Clarion Housing Association Limited (202326766)

Background

1. The resident lives with his mother, who is the tenant of the landlord and has provided her authority for him to refer the complaint. He was not happy with the landlord’s response and the information it provided when he tried to secure a parking space near the property.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
   1. Application for a parking space.
   2. Complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. We found:
   1. Reasonable redress in respect of the landlord’s handling of the resident’s application for a parking space.
   2. Reasonable redress in respect of the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.
4. We have not made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

5. The landlord incorrectly refused the resident’s application because the household already had a parking space allocated to them. Then, it allocated him a space that was already assigned to someone else. However, it offered a reasonable level of compensation in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused to him as a result of its shortcomings.
6. The landlord dealt with the resident’s complaint within its policy timescales. It awarded appropriate compensation for its mis-management of his expectations regarding the timeframe in which it would respond.

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.

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

What we found and why

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

7. The landlord has not provided us with evidence of its communications with the resident prior to the complaint, so we cannot see a clear timeline of events. It is unclear if this is a record keeping failure on its part and/or a failure to provide us with relevant information for our investigation. In any case, this is unsatisfactory.
8. The landlord’s complaint responses did not dispute the resident’s assertion that his original application for a parking space was submitted on 24 August 2023. It accepted it had wrongly refused his application because the household already had a parking space allocated to them. There is nothing within its parking policy that supports a refusal for this reason, nor is there any indication that it otherwise sought to rely on one of the reasons for which a parking space could be refused. In the absence of evidence of the communications between the parties at the time, we cannot ascertain if the landlord took timely and reasonable steps to rectify its error in this regard.
9. The resident was subsequently granted a licence for a parking space numbered 343 on 21 September 2023. However, as confirmed by the complaint responses, this space was in fact numbered 341 and was already allocated to another resident. It is unclear from the limited evidence available to us if, had the landlord dealt with his application sooner, he would have been able to secure alternative parking near the property at the time.
10. The resulting distress and inconvenience caused to the resident was evident in his complaint correspondence. The landlord sought to put things right by offering an alternative parking space to the resident and awarded compensation. It duly conducted a reconciliation exercise to take stock of parking facilities and provided a clear and reasonable explanation for not being able to convert a visitor parking space for allocation to him.
11. The landlord’s increased compensation offer of £150 at stage 2 was in line with its compensation policy. It is also consistent with our compensation guidance. In the circumstances, we take the view the level of compensation awarded was proportionate to the adverse impact of its service failure. Accordingly, we have recommended it pays this amount to the resident if it has not already done so.

12. Our Complaint Handling Code (‘the Code’) sets out when and how a landlord should respond to complaints. In this case, the relevant version of the Code was published in March 2022. The timescales in the landlord’s complaints policy differed from those in the Code because, at the time of the resident’s complaint, the landlord was using an interim complaints policy following a cyber‑security incident.
13. The interim policy stated that it would acknowledge complaints within 10 working days at both stages. At stage 1, it would issue a response within 20 working days of acknowledging the complaint, and at stage 2, within 40 working days. It was reasonable for the landlord to temporarily adjust its processes due to the impact of the cyber incident.
14. The landlord dealt with the resident’s complaint in line with these timescales. It issued an acknowledgement within 10 working days of receiving the complaint and provided its stage 1 response 17 working days thereafter. It acknowledged the stage 2 escalation request within 1 working day and sent its final response 21 working days later.
15. That said, we can see from the resident’s email to the landlord on 5 October 2023 that he asserted he was told by a member of staff that he would get a reply to his complaint within 5 working days. While we have not seen evidence of such advice having been given to the resident, we note the landlord did not dispute this at the time. We can also see it advised him on 6 November 2023 that it had passed his escalation request to its customer solutions team and he should allow 20 working days for a response. This was a mismanagement of his expectations against the timescales in the interim policy.
16. Ultimately, we would expect the landlord to deal with a complaint in line with its policy in place at the time. Therefore, while we acknowledge the frustration caused by it exceeding the advised timeframes, we cannot conclude it ought to have responded to his complaint sooner.
17. The landlord’s responses at both stages 1 and 2 demonstrated it had considered the resident’s complaint fully, fairly and openly. It accepted and apologised for its shortcomings and sought to put things right. This was consistent with our dispute resolution principles (be fair, put things right, learn from outcomes).
18. We note the landlord offered the resident £50 for its late stage 1 response. Its stage 2 response clearly stated the increased compensation of £150 was “for the mistake [we] made… in addition to the £50 compensation offered for the stage one complaint being issued outside of the service level agreement”. However, it is unclear if it paid this amount to the resident. We consider this was a fair and reasonable remedy to address its minor failings in the handling of the complaint, and we have recommended it pay this if it has not done so already.

Learning

19. The landlord’s commitment to undertake a parking reconciliation exercise to avoid the same issue arising again was a positive action.

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

20. The landlord did not provide us with sufficient evidence of its actions and decision making in relation to the resident’s parking application.

Communication

21. There was insufficient evidence to demonstrate the landlord’s communications with the resident were timely and appropriate.