Flagship Housing Group Limited (202102407)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202102407

Flagship Housing Group Limited

26 April 2022

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 the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about the condition of the property when she moved in, and the validity of a service charge for a panic alarm installed at the property.

Background and summary of events

At the time of the events of this complaint the resident had an assured tenancy with the landlord for a two-bedroom bungalow.

Summary of events

The landlord’s records show that on 30 September 2019 all void works had been completed by this date and the property was signed off as in a lettable condition.
The resident’s tenancy started on 21 November 2019.
The resident’s correspondence refers to an inspection carried out by the landlord in December 2019. The resident has said that a list of outstanding repairs was noted by the landlord staff at this time. The landlord has not disputed that an inspection was carried out in December 2019, but it has not been able to provide any documentary evidence of the inspection findings.
The landlord’s repair records show that a job was logged on 27 December 2019 for a defective bathroom light. The records show that this was completed on 30 December 2019 when the light pull cord was replaced.
The records show that on 20 January 2020 a report was logged for a problem with the electric shower temperature control, which the resident said was erratic. The notes show that a new shower was ordered and a follow-up job was booked in for fitting the new shower. This was fitted on 27 January 2020.
The landlord’s internal correspondence on 30 January 2020 shows that an inspection was carried out and the following repairs were noted:
1. Central alarm system needed to be cancelled as it was no longer needed.
2. Door chain missing from front door.
3. Damp by fridge needs cleaning and treating.
4. Rust on radiators.
5. TV aerial is in the bedroom not the lounge.
6. Some areas around trunking need making good.
7. Drip from overflow in the attic and blocked guttering at rear.
8. Floor tiles at the property have gaps and some are missing.
9. The floor seems to have dropped which will need looking at by a Surveyor.
10. The floor in entrance needs making good with matching tiles.
11. Small amount of boxing to make good that has got damp in the bathroom.
The landlord’s internal records noted that the resident did not particularly want all the works to be done in one go, and she was not in a rush and was being reasonable. It was agreed that an action plan would be drawn up with potential dates for the various works.
On 31 January 2020 the records show that a report was logged for ‘door chain missing/mould/trunking’. This job was completed on 12 February 2020 and the notes show ‘replaced front door chain, replaced boxing in bathroom, wall in kitchen cleaned mould’.
On 12 February 2020 the records show a report for ‘Overflow pipe dripping from loft’. The repair records confirm that this job was marked as completed but no completion date is recorded.
The landlord’s correspondence shows that on 1 April 2020 it advised its tenants that due to the COVID 19 pandemic it was only operating an emergency repairs service until further notice.
On 22 April 2020 the landlord emailed the resident to say that it would be confirming its action plan for the outstanding repairs when its normal service resumed.
Due to a lack of contact from the landlord, the resident logged a formal complaint on 14 July 2020:
1. She confirmed that some of the repairs she had reported some months ago had been completed, such as the shower. However, many of the issues were still outstanding.
2. The outstanding issues included damp on the wall by the fridge; possible subsidence in the lounge; cracked and broken floor tiles; gas meter door broken; fence panels and shed are rotten and broken; internal window frames have been badly overpainted.
3. She said that it took her and her friend two weeks to clean the property when she moved in.
4. She was unhappy that she had been raising repair issues for the last seven months and she has only now been told that these reports had not been formally logged on the landlord’s repair system.
5. The resident asked for a timetable for when all the outstanding repairs would be carried out.
The landlord responded on 24 July 2020 and apologised for the delay and said that it had referred the matter to the housing repairs team to respond.
The resident chased the landlord again by email on 4 August 2020 and reiterated that she was unhappy that no repairs had been logged on the system. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 4 August 2020.
The landlord’s internal records show that on 11 August 2020 it reviewed the outstanding list of repairs and arranged for contractors to attend to assess and/or complete repairs where possible.
The repair records show that on 11 August 2020 jobs were raised for the back door paintwork, door to gas meter broken, aerial socket issue in bedroom, and blocked overflow pipe. The notes show that the paintwork to the door was inspected and deemed to be satisfactory; the split pins to the door for the gas meter were replaced on 18 August; the resident paid for the TV aerial to be moved to another room and the blocked pipe was resolved on 21 August 2020.
On 13 August 2020 the landlord updated the resident and confirmed that all the outstanding repair issues would be reviewed as part of the complaint.
On 17 August 2020 the records show that jobs were raised for replacing the fence panels, shed and concrete paths in the rear garden. The notes show that the materials were ordered on this day and the works were booked in for late September once all materials were available. These works were marked as completed on 6 October 2020.
On 18 August 2020 the records show a job was raised for the cracked and broken floor tiles and it was agreed that these needed to be replaced.
On 3 September 2020 the records show a job was raised for blocked guttering at the rear of the property and this was completed on 23 September 2020.
On 9 September 2020 the records show that a job was raised for replacing and/or refitting the skirting in the lounge. The notes show this was completed on 12 October 2020.
On 23 September 2020 the records show that works were carried out to the brickwork around windows and this was completed the same day.
On 21 October 2020 the landlord emailed the resident and explained its position with regards to the repairs and the resident’s concerns:
1. It detailed the various works that had been carried out over August, September and October.
