Great Places Housing Group Limited (202334694)

Background

1. The resident lives in a flat owned by the landlord. The landlord is not the freeholder, and the freeholder employs managing agents to oversee the building. The building’s heating and hot water is distributed from a communal heat network system, managed and maintained by the freeholder’s managing agents. The resident is unhappy with the landlord’s handling of problems with the hot water system as he feels it has not done enough to ensure the system works.

What the complaint is about

2. The landlord’s handling of:
   1. the resident’s reports of a lack of hot water
   2. communications about arrears on the resident’s utility account
3. We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. We have found:
   1. reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a lack of hot water
   2. service failure in the landlord’s handling of communication about arrears on the resident’s utility account
   3. maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling

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

Summary of reasons

Hot water

5. The landlord acknowledged failings in its stage 1 response in relation to delays that led to the resident being without hot water for several weeks. It offered reasonable compensation for this.

Utility account arrears

6. While the landlord is not responsible for the energy supply or bill calculation, it did contact the resident about arrears on his account. It failed to address his concerns about this or explain why it made this contact.

Complaint handling

7. There was a significant delay in the landlord sending its stage 2 complaint response.

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 considered

8. The resident has raised some concerns about the company the freeholder employs to manage the building, as well as his energy supplier. We do not have jurisdiction to consider the actions of these organisations. The resident would need to contact these companies directly, should he wish to raise complaints about their actions.

Hot water

9. The landlord has explained to us that it is not directly responsible for undertaking repairs to the heating system. However, the tenancy agreement shows it is its responsibility to keep in good repair any installation for space and water heating. Its managing agent is the first point of contact for residents when there is a problem. So, the landlord is ultimately responsible for ensuring repairs are arranged when its residents report a problem. We have investigated its handling of the resident’s reports and its communication with other agencies involved in repairs.
10. The landlord’s stage 1 response indicated that the resident reported the issue with the hot water on 21 June 2023. However, the earliest record provided by the landlord is an email to the company responsible for managing the energy supply on 17 July 2023. It is not appropriate that there is no evidence of it taking any action before this date. This represents a record keeping failure.
11. The email of 17 July 2023 said around 12 residents were still without hot water and asked to escalate matters. The company responded on 19 July 2023 to say it was making arrangements for a joint visit with a contractor to identify the fault and agree a solution.
12. On 21 July 2023 the landlord emailed the resident to say it was aware some residents were still experiencing issues. It told him it had escalated matters and asked him to liaise with the building management to help move the repair forward. It was good that it kept him updated with progress of the repair.
13. On 11 August 2023 the landlord emailed all residents to say that it believed hot water was now fully restored. It said it would now look at calculating compensation. However, it is not clear why it would calculate compensation for failures of a system it did not maintain. The freeholder and its agent would be responsible for the failures of the system itself, and the resident would need to contact them to discuss compensation in relation to the breakdown itself.
14. The landlord’s stage 1 response of 30 August 2023 said the resident had raised that a member of its staff ‘discriminates against the disabled’. He alleged that they had left him out of communications due to his disability. The landlord investigated this and said it had found communication to be consistent and that it had included him in all relevant email correspondence. It said it had found no evidence of discrimination. This demonstrated that it had considered his concern about discrimination, carried out an investigation, and clearly explained its findings, which was reasonable.
15. The landlord said the resident had asked why other tenants had received compensation, but he had received nothing. It explained that it had not offered compensation to any residents at that time. It offered £300 compensation which was reasonable and proportionate to recognise the distress and inconvenience caused by its delayed action following his reports of a lack of hot water. It also acknowledged he had booked a hotel room on several occasions to take a shower and asked him to provide receipts so it could look to reimburse him. This was a reasonable offer by the landlord.
16. An internal email of the landlord from 4 October 2023 said that it had attempted to attend the resident’s property on 30 June 2023 but had been unable to gain access. It had attended again on 6 July 2023, when the resident said the hot water was working fine, before he again reported an issue on 21 July 2023. This shows it did take steps to investigate the issue but further demonstrates that it failed to keep clear records of its actions.
17. In its stage 2 response of 15 April 2024 the landlord said it receive no further reports of hot water issues from the resident since its stage 1. We have seen no evidence of further issues, so this response was reasonable from the landlord.
18. The landlord’s record keeping failures mean it is not clear that it took prompt and reasonable action when the resident reported the issues with hot water. However, its offer of compensation was in line with our compensation guidance and proportionate to its failings.

19. As we have not seen a copy of the resident’s original complaint, it is not clear what, if anything, he raised about the landlord’s communication about utility arrears. On 8 December 2023 he told the landlord that a threat to disconnect his energy supply was illegal. He said he had not received a valid energy bill in the last 6 months.
20. The landlord’s internal communications of 20 December 2023 state that when the company managing the energy supply has exhausted its collections and recovery procedures, it asks the landlord to intervene. The landlord contacts residents in arrears and encourages them to make payment. We have seen no evidence that it responded to the resident’s concerns at that time and explained this to him.
21. The resident told the company managing the energy supply on 22 December 2023 that he was unhappy with the calculation of energy costs. This company is engaged by the freeholder, not the landlord so we do not have jurisdiction over its actions. So, we have not investigated the actions of the energy company, or the calculation of bills. If he is unhappy about the calculation of his bills, he would need to contact the company which manages the energy supply.
22. In its stage 2 response, in relation to the energy supply and charges, the landlord only said it was not involved in this and signposted the resident to the company managing the supply. It did not respond to his concerns about its involvement in contact him about outstanding arrears.
23. We appreciate the landlord is not the building freeholder and does not choose the energy supplier or have control over this. However, it accepts that it does contact residents, when asked to do so, about energy account arrears. We understand that it likely does this to avoid residents having their energy supply cut off. However, it would have been appropriate for it to address the resident’s concerns about this. Its failure to do this caused unnecessary trouble and upset for him.
24. We have made our compensation award with the landlord’s compensation policy in mind, where confusing information is provided to the resident, but it did not cause significant impact on the resident.

25. As stated above we have not seen a copy of the resident’s original complaint. We have not seen a copy of any correspondence from him to the landlord before the stage 1 which demonstrates poor record keeping. As such, we cannot determine whether it sent this response in line with its complaints policy timescale.
26. The landlord’s records show the resident contacted it to escalate the complaint on or around 25 September 2023. We have seen no evidence it acknowledged his escalation request, and it did not send its stage 2 response until more than 6 months later. This exceeded its policy timescale of 20 working days and represented an unreasonable delay. It did not acknowledge this delay in its response or take any steps to put matters right.
27. We have made our compensation award in line with our compensation guidance where there was a complaint handling failure which adversely affected the resident. The complaint response was significantly delayed and the landlord failed to acknowledge this failure in its response. It did not demonstrate that it had considered the impact of this delay and the additional distress and inconvenience this caused him.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping) and communication

28. The landlord did not keep good records of its repairs and the contact it had with the resident in relation to both repairs and the complaint. While we have seen some evidence it updated him, its poor record keeping means it is not clear whether its communication was consistent.
29. Poor record keeping made it hard for the landlord to respond proactively and effectively. Our spotlight report on Knowledge and Information Management highlights that without good data management, landlord may struggle to use or analyse information to improve services. Landlords can strengthen how they record and use data by improving training, providing clearer guidance, and increasing support for staff.