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bpha Limited (202417102)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202417102

bpha Limited

11 September 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 a repair to the patio door of the resident’s home.
  2. We have also looked at the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident has an assured tenancy with the landlord, a housing association, and lives in a house with her 2 children. The resident has post-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD) and anxiety and depression, which the landlord is aware of.
  2. On 21 July 2024, the resident reported the lock of the patio door to the rear of the property had broken. She told it the front door was on a chain so she could not access her home through either entrance and was locked out. The landlord sent its repair operative to the resident’s home the same day. They cut the chain on the front door to gain access to the property, and completed a temporary repair to the patio door, leaving it locked. They submitted follow on works for the landlord to return to fully resolve the repair to the patio door on a future appointment.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord on 22 July 2024 and told it that she used the patio door as her main entrance as it was close to her car. She said that using the front door, especially when it was dark outside, caused her distress due to her PTSD as she had to walk to her car through an unlit area. She requested the landlord treat the repair as urgent.
  4. The landlord booked an appointment to repair the patio door for 30 August 2024 and informed the resident.
  5. On 25 July 2024, the resident made a complaint to the landlord due to the length of time taken for it to resolve the repair. The landlord told her it would not log her concerns as a formal complaint as there had been no service failure as the repair would be complete within its published timescales for responsive repairs.
  6. The resident contacted the Ombudsman on 29 July 2024 for support in logging her complaint with the landlord.
  7. On 1 August 2024, the landlord brought the repair appointment forwards to 2 August 2024 and informed the resident. It attended that day and its operative noted that new locks would need to be ordered.
  8. The landlord booked a new repair appointment for the morning of 16 October 2024. The landlord attended in the afternoon of 16 October 2024 and could not gain access to complete the repair as the resident was not at home.
  9. The Ombudsman contacted the landlord on 21 October 2024 and asked it to respond to the resident’s complaint no later than 28 October 2024. The landlord said it would need more time to investigate the matter and would respond to the complaint by 4 November 2024.
  10. The landlord issued the resident with its stage 1 response to her complaint on 4 November 2024. It upheld the complaint and said:
    1. The report made by the first operative who attended the emergency appointment did not include information regarding the type of lock that had failed. This meant another inspection was needed to establish this on 2 August 2024.
    2. It acknowledged it had failed to arrive at the correct time on the next appointment on 16 October 2024 and a new appointment had been made for 11 December 2024. It offered the resident £10 for this failure.
    3. It would make sure the correct parts to repair the door were with the operative on the next appointment and it would try to bring the appointment forwards to an earlier date.
  11. The resident requested the landlord escalate her complaint to stage 2 of its process on 5 November 2024. She told it there was now a significant gap around the door causing a draught and with the temperature dropping she had needed to use her heating more than usual. She said the offer it made to her of £10 was “an insult”.
  12. The landlord returned to the resident’s property on 11 December 2024 and repaired the lock. However, another appointment was raised to address the gap to the doorframe.
  13. The landlord issued the resident with its stage 2 response to her complaint on 16 January 2025. It apologised and said although it had made the door secure, the repair took too long to remedy from start to finish. It increased its offer of compensation to £125 for the delays, inconvenience and distress caused to her by its handling of the repair.

Events after the landlord’s final response

  1. The landlord returned to the resident’s home on 11 February 2025 to complete the repair to the patio door. The operative noted that the door had dropped considerably, and the hinges would not adjust the door to bring it back into place. The operative fitted seal excluders over the inside of the door to stop the draught and noted that new hinges would need to be ordered.
  2. The landlord attended to the resident’s home again on 1 March 2025. It could not complete the repair as it had sent the wrong operative who did not have the correct parts in order to repair the door.
  3. The landlord returned to the resident’s property on 29 March 2025 and completed the repair.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s policies and procedures

  1. The landlord operates a 2 stage complaints procedure. The timeframes in its procedure mirror that of our Complaint Handling Code (the Code), which sets out our Service’s expectations of a landlord’s complaint handling practices. The Code states stage 1 complaint responses must be sent within 10 working days, and stage 2 complaint responses sent within 20 working days.
  2. The landlord’s repair policy states it will attend emergency repairs within 24 hours and routine repairs within 28 calendar days.

