Clarion Housing Association Limited (202327274)

Decision
Case ID	202327274
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	Clarion Housing Association Limited
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Secure Tenancy
Date	17 October 2025

Background

The resident holds a joint assured tenancy with the landlord in a 2-bedroom flat in a block. He lives in the property with his partner and 2 children.

What the complaint is about

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
1. reports of door and window issues.
2. concerns about the reliability of his boiler and his request for it to be replaced.
3. complaint.

Our decision (determination)

We have found that:
1. There was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of door and window issues.
2. There was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the residents concerns about the reliability of his boiler and his request for it to be replaced.
3. There was reasonable redress in the landlord’s complaint handling.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

The landlord’s handling of the residents reports of door and window issues.

The landlord’s handling of this matter was not reasonable, and it is not disputed that the issues took a long time to resolve. This, undoubtably, had an adverse impact on the resident and his family. However, the landlord identified its failings, explained what had gone wrong and fulfilled its commitment to resolve the issue. Its apology and offer of compensation, was a proportionate way to resolve its handling of this issue.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s concern about the reliability of his boiler and his request for it to be replaced.

The landlord conducted an appropriate investigation into the reliability of the boiler, and it was entitled to rely on its expert’s opinion that the boiler did not require replacing.
However, during its internal complaints process, the landlord failed to identify that the boiler could have been repaired sooner than it was. While it was positive that the landlord identified this prior to our investigation, this meant it did not offer appropriate redress to the resident.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

The landlord’s complaint handling could have been improved. However, the landlord has recognised the impact on the resident and its offer of an apology and compensation was a proportionate way to put things right.

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.

Orders

Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	Apology order The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure: The apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic. It has due regard to our apologies guidance.	No later than 19 November 2025
2	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £100 to recognise the inconvenience caused by the landlord’s response to the resident’s concern about the reliability of his boiler. This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date.	No later than 19 November 2025

Order

What the landlord must do

Due date

Apology order

The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure:

The apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic.
It has due regard to our apologies guidance.

No later than

19 November 2025

Compensation order

The landlord must pay the resident £100 to recognise the inconvenience caused by the landlord’s response to the resident’s concern about the reliability of his boiler.

This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date.

