter with the resident’s tenancy details with its stage one response as well as an electronic copy.
  7. Although it was appropriate that the landlord acknowledged and apologised to the resident for its failings, it failed to offer any compensation to the resident. In line with this Service’s remedies guidance, awards of £50-£100 are appropriate in cases where there was a minor failing by the landlord which it has not fully put right. In this case, it is clear that the landlord’s failings to promptly action the resident’s request to be sent his tenancy agreement caused him inconvenience and additional time and trouble. As a result, the landlord should pay the resident £50 compensation.
  8. It is also noted that the tenancy agreement provided to the Ombudsman appears to be for its new tenants, and may not apply to residents that were a tenant of the local authority at the time of the stock transfer. The landlord has therefore been ordered to check this, and if appropriate, provide the correct tenancy agreement to the resident.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in the way it handled the resident’s request for a copy of his tenancy agreement.

Orders

  1. Within four weeks of the date of this report the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Pay the resident £50 compensation for the delay in sending his tenancy details.
    2. Check which tenancy agreement applies to the resident’s tenancy and issue the correct agreement to him, if this has not already been provided.