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GreenSquareAccord Limited (202337417)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202337417

GreenSquareAccord Limited

21 August 2025

 

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:
    1. The resident’s reports of flooding in her garden.
    2. The complaints.

Background

  1. The resident has an assured tenancy with the landlord. She lives on her own and has a dog. The property is a ground floor flat, and it has a garden with 2 levels. The top half is a patio, and the bottom half is grass, and accessed by stairs. The resident said she has a learning disability, back problems and a sight impairment.
  2. The resident reported ongoing issues with flooding in her garden in the years leading up until her most recent complaint to the landlord on 9 January 2024. The landlord did works, such as installing drainage in her garden in October 2021. It also repaired a fence, levelled paving slabs and added a “gravel board” in March 2022.
  3. Between August 2022 and June 2023 the resident complained 3 times about the landlord’s handling of flooding in her garden, including the patio area. The landlord responded separately to these complaints at ‘step 2’ of its complaints process. It acknowledged its failures within these complaints and offered a combined amount of £550 compensation. It agreed to inspect the resident’s garden and to repair a crack in the patio. However, in July 2023 it said it could not fully assess what work it needed to do because there were dog faeces in the garden.
  4. The resident complained to the landlord for the fourth time on 9 January 2024. The landlord responded on 31 January 2024 under ‘step 2’ of its complaints process. It apologised for its poor communication and offered the resident a further £50 compensation. However, it said it would not investigate the garden issues until the resident cleared the dog mess.
  5. The resident was unhappy with the landlord’s response and escalated her complaint to this Service. The landlord told us it surveyed the resident’s garden in September 2024 and completed repairs in December 2024. The work included installing additional drainage and brickwork to the patio area and stabilising a fence. It also said it would cut an overhanging tree.
  6. When investigating this case, we consulted with the resident and landlord in August 2025. The resident said the landlord had not cut the overhanging tree branch it promised to do in December 2024 and her garden was still flooding. In its response, the landlord said it would cut the overhanging tree branch and reinspect the resident’s garden by the end of August 2025.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the investigation

  1. The resident escalated her complaint to us before exhausting the landlord’s 3- stage complaints procedure. We do not normally consider complaints in these circumstances unless there is evidence of a complaint handling failure. In this case we exercised our discretion to accept the resident’s case. This is because we have found complaint handling failures which we outline in this report.
  2. We normally only consider issues which the resident formally complained to the landlord about and escalated to us within a reasonable period. This is usually within 12 months. So, we will not consider the events dating back to May 2021 when the resident first reported the repairs. However, because of the resident’s repeated complaints over a 17-month period, we have extended the period of this investigation. This report will therefore consider the events from August 2022 up to January 2024.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of flooding in her garden

