Clarion Housing Association Limited (202421190)

Background

1. The resident lives in a house with a garden, where the fence was damaged due to bad weather. She complained about the landlord’s repairs to this. The landlord initially refused to repair the fence and then the resident said there were unreasonable delays in waiting for appointments. She was also unhappy she had to take time off work for appointments, affecting her and her family, who were unable to enjoy the garden.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s:
   1. handling of repairs to the property’s dividing garden fence.
   2. handling of the complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. There was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the repairs to the fence.
4. There was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

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

Summary of reasons

Handling of repairs to the garden fence

5. The landlord’s handling of repairs to the resident’s fence was very delayed and not in line with its policy. The inspection was delayed, no meaningful follow‑up happened, communication was poor, the resident had to chase updates repeatedly, and there were several cancellations and rescheduled appointments. The landlord’s apology and compensation were not proportionate to the distress, inconvenience, chasing, missed appointments, and loss of enjoyment of the garden.

Complaint handling

6. The landlord’s later stage 1 and stage 2 responses were on time, but it did not appropriately acknowledge the resident’s clear earlier formal complaint and sought informal resolution, which created unnecessary barriers. This delayed the stage 1 response, causing frustration and inconvenience. Following our involvement, the landlord acknowledged service failures, apologised, confirmed staff training had been delivered, and offered compensation to reflect the delay and inconvenience, which was proportionate.

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.

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.

What we have not looked at

7. We do not investigate complaints where it would be quicker, fairer, more reasonable or more effective to seek a remedy through the court, tribunal, or other procedure. In this case, the resident’s request for damages for her loss of wages and an apology from a named member of staff is better dealt with through a court or insurer. This is because we do not have the authority to decide responsibility or award damages for the loss of earnings, and we can only order or recommend apologies on behalf of the landlord as an organisation and not from an individual staff member. For these reasons, we have not considered the resident’s request for damages for her loss of wages and an apology from a named member of staff.

What we have looked at

8. The tenancy agreement says the resident is responsible for maintaining any fencing that borders the garden, while the landlord is responsible for repairing and maintaining shared parts and outside shared areas it owns. The landlord initially declined to accept responsibility for the fence repair when the resident reported this on 3 January 2024 but, given the fence was damaged by bad weather, this was shared between her and a neighbour, and she reported this was unsafe, it was fair for it to take responsibility for this.
9. This is because the tenancy agreement made the landlord responsible for repairing and maintaining shared parts and outside areas. Landlords also need to make sure homes are safe and free from hazards. When a resident reports a risk, the landlord should quickly inspect the property to check for hazards. It must decide if the home is safe. Ignoring hazards can lead to serious consequences for everyone involved.
10. The resident raised a complaint on 5 March 2024 dated 1 March 2024 after reporting the issue on 3 January 2024. On 22 to 23 April 2024, an inspection job was raised for this by the landlord, scheduled for 16 May 2024. The landlord’s responsive repairs and maintenance policy says, for non-emergency cases, that repairs should be completed as soon as possible and within 28 days. The inspection alone already fell outside this timeframe, being 94 days after the resident first reported the issue.
11. Following the inspection, there is no evidence to suggest there was a follow-up by the landlord to decide the best way to resolve the matter. Due to the lack of communication, the resident contacted the landlord on 11 June 2024, asking for an update on the situation. She chased this up again on 29 July 2024. The inspection found that the posts needed replacing, the job should take one day, and it required 2 people to complete it.
12. The repair was booked for 19 August 2024. This meant the landlord clearly accepted responsibility for completing this in a timely manner in line with its policy’s non-emergency timeframe. From the evidence, however, it is unclear why the repair was not completed on this date, but this was possibly due to lack of personnel. The repair was rescheduled for 27 September 2024. However, the job could also not be completed on this date due to bad weather. The repair was rescheduled again for 2 November 2024, but this was cancelled. The resident says she did not cancel this appointment. A cancellation also occurred on 12 December 2024 before it was finally completed on 17 December 2024.
13. In its stage 1 response, the landlord acknowledged its failure to monitor the situation caused unreasonable delays. It recognised that it did not follow its policy and resolve matters in a timely manner. It apologised for this and confirmed this would be fed back to the area manager to try and improve their services going forward. It offered total compensation of £180 in line with its compensation policy. This was broken down to £30 for two missed appointments. £150 was for the distress and inconvenience caused, failure to follow procedures relating to follow on works, and for the resident having to repeatedly chase the matter. The stage 2 response reviewed the earlier response and felt the matter was dealt with appropriately.
14. The resident brought the complaint to us as she did not feel the compensation was fair considering the following:
    1. The time taken to repair the fence.
    2. The lack of communication regarding the issue.
    3. The several rescheduled appointments for the repair.
    4. Loss of enjoyment of garden for her and her family.
    5. Loss of earnings in dealing with the matter.
15. Having carefully reviewed the landlord’s compensation policy, responsive repairs and maintenance policy, and our own remedies guidance, the compensation the landlord offered was not entirely fair. This is because it took almost a year to repair the fence from January 2024 to December 2024. This falls significantly outside its own policy of having repairs completed within 28 days. From the available evidence, there was also a lack of meaningful communication at times, for example, after the inspection in May 2024, which further added to the resident’s frustration. Furthermore, while one repair was cancelled because of bad weather outside the landlord’s control in September 2024, it was also cancelled 3 other times in August, November, and December 2024 without her being told why.
16. While we are unable to consider the loss of wages, the other effects on the resident have been considered when reaching a suitable compensation amount. The offer of £180 from the landlord was not proportionate to recognise all of the year the situation was outstanding because this is at the lower end of our remedies guidance’s recommended range of compensation for failures that adversely affected the resident. Therefore, an apology, the landlord’s £180 previous offer, and a further £250 compensation have been ordered to fairly recognise the adverse effect on the resident at the higher end of our guidance’s recommended range of compensation for this.