No later than

19 November 2025

Recommendations

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

Our recommendations
In recognition of the record keeping issues identified during this investigation we recommend that the landlord reviews our Spotlight report of Knowledge and Information Management (available at: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/KIM-report-v2-100523.pdf ) if it hasn’t already done so since this complaint.
The reasonable redress finding for the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of door and window issues is dependent on the landlord paying the resident the £2,650 it has offered, if it has not already done so.
The reasonable redress finding for the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint is dependent on the landlord paying the resident the £150 it has offered, if it has not already done so.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
5 October 2023	The resident contacted the landlord, who raised a complaint. In summary the resident said he had been reporting issues with drafts from his windows and doors every year for the past 9 years.
11 October 2023	The landlord contacted the resident and conducted a scoping call. In this the resident confirmed his complaint about the windows and doors. He also raised a further complaint in relation to reoccurring issues with his boiler.
12 October 2023	The landlord confirmed its understanding of the resident’s complaint and advised he would be contacted within 20 working days.
9 November 2023	The resident chased the landlord for its response. The landlord spoke with the resident, and he added that he did not want its current heating contractor conducting further repairs at his property.
Between 17 and 24 November 2023	The landlord updated the resident twice and apologised that it did not have the information required to provide its complaint response.
29 November 2023	The resident chased the landlord for its response.
8 December 2023	The landlord issued its stage 1 response. In this it: Acknowledged there had been numerous call outs to the boiler but confirmed that the boiler did not meet the criteria for a replacement. Said it could not change the contractor as they were the designated contractor for the resident’s area. Identified there had been 3 missed appointments (without prior notification) and offered £45 compensation for these. Said the issue with the doors and windows had been referred to its latent defect team. As despite attempts by its repair team to conduct repairs, this was not possible due to the complexities of the doors. Said it had now appointed a sub-contractor who would contact the affected residents directly by the end of December 2023 to arrange an appointment to carry out measurements and obtain costs for the required renewals. Apologised for the delay in carrying out the renewal of the doors and windows and acknowledged that it could have communicated better than it had. It offered £250 compensation for this. Offered £50 compensation for the delay in issuing its stage 1 response.
1 February 2024	The resident’s complaint was escalated. During this call the resident said: He had rejected the compensation offer in December 2023 and had been waiting for a response since. He wanted the windows and doors replaced and increased compensation. He had been given various reasons for the delays. He had multiple complaints shut down over the past 10 years. His house is always cold. 27 different engineers have attended his boiler over the past 10 years. If the landlord would not change its heating contractor, he would appoint his own and charge the landlord. His utility bills were high trying to keep the property warm. The landlord should deduct the compensation offered at stage 1 from his monthly rent until the replacements were completed. If the landlord did not resolve this within 14 days he would take further action.
14 February 2024	The landlord acknowledged the resident’s escalation.
12 March 2024	The landlord issued its stage 2 response. In summary it: Apologised that it had not escalated the resident’s complaint in December 2023. It offered £50 compensation for this and £50 for issuing its stage 2 response outside of its timescales. Said its heating contractor was contracted to provide a 24 hour call out and it could not offer that service if it changed its contractor. Said it would not authorise a refund if the resident used a different contractor. Explained the history of the door and window issues and said the resident first made it aware of his issues in 2018 and 2019. Said it would schedule in the installation once the windows and doors were available. Apologised for the service the resident had received and offered £2,400 as compensation for the 6 years since the resident had first notified it of his issue. This was in addition to the compensation offered at Stage 1.
Referral to the Ombudsman	When the resident referred his complaint to us, he said he wanted increased compensation and the landlord to fix the issues.

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.

Complaint	The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of door and window issues.
Finding	Reasonable redress

What we did not investigate

The resident told us this situation had a detrimental impact on his family’s health and well being. We are sorry to hear about this and acknowledge the difficulties they have faced.The courts are the most effective place to deal with claims about personal injury. As we are an informal alternative to the courts, we are unable to establish legal liability or whether a landlord’s actions or lack of action had a detrimental impact on a resident’s health. Nor can we calculate or award damages. The resident may wish to seek independent advice if he wishes to pursue a personal injury claim. We have, however, considered the impact of any failings by the landlord, including the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident and his family.

What we did investigate

When making his complaint in October 2023 the resident told the landlord he had been raising the same issueevery year for several years. The landlord has confirmed that the resident first raised an issue with his balcony door on 5 January 2018 and his windows on 29 August 2019.
In line with our complaint handling Code published in 2022 (the Code), and its complaint policy, the landlord was not obligated to consider complaints about issues arising more than 6 months before the complaint was made. However, the landlord took a positive approach to its complaint investigation and considered the impact of the issue from when it was first notified. Therefore, in fairness to the resident, our investigation will also consider the same time frame.
The landlord has told us that the building was completed in 2014, however it was not until after the defect’s liability period had ended that defects in the design of the doors and windows throughout the block became apparent. It told us it considers the resident’s issue with his doors and windows to be part of a larger latent defect issue. It has addressed this with the developer and has made a National House Building Council (NHBC) claim.
Although it is not clear who is responsible for the repair, we would have expected the landlord to have been proactive in pursuing a resolution for the resident.
While the landlord has provided evidence that some attempts to address this with the developer and NHBC have been made, this support has been inconsistent. The landlord has told us there have been attempts to repair the issues since the resident first reported them, but because of the design fault these repairs have been unsuccessful.
This meant there was no resolution to this issue until the landlord replaced the door and windows on 16 July 2024, 6 years after it first became aware of the issue.
During that time, the resident made considerable efforts to resolve the issue, repeatedly reporting it to the landlord and involving the local authority who issued an improvement notice on 12 March 2024. Notably, the landlord had already assessed the resident’s door and windows, on 6 March 2024, indicating that remedial action had begun prior to the notice.
The landlord does not dispute there were failures in the service it provided. When a landlord admits failings, our role is to consider whether it resolved the resident’s issue satisfactorily in the circumstances and offered appropriate redress. In considering this, we assess whether the landlord’s actions were in line with our dispute resolution principles: to be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
The landlord used its complaint responses to apologise, acknowledge its failures, explain what had gone wrong and to make a commitment to resolve the issue. It also offered compensation of £2,650, which was proportionate and in line with our guidance where there was a failure or failings by the landlord which adversely affected the resident.