2. It confirmed that a Surveyor had inspected the property and he was satisfied that there were no subsidence concerns and the floor was in a suitable condition and did not slope in any direction.
3. With regards to the condition of the property at the start of the tenancy, it said that the resident’s concerns had been noted at the time by the Housing Officer. It had been agreed that the landlord would, as a gesture of goodwill, waive a previous invoice of £83.78 payable by the resident for chargeable repairs, as a resolution. This goodwill gesture had been accepted by the resident at that time. As such, the landlord considered the matter closed.
4. With regards to the conduct of the previous Housing Officer, and the lack of communication, it said that this Officer no longer worked for the landlord, and as such, it could not investigate this further. It confirmed that a new Housing Officer had since been appointed, which the resident was happy with.
5. The landlord confirmed that as all outstanding repairs had been completed, there was no further action for it to take and it was now closing the complaint.
The resident responded the same day:
1. She reiterated that she had raised all the repair issues when she moved in and it has taken the landlord too long to complete all the works.
2. She acknowledged the waiver of the historical invoice for £83.78 and said that this did not cover the time and costs she incurred in two weeks’ of ‘filling, cleaning and total repainting of the property, clearance of glass, metal and wood from the garden’. She requested that compensation be considered to properly take this into account.
3. The resident also raised an issue with the service charge for an alarm which she said she was not made aware of and had asked to be disconnected in January 2020.
4. The resident also confirmed that she was handing in her formal notice to end the tenancy, and that she would be moving out by 31 October 2020.
The landlord replied on 22 October 2020 and said that the issues raised had already been rectified, and a gesture of goodwill towards the inconvenience had also been accepted by the resident in April 2020, and therefore it was no longer able to be fully investigate the issues particularly as the Housing Officer had left the business. It said it would take note of the feedback of her experiences so that it could facilitate learning from this in the future.
As the resident remained unhappy, it was agreed that the complaint would be escalated to a senior manager for a review. The resident confirmed that she remained unhappy and that the gesture of goodwill in no way negated or made up for all the inconvenience, stress and anxiety caused by the incompetence of the Housing Officer, or whomever else deemed the property to be habitable. She was also still awaiting an answer to her queries about the alarm service charge.
The Ombudsman understands that the resident moved out of the property and the tenancy ended on 31 October 2020.
The landlord’s internal correspondence during November 2020 shows that it was trying to get more information about the emergency alarm service charges but it was having difficulties due to the lack of access to the system following a major IT breakdown issue. There were further internal emails chasing for clarification on the panic alarm in early December 2020.
On 23 December 2020 the landlord updated the resident. It apologised for the delay in responding and said that this was due to the major IT issues it had been experiencing. It confirmed that it had been informed by the alarm contractor that the alarm was still connected, which is why there was still a service charge. It also confirmed that there was no other sheltered housing related service charge.
The landlord issued a formal Stage 1 complaint response on 23 December 2020:
1. It detailed all the repairs carried out to date.
2. It referred to the goodwill gesture of waiving the invoice of £83 which was accepted by the resident at the time in resolution to her concerns.
3. It was not able to fully investigate all the issues as the Housing Officer involved had left the business.
4. It reiterated that the service charge for the alarm was valid as the alarm had not been disconnected.
5. It agreed that a full and final response would be issued by a Senior Manager.
The landlord then issued its final Stage 2 complaint response on 4 January 2021:
1. It repeated its position regarding the condition of the property at the start of the tenancy and the repairs which it had subsequently carried out. It said that this had been addressed via the goodwill gesture of waiving an invoice of £83.
2. It went on to explain the service charge for the panic alarm and said that the service charge would apply until the alarm was disconnected.
3. The landlord confirmed that this was its final complaint response.
On 21 January 2021 the resident responded and remained unhappy that her complaint had not been fully answered. She said that many of the repairs she had reported took about 10 months to be carried out, during which time she experienced anxiety and distress at the condition of the property. She questioned why the property was given to her in a poor condition. She again requested compensation for the ‘stress and trauma’ she had gone through.
On 25 January 2021 the landlord notified the resident that its complaints process has been concluded and that the next step was a referral to this Service. The resident subsequently contacted this Service on 30 April 2021.
Whilst the complaint was awaiting investigation by this Service, the landlord undertook its own additional review of the complaint on 28 February 2022. It then contacted the resident directly with a revised compensation offer.
The landlord apologised for the difficulties experienced by the resident when moving into the property and it said that it had failed to let the property in a suitable condition, and then it took too long to complete the repairs. It also failed to properly answer the resident’s request for clarification on the service charge relating to the emergency alarm system, that she had requested be disconnected when she moved in.
The landlord confirmed that whilst all the repairs had been completed, and a goodwill gesture had previously been made, it would now offer further compensation for the delays and for the distress and inconvenience she experienced. It also agreed to refund the service charges relating to the emergency alarm system.
The landlord offered the resident the following compensation on 28 February 2022:
1. £150 for the repair delays;
2. £150 for the distress and inconvenience;
3. £86.84 for the service charge refund (£1.67 x 52 weeks);
4. This was in addition to the £83.78 goodwill write-off previously agreed for an invoice payable by the resident.

