Cross Keys Homes Limited (202015692)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202015692

Cross Keys Homes Limited

27 June 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

The complaint is about
1. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of noise and other anti-social behaviour from an upstairs neighbour in a previous property.
2. The arrangements for moving and the administration of the resident’s rent account following a decant to a new property.

Background and summary of events

The resident holds an assured shorthold tenancy with conversion rights to an assured tenancy after twelve months.
The resident was decanted to his current property on 12 May 2020 by the landlord following a fire. The resident has made a complaint that the fire was a direct result of the landlord’s failure to respond effectively to his reports of noise and other anti-social behaviour from an upstairs neighbour. The landlord has said based on information received from the local fire service that the fire was accidental. The resident has complained that he is ‘out of pocket’ following the move and says the landlord has not administered his rent account correctly which has led to him being pursued by the landlord for rent arrears.
The resident began the tenancy of his previous property on 29 August 2019. The first evidence of a report of noise nuisance from the resident is from 17 September 2019. The operative on the telephone asked the resident to complete ‘incident diary sheets’ but the resident refused to complete these and asked that the ASB team and appropriate manager be informed of the situation.
On 26 September 2019, the resident refers to a “noise complaint that has been raised by myself and other people some of which includes the local police department of which has been called out to the property (five times in two and a half weeks)”
On 30 September 2019, the landlord said “I am sorry to hear that you have had problems with your neighbours. We are dealing with these issues and if you could let us know of any further problems we would be grateful.”
On 1 October 2019, the resident added to his complaint about the upstairs neighbour. The resident said “this service is a disgrace and being woken up STILL on many occasions and knocks at my front door at various times from 23:00 – 02:30 hours.”
On 2 April 2020 and throughout April 2020, the resident raised various concerns about his boiler and gas safety at his home which had low pressure. These were answered by the repairs team who had ordered a replacement part but said they had not been able to get access to the resident’s property to carry out the remedial work.
The landlord’s repair records indicate there was an uncontainable leak from the property above on 10 May 2020. The exact date of the fire has not been confirmed but the evidence suggests that there was water damage to the residents flat shortly after the fire and the resident was moved promptly following these emergencies.
On 11 May 2020, the resident received an email from the landlord which said the landlord had “permitted the permanent transfer…so once I can speak to the removal guys to get some time slots for them to work with us I will let you know…(repair operatives will). connect the cooker & cut out the cabinet work top to fit the fridge in as well. As agreed on the phone we will allow a couple of weeks to allow time for you to either give away, sell your unwanted items etc and we can discuss that more over the coming weeks.”
The resident says he took this to mean he would be given two weeks to move his possessions from one property to another. For this reason, the resident says he retained the keys to his old property for an additional two weeks so that he could access his belongings. This led to the resident being charged rent on two properties for a period of over two weeks from 12 May 2020 until 30 May 2020 when the keys were returned.
The resident’s new tenancy started on 12 May 2020. On 15 May 2020, the landlord emailed the resident to inform him ‘that the company that (the landlord) have previously used responded to state they are not in a position to carry out a carpet clean or sofa for a number of weeks.’ The landlord offered the resident the option of sourcing his own cleaning company to complete the work as required and to provide details to the landlord so the invoice could be sent to them.
The resident contacted the landlord on 26 May 2021 and said he would need another week to remove his belongings. The landlord replied saying “No worries about the keys we can arrange for them to be returned next week once you have cleared the property.”
