Flagship Housing Group Limited (202218779)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202218779

Flagship Housing Group Limited

28 April 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

1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about the neighbour’s use of the parking spaces outside their property.

Background

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. The property is a one-bedroom semi-detached property attached to the neighbour’s property. Outside of both properties are three parking spaces. the middle of which is a shared visitors’ bay.
3. The resident contacted the landlord on 8 August 2022, because he felt his neighbour’s boyfriend was using the shared visitors’ parking bay outside both of their properties as his own. In response the landlord called the resident on 29 September 2022 and arranged for someone to visit in order to investigate the issues raised. The landlord visited the resident on 5 October 2022, where it explained that the issue was not anti-social behaviour but that it would support the resident by sending a letter to the neighbour and monitoring the situation. The landlord visited again on 11 October 2022, where it confirmed that there were three spaces outside of both the resident’s and neighbour’s property and that the middle space was a shared visitors’ space.
4. The resident raised a complaint on 11 October 2022, because he was dissatisfied with how the landlord had handled the parking issue. The call notes do not provide any information as to what the resident was dissatisfied with, with regards to the parking, however, the notes did records that he was not happy that he was not called back within five workings days by a named member of staff, that the member of staff had been on her phone and that they had not been interested in his concerns during a recent visit.
5. The landlord responded on 19 October 2022, apologised for not calling in within five working days and said that it had taken his feedback on board. In regard to his concerns that he had not received a response to his previous enquiries, the landlord explained that it had spoken to him in September 2022, where it discussed his concerns about the parking issues and had agreed to visit on 5 October 2022 to investigate.
6. The resident escalated his complaint on 11 November 2022, as he did not feel the landlord had addressed his concerns and as he was unhappy with the lack of contact. On the same day the landlord explained to the resident it would look at the neighbour’s tenancy agreement in regard to parking and update him.
7. On 17 November 2022, the landlord informed the resident that it had spoken to the neighbour earlier in the week and that she had said that she did not wish any animosity between them. The landlord offered mediation to the resident but he refused. On 18 November 2022, the resident told the landlord that he wanted to move because his mental health was being affected over the parking issues. On the same day the landlord explained to the resident that the neighbour’s tenancy agreement did not mention allocated parking or parking restrictions. It also explained to the resident that advice had been given to the neighbour regarding considerate parking.
8. The landlord provided its stage two response on 21 November 2022, in which it said that regular contact had been made with the resident, by two different members of staff, in order to provide updates. It found on one occasion it did not call within five working days and that feedback had been passed to the relevant team’s manager to help improve service. It had visited the neighbour on 14 November 2022, and advised her about parking considerately. The landlord did not elaborate on what it meant by considerate parking. The landlord went on to say that it had called the resident on 18 November 2022, and advised it had looked at the neighbour’s tenancy agreement and that she did not have allocated parking, and that it would send a letter to her to advise of this. It had explained to the resident that visitor parking was on a first come, first serve basis and that while it would advise the neighbour they did not have any allocated parking, they were still free to use the visitor spaces like anyone else who visits or lives in the area. The landlord said that it was confident that appropriate action had been taken and that it was limited in what it could do as unallocated spaces could be used by anyone.
9. The resident brought his complaint to this Service because he was unhappy with the landlord’s handling of his concerns, that the parking issue was affecting his health and that he was under the care of a doctor. The resident said that he wanted the landlord to write to the neighbour telling them they cannot use the space as their own. And if the landlord would not do that, the resident said that it should pay him compensation instead.
10. On 2 March 2023, the landlord performed a cold-call visit to check the status of the parking spaces. The landlord noted that the visitor space was available and in total seven of the nine additional roadside parking spaces in the immediate locality of these properties were free. It made note that it would continue to spot check at random times/days when in the area.

Assessment and findings

11. The tenancy agreement for the resident is silent on the subject of parking. This Service has not seen the neighbour’s tenancy agreement but has seen evidence that the resident has been told that this too is silent on parking.
12. The resident raised concerns with his landlord that his neighbour’s boyfriend was using the shared visitor’s parking space outside both his and his neighbour’s properties as his own. He felt that this was anti-social behaviour and a breach of his neighbour’s tenancy agreement.
13. The landlord responded reasonably by visiting both the resident and his neighbour several times to establish the use of the space in question:
    1. It looked at both the resident’s and neighbour’s tenancy agreements and explained to the resident and the neighbour that his neighbour’s tenancy agreement did not stipulate parking allocations or restrictions.
    2. It explained to the resident that the visitors’ parking space was first come, first serve and it explained that while it had advised the neighbour about considerate parking, the neighbour could park there as could anyone else who lived or visited the area.
    3. It also explained that while it empathised with the resident there was little it could do. This was reasonable because the landlord took relevant and proportionate action to show it took the resident’s concerns seriously and despite its effort could find nothing that stipulated parking restrictions in either the tenant’s and neighbour’s tenancy agreements. There is nothing in the evidence that undermines the landlord’s findings.
14. Following its final response, the landlord has evidenced that it continued to take the resident’s concerns serious by carry out a cold-call visit on 2 March 2023 and stating that it would continue to spot check the parking in the area.
15. While the landlord acknowledged the resident’s concern over what he believed was anti-social behaviour, it explained to him that it did not believe it was. This was reasonable because there is nothing in the evidence that can reasonably match the examples of what the landlord considers anti-social behaviour in its anti-social behaviour policy. The policy also states that the landlord will not intervene in matters it could reasonably expect tenants to resolve between themselves such as personal disputes but chose to in this instance. This was reasonable because it showed, again, that it had taken the resident’s concerns seriously. This satisfies this Service that this issue has been reasonably resolved and no maladministration has been found.

Determination

16. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s concerns about the neighbour’s use of the parking spaces outside their property.