Assessment and findings

The Ombudsman’s role is to consider the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns and this includes an assessment of whether the landlord has followed proper procedure, good practice, and behaved reasonably, taking account all the circumstances of the case. In doing so, the Ombudsman is guided by its Dispute Resolution Principles, which are, ‘be fair – treat people fairly and follow fair process; put things right and learn from outcomes’.
Looking at the facts of this case, the first point to note is that the aim of any voids policy is to ensure that an empty property is inspected, repaired, cleaned and left in a safe and suitable state for re-letting. The landlord’s ‘Lettable Standards’ state that it is ‘committed to making sure all homes are in a liveable, comfortable condition for you from day one’. The main concerns raised by the resident in this case is that the property was not in a condition to be let when she signed the tenancy agreement. She has also said that she had to spend around two weeks cleaning the property and there were numerous repairs which needed to be done to bring the property up to a reasonable condition.
The landlord has, albeit belatedly, recognised that there were shortcomings and failures in this case with regards to the condition the property was let. Whilst it has provided some evidence to show that the property did undergo some void works and it was signed off as being in a lettable condition, it has failed to provide a copy of the final inspection report or any other detailed evidence to show that the property had met its lettable standard. The failure in the voids process meant that the resident moved into the property and had to raise several repair requests within the following days and weeks.
In any event, the landlord has acknowledged and accepted in its email to the resident on 28 February 2022 that the property had not been let in a satisfactory condition.
With regards to the repairs that were reported by the resident, there were also several shortcomings in its handling of these. For instance, the landlord has accepted that the property was inspected in December 2019 and repairs were noted but it has not been able to provide a copy of the inspection report. Of more concern is that if repairs were indeed duly noted at this time, why these were not formally logged and/or actioned by the repairs team. The landlord has also been unable to provide an explanation as to why no follow-up action was taken in response to the December 2019 inspection. The resident has repeatedly said that she had listed various repairs to the inspecting officer, and the limited evidence presently available suggests that her repair reports were not actioned correctly.
Similarly, the landlord has provided email correspondence showing that a further inspection was carried out late January 2020, and once again, a list of repairs had been noted. The internal communication shows that a plan of works was to be completed showing when all the reported repairs were due to be completed. However, the landlord has not provided a copy of this action plan and there is nothing in its papers to suggest that an action plan was indeed drawn up at this time to deal with the reported repairs.
The landlord has acknowledged and accepted that there was a failure to action the reported repairs following the January 2020 inspection. It has said that its complaint review in February 2022 had identified that the repairs in the email dated 30 January 2020 were not entered onto its system by an individual who no longer works for the landlord. Its view was that this was ‘a single point of failure’.
The limited repair records that have been provided do show that a couple of the smaller repairs had been logged and completed in January and February 2020. However, it is clear that the larger more significant repairs were not logged until after the resident had raised a formal complaint in July 2020, approximately eight months after the repairs had seemingly been first reported.
The evidence shows that it was not until August 2020 that the landlord made concerted efforts to progress the outstanding repair reports. At which point the majority of the repairs were formally logged and completed, on the whole, in a reasonably timely manner.
The underlying issue in this case is that the landlord’s records are not clear and do not adequately demonstrate that it acted appropriately. The need for good record-keeping cannot be emphasised enough and it is important not only so that the landlord can provide an efficient and timely service to its tenants, but it also allows for an accurate audit trail of its decision-making after the event which can help in resolving complaints and learning from complaints to improve services. The landlord is therefore reminded of the need to ensure that it maintains clear and accurate records of its actions.
Furthermore, the landlord has sought to rely upon the fact that the Officer responsible for the service failures noted above had left the landlord’s employment, and as such, it was limited in what it could investigate. That may well be the case, but the landlord is reminded that it is ultimately responsible for ensuring that it discharges its repair responsibilities within a reasonable time. This would mean ensuring that its processes and procedures take into account staff changes and there are mechanisms in place to ensure that staff leaving does not adversely affect the service provision. Again, the need to ensure robust record-keeping cannot be stressed enough, especially in such situations.
