Clarion Housing Association Limited (202335583)

Background

1. The resident’s annual gas safety check was due in June 2022. The landlord’s contractor made several appointments with the resident by text and failed to attend. The resident complained to the landlord that the missed appointments had caused him significant inconvenience.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of missed appointments.
3. We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. We found there was:
   1. Service failure in the landlord’s response to missed appointments.
   2. Service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

Missed appointments

5. The landlord acknowledged the missed appointments. It apologised and offered compensation. The amount offered was not in line with its policy.

Complaint handling

6. The landlord failed to put things right during its complaint process. Its offer of further compensation was only made after the resident brought the complaint to us.

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.

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 resident provided the landlord with screen shots of text appointments for 13 different dates. The texts showed for each date the resident was given 2 appointment slots, 1 for the morning (8am to 1pm) and 1 for the afternoon (1pm to 5pm). The resident said this totalled 26 appointments that were not attended.
8. The landlord’s compensation policy states it will pay £15 compensation if it fails to attend an appointment without giving 24 hours’ notice. The policy is silent on occasions where multiple appointments are made during the same day.
9. The evidence shows the landlord liaised with its contractor and the information it received was communicated to the resident in his stage 1 response. The contractor confirmed 2 dates had been missed and provided photographic evidence of 5 appointment times where it was unable to gain access.
10. When the resident escalated his complaint, he queried the dates for which he had not been compensated. He also said the landlord should compensate him for 2 appointments per day, in line with the text messages he had received. The landlord requested the information be provided to it from its contractor so it could make its own assessment of the situation. This demonstrated the landlord was taking the resident’s complaint seriously.
11. In its stage 2 response, the landlord recognised the texts received by the resident had clearly set out appointment times when he was expected to be available. It noted the dates did not always match with those provided by its contractor but agreed to compensate for missed appointments regardless. The landlord offered to pay for 14 appointments out of the 26 provided by the resident. The response did not consider the inconvenience caused to the resident by the multiple missed appointments.
12. On the 5 days the contractor was unable to gain access, the resident had been given 2 appointments slots per day. Given the evidence provided by its contractor that there were 5 appointments where it visited and was unable to gain access to the property, the landlord’s decision not to compensate for these was reasonable. However, the evidence shows the contractor only attended one appointment slot on each day. This left an additional 5 appointments on those specific days where the landlord did not have evidence there was no access at the property.
13. Of the remaining 16 appointments, the landlord only offered compensation for 14 of them. It appears to have omitted the 2 appointments (both on 21 July 2022) from its calculations. The evidence shows the resident received texts confirming 2 appointments on this date. From the evidence provided, there is no evidence as to why these 2 missed appointments would not be compensated.
14. The landlord’s offer of £210 compensation equates to 14 missed appointments. The evidence shows there were 21 missed appointments it was responsible for. Therefore, suitable compensation as defined by its policy should have been £315.
15. 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 doing so the Ombudsman considers whether the redress was in accordance with the Dispute Resolution Principles; be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes. 
16. We encourage landlords to take resolution focussed action, irrespective of the stage at which a case is at. However, the main focus for a landlord should always be to ensure that a case in dispute progresses to a fair resolution during its internal complaints process.
17. It was not until the resident referred his complaint to us that the landlord conducted a further review of the case and increased its offer of compensation to reflect the inconvenience caused and offered an additional £150. The landlord’s offer was in line with its compensation policy.
18. Although this did indicate a willingness to learn, in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles, appropriate redress is something which should have been considered as part of the internal complaint’s procedure. A referral to us should not be seen as another opportunity for the landlord to consider its handling of the complaint.

19. In summary, the landlord’s offer of compensation calculated during its complaints process was lower than what should have been as set out in its policy. It also failed to acknowledge the time and inconvenience caused to the resident by its failures to provide the appropriate compensation. This leads to a finding of service failure in its handling of the missed appointments. An order has been made for the landlord to pay the resident a total of £465 compensation, made up of:
    1. £150 the inconvenience caused.
    2. £315 for missed appointments which equates to 21 appointments @£15 per appointment.

20. The landlord operated an interim two-stage complaint process during the time of this complaint. This was due to its efforts to manage it service provision following a cyber–security attack. It committed to acknowledge complaints within 10 working days at both stages and issue responses after 20 working days at stage 1 and 40 working days at stage 2.
21. The landlord failed to acknowledge the resident’s complaint in line with its policy. Its stage 1 response was issued 11 working days later than its policy timescales allowed. The landlord apologised for this in its response and offered the resident £50 compensation.
22. The landlord was 3 working days late in acknowledging the resident’s escalation request. Its stage 2 response was issued within its policy timescales. The landlord apologised for the small delay and offered the resident a further £50 compensation.
23. The landlord’s offer of £100 compensation and its acknowledgement of the delay at both stags aligns to an award of redress we would typically order in similar circumstances when using our remedies guidance. However, the landlord’s failure to resolve the issues through its complaint procedure meant the resident incurred further time and trouble awaiting a full resolution to his complaint.
24. The additional failure caused by the inability to resolve the matter through its complaints process leads to finding of service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling. An order for an additional £100 compensation has been made to reflect the inconvenience caused by the delay to resolve the complaint.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

25. The landlord demonstrated reasonable record keeping in respect of the matters we have investigated in the case.

Communication

26. The landlord demonstrated effective communication with the resident in respect of the matters we have investigated in the case.