The resident confirmed that he had handed in the keys to the previous property on 30 May 2020 and this was acknowledged by the landlord.
No evidence has been seen to suggest the resident raised or pursued these matters via a complaint until February 2021. However, the landlord did put in place a single point of contact arrangement in October 2020 due to the resident’s behaviour with staff which it deemed unacceptable.
On 25 February 2021, the resident’s solicitor sent a letter of complaint to the landlord on his behalf. The letter said that “As a result of the landlord’s failure to take action (on the residents ASB reports), the situation got out of hand leading to the upstairs resident causing a fire.”
On 10 March 2021, this service contacted the landlord to request it respond to the resident’s concerns via a stage one complaint response.
The landlord sent a stage one complaint response to the resident on 18 March 2021. The landlord said:
1. It had not been able to investigate the noise/asb complaints made by the resident at his previous property because he did not complete the incident diary sheets. The response also inaccurately stated that “there are no other reports after 17 September 2019 about this matter on our records.”
2. That the local fire service had confirmed the cause of the fire was accidental.
3. The reason the resident was charged for two properties was because he did not return the keys to his previous property.
4. That the resident had used abusive language when dealing with staff which was ‘inappropriate and unacceptable’ and a ‘breach of your tenancy conditions.’ This led to a single point of contact being provided for the resident’s communication with the landlord.
5. That it had responded to recent repair issues raised including a faulty door lock.
6. Advice was given about the process for ending a tenancy as the resident had threatened to leave his accommodation following the complaint.
Following a call from the resident on 7 April 2021 in which the resident said the landlord was ‘calling him a liar’, the complaint was escalated to stage two. A panel meeting including residents as well as representatives of the landlord was held on 6 May 2021 via a conference call. The resident raised allegations and concerns including:
1. That he was initially told by the landlord that they would pay for his water damaged items to be professionally cleaned so he would not have to arrange for their replacement through his insurance. The resident says this offer was then taken back, costing him a £250 insurance excess
2. Dissatisfaction with the repairs service of the landlord, to the extent that the resident said he would not provide access for them to do repairs or gas servicing at his home. The resident also mentioned asbestos tiles at his old property and said that an invalid gas safety certificate had been provided to him.
3. A lack of effective response to his noise nuisance reports at his old property.
4. Being charged rent for two properties following his move.
The resident left the conference call after the landlord said it would not be possible for him to receive a letter of apology from the Chief Executive. After the resident left the call, the landlord explained that it was willing to offer a letter of apology from managers that were more familiar with the resident’s case.
A letter was sent to the resident outlining the findings of the panel on 13 May which said “It was evident that you felt very strongly that you had been let down by (the landlord) and the service provided to you. We were sorry to hear that matters….dating back to August 2019, have only recently been raised by you. The panel feel that (the landlord) could have had a better opportunity to investigate and resolve these matters for you had they been raised at the time.”
The panel provided statements of the rent accounts of both properties to the resident and signposted the resident to a CAB for further advice on the alleged discrepancies on his account. The panel said it would be willing as a goodwill gesture to credit the resident’s rent account the amount of £250 on receipt of evidence that the resident had paid this on his insurance claim.
The resident has said that he is not prepared to accept a settlement that involved crediting his rent account rather than being paid to him personally.
The resident has approached this service for assistance saying that following the move to his new property, he is ‘out of pocket’ and being pursued for rent arrears. The resident has made a separate complaint to the DWP regarding the amount of Universal Credit made to him over the period of transition between the two properties.