With regards to the handling of the resident’s concerns about the service charge for the panic alarm, the evidence does not clearly show what steps it took to establish whether or not the service change was applicable. Nor does it demonstrate how it responded to the resident’s request that the alarm was not needed and should be disconnected. Furthermore, during the initial complaint investigations and in its formal responses it simply maintained that the alarm remained connected to the main system and was therefore a valid charge.
However, in its more recent complaint review in February 2022 it concluded that it had failed to properly answer the resident’s request for clarification on the service charge relating to the emergency alarm system, and it also acknowledged that the resident had in fact requested this be disconnected when she moved in.
The overall conclusion that can be reached from the limited evidence is that the landlord had received a request for the alarm to be disconnected and for the service charge to be removed sometime in November 2019. This was repeated in January 2020 and it failed to properly investigate this issue and it failed to act upon the resident’s request.
To sum up, looking at all the available evidence, the repairs were initially reported sometime in December 2019 and were not completed until around September 2020, which is approximately 10 months later. The landlord’s explanations for the delays have been considered, the lack of supporting evidence has also been noted, and the Ombudsman can only reasonably conclude that there was maladministration in its handling of both the repairs and the service charge issues. The landlord has failed to respond appropriately to the repair reports and has failed to carry out the repairs within a timely manner; and it did not act upon the resident’s request regarding the alarm in a reasonable and/or timely manner.
Having said all the above, the Ombudsman notes that the landlord has acknowledged its failures in this case and it ought to be commended for carrying out its own additional review of the complaint. It has acted appropriately by accepting that there had been service failures, apologising for these, and it has offered compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused.
The total compensation package offered by the landlord was £300 compensation for the delays and inconvenience, plus a refund of the service charge for the alarm, calculated at £86.84 (£1.67 x 52 weeks). It has also referred to a goodwill gesture made in April 2020 whereby it waived an invoice payable by the resident amounting to £83.78 (however, it has not provided any evidence relating to this goodwill gesture).
The landlord has not provided a copy of its compensation policy, but in any event, the Ombudsman has the discretion to determine the most appropriate remedy given the circumstances of the complaint. when considering whether or not the landlord’s offer of compensation is reasonable, the Ombudsman has taken into account this Services’ own Dispute Resolution Principles (be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes) and our published Remedies Guidance.
In assessing an appropriate level of compensation for the maladministration, the Ombudsman takes into account a range of factors including the inconvenience caused by the issues, the amount of time and effort expended on pursuing the matter with the landlord, and the level of detriment caused by the landlord’s acts and/or omissions. It also considers whether any redress is proportionate to the severity of the service failure by the landlord and the impact on the resident.
Having considered all the facts and the available evidence, the Ombudsman has taken into account the landlord’s overall handling of the issues in this case, and the impact of its failures, and its explanations and apologies, and it considers that the present compensation offer is insufficient redress in this instance. Taking into account all the above factors, and in light of the Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance it considers that a total award of £500 compensation, plus the refund of the service charge for the alarm, calculated at £86.84 would be appropriate redress in this case.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s concerns about the condition of the property when she moved in, and the validity of a service charge for a panic alarm installed at the property.

Reasons

The landlord failed to demonstrate that it completed the repairs in a timely manner, monitored the progress of the works, kept proper repair records and communicated effectively with the resident to resolve the issues she had raised about the condition of the property and the service charge for the alarm. The landlord did belatedly acknowledge that there had been service failures but its final compensation offer was not reasonable redress for those failures.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

The landlord must, within four weeks of the date of this report:
1. pay the resident the total amount of £586.84 compensation in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused by the identified maladministration. This amount consists of £500.00 compensation plus £86.84 for the refund of the service charge for the alarm.
Evidence of the payment of compensation to be provided to this Service within four weeks of the date of this report.

Recommendations

Given the findings noted above, the landlord ought to consider the issues raised in this case and look at how it can improve its record-keeping so as to ensure that it can adequately demonstrate the actions it takes in response to a repair request, especially when staff have left the landlord’s employment.