17. The landlord has a 2-stage complaints process in line with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code). Its complaints policy says it will acknowledge stage 1 complaints in 5 working days and fully respond within 10 working days of its acknowledgement. For stage 2 complaints, it will acknowledge the complaint within 5 working days and fully respond within 20 working days of its acknowledgement.
18. The landlord initially took the resident’s stage 1 complaint date as 22 August 2024 and provided its stage 1 response on 2 September 2024, 8 working days later. Following the resident’s stage 2 complaint on 5 September 2024, the landlord sent its stage 2 response on 30 September 2024. This was 18 working days later. While the stage 1 and 2 responses were sent in a reasonable timeframe, we’ve considered the communication between the parties in March 2024, where the resident tried raising a complaint.
19. On 11 March 2024, the landlord said that, before it could raise a formal complaint, it needed to have a chance to resolve the issue. The resident’s details were passed to the area manager who, from the correspondence we’ve seen, failed to contact the resident in a timely manner. The resident then had to chase the matter before an inspection was booked.
20. On 30 June 2025, after the complaint was brought to us, the landlord sent a letter to the resident about its complaint handling. Upon review, it found service failures and said it failed to fully acknowledge and compensate for the delay in raising the stage 1 complaint. It confirmed that it had learnt from this experience and had recently delivered training to support staff, which included making sure all points were addressed and investigated in all complaints and responded to on time.
21. The evidence shows that the landlord’s handling of the resident’s earlier attempts to raise a complaint in March 2024 was not appropriate. On 11 March 2024, the resident clearly communicated her wish to make a formal complaint. The landlord seeking an opportunity to resolve the issue first was not in line with the Code. This makes clear that a resident has a right to have their concerns recorded as a formal complaint at the point they express dissatisfaction. Landlords should not apply unnecessary barriers to accepting a complaint. The delayed acceptance of the complaint meant that the resident did not receive a timely stage 1 response, which would likely have caused further frustration and inconvenience to her.
22. After being contacted by the Service, the landlord reviewed its complaint handling and acknowledged its above failings, offering £100 compensation for these. Considering the length of the delay and the avoidable inconvenience caused, the level of compensation offered is in line with our remedies guidance’s recommendation of up to £100 for such delays in getting matters resolved. The landlord recognised the error, apologised, and made a proportionate offer. For these reasons, the offer of £100 is fair and reasonable in the circumstances, and we have ordered it to pay this to her if it has not already. However, the landlord’s delay in offering this over a year after the resident’s complaint and only after we contacted it meant there was service failure in its complaint handling.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

23. The landlord’s record keeping could have been better. Although there are email trails, it would help to have a system to keep a timeline and record of each issue. For example, in the repairs history spreadsheet, there is limited information about the case and it does not include the events after the inspection. Had all the scheduled and rescheduled appointments been recorded in a systematic and appropriate manner, it would have been clearer that the issue had been going on for some time without adequate resolution. We have therefore recommended that the landlord review its record keeping processes, to make sure that it records satisfactory details of the outcome of all repairs appointments.

Communication

24. The landlord’s communication with the resident about the repair was poor. The resident had to chase progress and make a complaint before the landlord organised a permanent repair.