The landlord’s handling of the repair to the patio door

  1. The landlord attended to the resident’s initial report of the patio door being broken the same day. This was in keeping with its published timescales on emergency repairs and was an appropriate response by the landlord. An emergency appointment is intended to make the property safe and secure and further appointments may be needed to fully resolve the issue.
  2. It was positive that the landlord brought the next appointment forwards from 30 August 2024 to 2 August 2024 as the original appointment fell slightly outside of its published timescales for responsive repairs. It also demonstrated that it took the resident’s concerns seriously regarding the distress the matter was causing her at that time, as it communicated this with the relevant team and explained the impact the outstanding repair was having on her.
  3. The operative who attended to the emergency repair on 21 July 2024 failed to note the type of locked required to fix the door on the next appointment. This was a failure by the landlord as it caused unnecessary delay as the door needed a further inspection and this caused the resident distress as she had to wait again for another appointment.
  4. The next repair appointment given to the resident by the landlord of 16 October 2024 was 75 calendar days after its last visit on 2 August. This fell significantly outside of its published timescales for routine repairs and was a failure by the landlord that caused the resident distress, especially as it had already caused unnecessary delay. The landlord then failed to attend at the scheduled time and due to this error, it could not complete the repair as the resident was not at home when it did attend. This was another failure by the landlord that caused further unnecessary delay as the appointment was rearranged again.
  5. The landlord visited a further 3 times in December 2024, February 2025, and March 2025 without fully resolving the repairs. We understand lock was fixed in December 2024, but the door had dropped during this time and the landlord needed to return again to remedy this. This caused the resident inconvenience as she had to be available each time to allow it access to her home and it might have been avoided if the landlord had completed the repair promptly after it was first reported in July 2024.
  6. The landlord also failed to adequately resolve the resident’s reports that there was a draught caused by a gap to the door when she first reported this to it in November 2024. It was not until February 2025 that it made attempts to reduce the impact of the draught by fitting seal excluders over the inside of the door and in the circumstances of this case, this was too long. It is unclear why it did not do this earlier when it visited the resident’s home in December 2024. This was a failure by the landlord that caused the resident distress and inconvenience as she reported that her living room was colder as a result, and she had to use her heating more regularly than normal.
  7. The landlord did not assign the work to the correct operative on its visit on 1 March 2025. This was a further failure by the landlord which caused the resident distress as it had previously told her it would make sure the operative attending would have the correct parts needed to resolve the repair.
  8. The landlord resolved the repair to the lock on 11 December 2024, 143 calendar days after it was first reported by the resident in July 2024. It then resolved the gap to the door on 29 March 2025, 144 calendar days after the resident reported the issue to it in November 2024. The completion of these repairs fell considerably outside of its published timescales for routine repairs and was a failure by the landlord. This caused the resident inconvenience and distress for a significant period of time as although she had access to the property through her front door, the outstanding repair caused her distress as she had to walk to her car in the dark, which she said affected her PTSD and she had to heat her home more often due to the draught from the door, and accommodated multiple failed appointments.
  9. When the landlord has made an offer, it is the Ombudsman’s role to assess whether the offer is fair and reasonable. Given the failures identified above, we do not find the amount of £125 compensation offered to the resident by the landlord adequately reflects the inconvenience and distress caused to her by its actions which we have determined amount to maladministration.
  10. Our remedies guidance, published on our website which sets out our approach to compensation, finds that for cases of maladministration, an order of compensation between £100 and £600 may be appropriate to put things right for the resident where there has been a failure by the landlord which has adversely affected them. For the reasons set out above, we will order the landlord to pay an additional £200 compensation to the resident for the inconvenience and distress caused by its handling of the repair to the patio door, bringing the total compensation to £325. The landlord should also pay the resident the £125 compensation already offered her if it has not done so.

The landlord’s handling of the complaint

  1. It was inappropriate for the landlord to refuse to log the resident’s complaint in July 2024. Regardless of whether it believed it was responsible for service failure, it should have set out its position formally at stage 1 of its complaints process in line with its own complaint policy and the Code. The resident had made an expression of dissatisfaction with how it was handling the repair, which should have been responded to as a complaint. This was a failure by the landlord which caused the resident distress as the complaint was delayed, and she had to contact the Ombudsman for support to progress it through the landlord’s complaints process.
  2. The landlord then took 49 working days to issue the resident with its stage 2 response to her complaint. This was not in keeping with the Code or its own published timescales for complaint handling and was a failure by the landlord which caused the resident distress as it caused delay to the final response. However, we acknowledge that the landlord said it would need an extension, which was positive and in line with the Code.
  3. Taking into consideration the failures by the landlord identified above, we have found there was service failure in its handling of the resident’s complaint. In line with our remedies guidance, we will order the landlord to pay the resident £100 for the inconvenience and distress caused to her by its handling of this matter. This amount is in line with remedies guidance which suggests awards in this range where there has been a failure by the landlord which affected the resident, but the failure did not affect the overall outcome of the complaint.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of a repair to the patio door of the resident’s home.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders and recommendations

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Pay the resident an additional £200 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of the repair to the patio door.
    2. Pay the resident £100 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of the resident’s complaint.
  2. The landlord should provide this service with evidence it has complied with the orders above within 4 weeks of the date of this decision.

Recommendations

  1. We recommend the landlord should pay the resident the £125 offered in January 2025 if it has not already done so.