Complaint	The landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the reliability of his boiler and his request for it to be replaced.
Finding	Service failure

The landlord used a contractor to provide its heating repair services. When the resident raised his concerns about the reliability of his boiler, he asked the landlord to replace it and not to send the same contractor for any future issues.
In its complaint investigation the landlord obtained the contractors timeline of attendance for the year preceding the complaint. This showed that there had been 5 occasions when the resident raised issues with the boiler, resulting in 12 visits to resolve.
In its complaint responses, the landlord accepted there had been several instances that its contractor had to attend to the boiler. However, it said that the boiler did not meet the criteria for a replacement. Landlords must be able to rely on the opinions of its qualified contractors, and the landlord has provided evidence that this was the view of both its contractor and its heating contract surveyor.
When the resident escalated his complaint, the landlord re-assessed its position on replacing the boiler. A senior heating operations manager confirmed that the boiler would only be changed if it was deemed uneconomical to repair or the parts were obsolete and that the boiler did not meet that criteria. The senior heating operations manager also confirmed that due to contract commitments it could not facilitate a different contractor attending the resident’s boiler.
It was appropriate that the landlord identified 3 missed appointments and offered compensation in line with its compensation policy. However, since the resident’s complaint has come to us, the landlord has told us that the expansion vessel fault could have been rectified earlier and that they did not recognise this in its complaint responses.
The landlord used its complaint responses to explain its position to the resident, and its decisions not to replace the boiler or change its contractor were reasonable in the circumstances.

Complaint	The handling of the complaint
Finding	Reasonable redress

Our Complaint Handling Code of 2022 (the Code) required landlords to acknowledge a stage 1 complaint within 5 working days. Landlords had to issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days of acknowledging the complaint. And had to issue a stage 2 response within 20 working days of an escalation request.
The landlord’s interim complaints policy, in place at the time, said it would acknowledge a stage 1 complaint within 10 working days of receipt and issue its response within 20 working days of the complaint being logged. And it said it would acknowledge stage 2 requests within 10 working days and issue its response within 40 working days.
It is acknowledged that the timescales set out in the landlord’s interim complaints policy were not in line with the Code. However, no order has been made for the landlord to review its policy. This is because, since this complaint occurred, the landlord has already done so.
The landlord acknowledged the resident’s stage 1 complaint in 5 working days, in line with the Code. However, its stage 1 response was not issued until 41 days after acknowledgment and was therefore not in line with the Code or its own policy. The resident had to chase for a response.
The landlord escalated the resident’s complaint 25 working days after his request. While the delay was not reasonable, once the complaint was escalated, the landlord acknowledged this 9 working days later, in line with its policy. The landlord issued its stage 2 response within 53 working days of the resident’s original escalation request. This was not in line with the Code or its own policy.
The landlord recognised its complaint handling failings and, in its complaint responses, offered an apology and redress of £150 to put things right.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

It is essential that landlords keep accurate and clear records so that it can monitor a repair effectively. The landlord has not provided comprehensive repair records. And in respect of the boiler issues, it appears to have relied on those of its contractor throughout its complaint investigation.
The lack of independent records in this case may have made it more difficult for the landlord to identify or monitor the overall number of repairs at the resident’s property and manage its contract with the contractor, which may have contributed to delays in fully resolving the issue for the resident.

Communication

This investigation has identified several communication failures of the landlord, in relation to each complaint issue. The landlord has not provided evidence that it communicated effectively with the resident. However, the landlord has identified these failures and offered appropriate redress to put this right.