Clarion Housing Association Limited (202128256)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202128256

Clarion Housing Association Limited

25 January 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:
    1. response to the resident’s reports about a communal wall;
    2. complaints handling.

Background

  1. The resident was the leaseholder of the property at the time of the complaint. The landlord is a registered provider of social housing.
  2. The resident raised a complaint on 24 June 2021 about the landlord’s delay in completing works to an external communal wall. The landlord provided its stage one response on 2 August 2021. It apologised for the delay to the works and advised the works would be completed by 16 August 2021. It offered £100 compensation, made up of £50 for the inconvenience caused to the resident, and £50 for its delayed complaint response.
  3. The resident reported on 6 August 2021 that the works had not commenced as scheduled. The landlord provided a further stage one response on 5 October 2021. It apologised for the ongoing delay explained this was due to its contractor’s staff being affected by COVID 19. It advised that the works would now go ahead on 11 October 2021. It subsequently offered compensation of £115 compensation made up of £65 for the inconvenience caused to the resident, and £50 for its delayed complaint response.
  4. On 25 March 2022, the resident reported that following the works to the wall, the landlord’s operatives had left 20 bags of rubbish and debris on the communal patio area in front of her property which prevented her child from using the area safely. After chasing the matter with the landlord, the resident sought the intervention of this service on 28 March 2022.
  5. The landlord provided a further formal response on 13 May 2022. It acknowledged the resident’s reports regarding the rubbish left behind, and also that the works had taken a total of 302 days to complete. It increased its offer of compensation to £450, being £400 for the inconvenience caused to the resident, and £50 for its delayed complaint responses. The response did not provide a commitment or a timeframe for the removal of the rubbish.
  6. The resident contacted the landlord on 17 June 2022 as she wanted the landlord to remove the rubbish within three working days or she would arrange for clearance herself and claim reimbursement of the costs from it. When the landlord contacted her later in June 2022, she informed it that she had already removed the rubbish.

Assessment and findings

Communal wall

  1. The landlord’s repairs and maintenance policy states that communal repairs should be completed within 28 days. It is not disputed that the landlord took 302 days to complete the communal wall works which was significantly in excess of this, which it acknowledged in its final complaint response. The landlord appropriately apologised for these delays, provided an explanation, and offered compensation for the inconvenience caused, which is discussed further below.
  2. The complaint was escalated on the basis of the resident’s dissatisfaction with the landlord’s failure to clear the rubbish and debris left after the works had been completed. While it acknowledged this dissatisfaction in its final response on 13 May 2022, it offered no resolution to this issue. It was evident that the rubbish remained as of 17 June 2022 as the resident provided pictures to the landlord. The resident ultimately arranged for the removal of the rubbish herself when the landlord did not respond to her request within three working days.
  3. Given that at the time of the landlord’s stage two response, it was aware the subject of the complaint, i.e. the bags of rubbish, remained an issue. The Ombudsman would therefore expect the landlord to address how it would resolve this issue, and provide indicative timeframes for this to occur. While the landlord acknowledged the issue and the inconvenience caused to the resident and offered compensation, it failed to advise how it would address the issue. This would have caused further distress for the resident and amounted to service failure in the circumstances.
  4. Having removed the rubbish herself, the resident noted she wanted the landlord to reimburse her for the costs. Prior to removing the rubbish, the resident only gave the landlord three days to respond. It is not evident that the landlord agreed to cover these costs. While the continued presence of the rubbish was undoubtedly inconvenient for the resident, her decision to pay for the removal herself was made of her own volition, and therefore it was not reasonable for the landlord to cover these specific costs. The landlord nevertheless failed to arrange for the removal of the rubbish within a reasonable timeframe, and so compensation is appropriate to reflect the impact on the resident.
  5. The landlord’s stage two response made a further offer of £450 compensation. The landlord’s initial stage one response offered £100, and its further stage one response offered £115. It is not evident from the responses whether the offers replaced the previous offers or was in addition to them. Given that the definitions used in the breakdown of compensation in the stage one responses differ to those in the stage two response, and that additional failures occurred between each response, the Ombudsman has viewed these as a separate offers of compensation, meaning a total of £665 was offered across the complaint responses (which includes an amount relating to complaints handling, discussed below). Had the landlord addressed the rubbish in its stage two response, the Ombudsman would have considered this offer of compensation to amount to reasonable redress for the complaints. Given, however, that further distress and inconvenience was caused, a further £100 compensation has been ordered to reflect the impact on the resident caused by the landlords further service failures.

Complaints handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy provides for a two stage complaints procedure. At stage one of this, it to provide a response within ten working days; at the final stage it is to respond within 20 working days. At both stages, if it is unable to meet either of these timeframes, it should explain why to the resident and provide updated timeframes for resolution.
  2. The landlord’s first stage one complaint response was issued to the resident after 28 working days had elapsed since she raised the complaint. Its second stage one complaint response was issued after 43 working days had elapsed. The stage two response was provided 31 working days after the Ombudsman’s intervention. Therefore, each of its complaint responses were delayed beyond the timeframes of its complaint policy.
  3. Furthermore, the landlord responded twice at stage one of its complaints procedure despite the subject of the resident’s complaint on 6 August 2021 being the same issue that she complained about on 24 June 2021. This should have merited the escalation of the initial complaint to stage two instead of two separate responses. The landlord did not address why it had done this, which caused confusion for the resident and unreasonably delayed the final response.
  4. Across its responses, the landlord offered a total of £150 for the delays to the responses. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, this offer of compensation was proportional to the impact the delays would have had on the resident, and amounts to reasonable redress in the circumstances.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord for its response to the resident’s reports about a communal wall.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, and in the Ombudsman’s opinion, there was reasonable redress offered by the landlord for its service failure in respect of its complaints handling.

Orders

  1. The Ombudsman orders the landlord to pay compensation of £100 for the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident for its failure to address her concerns about rubbish left at the property.
  2. The landlord to reiterate its offer of compensation totalling £665 made across its complaint responses, if this is yet to be accepted.
  3. The compensation must be paid within four weeks of the date of this determination.