Assessment and findings

Handling of noise and ASB reports

The landlord’s anti-social behaviour (ASB) policy is dated August 2019 and was in effect at the time the resident made his reports of noise from the upstairs neighbour at his previous address.
The landlord’s ASB policy states in the roles and responsibilities section that it will “Use a range of investigative methods to gather evidence of ASB including interviews, diary sheets, phone calls, street surgeries, noise monitoring equipment, CCTV and by working in partnership with the police and…Council”
In this case the resident made a report of noise nuisance on 17 September 2019. The resident made two further reports within the next two weeks saying that he was disturbed by knocking on his door late at night and that the police had attended several times. In his email, the resident refers to other residents making similar complaints at this time although no evidence of this has been seen.
The landlord responded by asking the resident to complete incident diary sheets which he refused to do. There is no evidence that the landlord took any further action such as carrying out interviews, issuing warning letters, attempting to obtain corroborative evidence or consulting with police about the alleged repeated callouts. All these steps would have been reasonable, proportionate and in line with the ASB policy but there is no evidence that these steps were taken. However it is noted that the landlord was unable to progress the case without a thorough account from the complainant.
The landlord said in its stage one complaint response that it did not investigate the ASB issues further because the resident refused to complete the diary sheets.
However, in section 6.1, the ASB policy states “An action plan must be agreed with the complainant and a diary pack should be provided. If the complainant does not wish to complete diary sheets, alternative forms of evidence such as emails can be agreed to ensure that an evidential log of incidents is kept.” Again, there is no evidence that the landlord created an action plan with the resident.
It is not possible for this service to prove any causal link between the failure to respond effectively to the ASB reports and the fire which caused the resident to be decanted. However, there is clear evidence of service failure in that the landlord did not respond to the ASB reports in accordance with its relevant policy.
It is noted that there is a long gap between the time of the ASB report in September 2019 and the resident making his complaint about the failure of the landlord to respond effectively in February 2021. The landlord’s complaints policy, (section 5.4) says that it will not consider complaints that cover “any issue that occurred over six months prior to the complaint being made.”
By the time the resident made his complaint, it was too late for the landlord to remedy or resolve the issues since the resident had already moved elsewhere several months earlier. However, the landlord could still have gone some way to putting things right by acknowledging that it did not deal with the ASB reports effectively and offering financial redress for the service failure which caused the resident inconvenience and anxiety for several weeks. An order has been made below for compensation of £50 for this failure.

Arrangements for moving and the resident’s rent account

The focus of this investigation is on the way the landlord organised decanting the resident to his new home and the way the arrangements were communicated to the resident. The amount of universal credit paid and the timing and accuracy of those payments is a matter for the Department of Work and Pensions to address and not within the jurisdiction of the Housing Ombudsman.
The email correspondence between the resident and the manager responsible for the move is characterised by helpful and considerate communication on the part of the landlord. There are several examples of this including the offer to reimburse for a cleaning company, the use of a removal company and the extension of time given to the resident for return of his keys.
However, the communication also lacks clarity on the probable consequences for the resident of not returning his keys. In particular, the phrase “no worries about the keys we can arrange for them to be returned next week” makes no mention of additional rent charges the resident incurred as a result. It is therefore understandable that the resident interpreted this to mean he had effectively been given permission to hold the keys for an additional week without extra charge.
The landlord should have provided greater clarity to the resident that he would be charged for the additional time that he held the keys to his old property. This was a failure in communication on the part of the landlord. The resident has also said that he incurred extra costs as he was initially told that he would have the use of a removal van for a whole day when he moved but this again was a misunderstanding caused by unclear communication.
As part of its stage two response, the landlord appropriately offered the resident £250 to reimburse him for the excess paid on his insurance claim. This amount should be increased to take account of lack of clarity in the landlord’s communication at this time to £300.
The resident has requested that the compensation from his complaint be kept separate from his rent account and since there is an ongoing dispute about the status of the resident’s rent account, it is fair for the landlord to make payment directly to the resident, separate from his rent account.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 54c of the Housing Ombudsman scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s response to the residents reports of noise and other anti-social behaviour from an upstairs neighbour in his previous property.
In accordance with paragraph 54b of the Housing Ombudsman scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s arrangements for moving and administration of the residents rent account following a decant to a new property.

Reasons

There is some evidence that the landlord followed its ASB procedure correctly in response to the resident’ reports of ASB. It was not appropriate to cease investigating when the resident refused to complete diary sheets and other avenues should have been sought.
The landlord’s communication about the resident’s move was unclear as it did not inform the resident of the financial implications of his actions such as keeping the keys for additional time. The landlord has offered a goodwill payment of £250 but additional redress is required to reflect the above service failures.

Orders and recommendations

It is ordered that the landlord pay the resident directly a total of £350 compensation within four weeks and notify this service when payment has been made(to be reduced by any compensation already paid): This comprises:
1. £50 for the distress and inconvenience caused by service failures in the handling of ASB reports,
2. £250 as agreed by the residents panel for the insurance excess,
3. £50 for distress and inconvenience caused by communication failures during the decant process.
4. Payment should be sent to the resident directly and kept separate from his rent account.