  1. Landlords must respond to residents’ reports of repairs in line with their policy timeframes. In this case the landlord’s policy says it will respond to urgent repairs within 7 days and standard repairs within 28 days. Where a landlord is unable to respond within its policy timescales, we expect it to keep the resident fully updated throughout. In this case the landlord acknowledged in all its responses to the resident’s 4 complaints that failed to do that.
  2. In its complaint response on 28 September 2022 the landlord apologised for not inspecting the resident’s garden sooner. It offered her £250 compensation and agreed to inspect her garden, which its records show it did on 5 October 2022. However, there is no evidence it explained the outcome of this inspection to the resident, which was unreasonable given her concerns about it flooding.
  3. The resident complained to the landlord again on 2 February 2023. She said it had not contacted her since its inspection in October 2022. She said the garden drainage system the landlord had previously fitted did not work. She told the landlord she was “Offended that she has been the one to chase repairs”. The landlord agreed its communication had been poor and offeredher£100 compensation. It said it would contact her by 6 March to arrange another inspection, but only if she cleared dog mess it had previously seen. Due to the health and safety concerns, this response was partly reasonable. However, it still did not show it had clearly explained the findings of its last inspection to her.
  4. The landlord did not demonstrate it learned from the previous complaints, as it was not proactive in managing the resident’s concerns about the flooding. Its records show it did not book its next inspection by its promised deadline of 6 March 2023. Images show that it attended her property on 22 May, but there is no record of it arranging this visit with the resident, or of it explaining the outcome. On 7 June she said the landlord failed to attend her property and had not left a calling card. This poor communication was a further failure which frustrated the resident.
  5. The resident complained to the landlord again on 21 June 2023. She said the crack in her patio was worsening and she was “worried it will collapse”. The landlord’s records show it was proactive responding to this. It inspected her patio on 23 June 2023 and identified works which it planned to do. It also partly inspected the garden on 19 July 2023 but was unable to fully inspect it due to dog mess. As this inspection was 3 months later than promised, this was a significant delay, with no clear explanation for it.
  6. The landlord acknowledged it partly failed when responding to the resident’s third complaint on 13 September 2023. It offered £200 compensation. It said its surveyor attended to fix the crack in the patio on 11 August. Its actions, apology and compensation went some way to putting things right for the resident. Although the garden inspection remained outstanding.
  7. This is a complex case where the resident raised safety issues concerning her outdoor space. The landlord also raised concerns about its operatives’ health and safety due to the dog excrement in the grassed area of the resident’s garden. Given the resident’s disabilities (which include a sight impairment) and the safety issues she raised, the landlord should have offered her more support. This could have included signposting her to agencies for help and support. It also failed to regularly contact her to check if she had cleared the mess in the garden.
  8. There was a further breakdown in the landlord’s communication following its complaint response in September 2023 up until her fourth complaint on 9 January 2024. The resident chased the landlord for a reply in October 2023 and again on 2 January 2024. When the landlord called her on 25 and 29 January 2024 she said, “When it rains, her whole garden looks like it’s under water and it’s getting worse.” The resident also told the landlord she attempted to clear the garden but struggled because it was slippery and she had problems with her back.
  9. Where there are admitted failings by a landlord, our role is to consider whether the redress the landlord offered was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
  10. In this case the landlord’s overall handling of the resident’s garden issue lacked customer focus, which led to her repeatedly complaining. It failed to keep the resident updated and did not show due regard to her health conditions. The landlord acknowledged its failings and offered compensation. However, it missed several opportunities throughout the resident’s complaints to fully risk assess the garden and outline its plans to resolve the issues. This left the complaint unremedied.
  11. When determining a suitable remedy for this complaint we considered the landlord’s delay in fully risk assessing the garden and subsequently taking action to put things right for the resident. As the issues are still unresolved well beyond its final complaint response (in January 2024) the compensation it offered was not proportionate to the scale of its failures. We took into consideration that it subsequently risk assessed the garden in September 2024 and carried out most of the works in December 2024, both several months after its complaint response.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. Landlords must handle complaints in accordance with their own policies and the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code). The 2022 version of the Code contains guidance landlords were expected to follow at the time of this complaint. It said landlords should have a 2-stage complaint process and respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days and stage 2 complaints within 20 working days.
  2. At the time of the resident’s complaints, the landlord operated a ‘3 step’ complaints procedure:
    1. The first step was referred to as ‘resolve’ and was intended to be used for complaints that could be resolved within 48 hours.
    2. The second step was referred to as ‘step 2’ and had a timescale of 10 working days, extending to 20 working days if necessary.
    3. The third step was referred to as ‘step 3 executive review’ and its response timescale differed throughout the period of the resident’s complaints.
  3. The Code encourages early resolution of complaints. It says, “it is not appropriate to have extra named stages” as “this causes unnecessary confusion”. This is especially important in cases where a resident may experience difficulties understanding and following the process. The landlord’s policy at the time was not in line with the Code. However, it updated its process, and it now complies with the 2024 version of the Code.
  4. The landlord responded to 3 of the resident’s 4 complaints within its policy timeframes. However, the landlord delayed in its response to her complaint on 10 July 2023. It did not respond by 7 August (as it had promised) and she chased the landlord the same day. It responded on 13 September which was 47 working days after she complained. The landlord’s response to this delay was reasonable, it apologised and offered £100 compensation.
  5. Landlords must have an effective complaint process to provide a good service to their residents. An effective complaint process means landlords can fix problems quickly, learn from their mistakes and build good relationships with residents. In this case rather than waiting for the resident to escalate her complaint to ‘step 3’ the landlord could have taken a more proactive approach. Its policy at the time said it could use its discretion in some cases to escalate complaints. In this case the landlord could have better managed one of the resident’s earlier complaints by considering escalating it for a more thorough review. This may have resulted in it resolving the resident’s issue more quickly and lessened the need for further complaints.
  6. The landlord took positive steps, by compensating the resident when it delayed its complaint response in September 2023. However, its compensation offer did not reflect the overall poor complaint management experienced by the resident in this case. This includes her repeated time and trouble she spent raising the multiple complaints.

Special investigation

  1. The Ombudsman published a report in October 2024 about the landlord following a special wider investigation. It found multiple systemic failings that impacted its residents. These included lengthy delays when dealing with repairs, a lack of communication throughout the process and no evidence of learning from complaints. We recommended the landlord make changes including “assessing complaint handling procedures for repairs”. The failings identified by this complaint mirror those identified by the special investigation that are part of the ongoing improvement work, for which this Service remains in liaison with the landlord. As such, and in view of the age of this complaint, we have not made any similar orders.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of flooding in her garden.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaints.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks from the date of this report the landlord must:
    1. Provide a written apology to the resident, from a senior manager, for the failures identified in this report.
    2. Pay the resident a total of £1,000 compensation. This amount includes the £550 it has already offered the resident, so it may deduct this amount if it has already paid it. This is made up as follows:
      1. £750 for its handling of the resident’s reports of flooding in her garden.
      2. £250 for its complaint handling.
  2. Within 8 weeks from the date of this report the landlord must:
    1. Confirm whether it completed works to the overhanging tree in the resident’s garden.
    2. Update the resident and this Service with the findings of the garden inspection it promised to do in August 2025. Explain to the resident and this Service if it intends to do any works, and if so, when. If it does not agree to do any works, then fully explain its reasoning to the resident and this Service.
  3. The landlord must provide the Ombudsman with evidence of complying with these orders by their respective deadlines.

Recommendations

  1. The resident told this Service she has recently been diagnosed with a medical condition. We recommend the landlord contacts the resident to update its records, and to establish if there are reasonable adjustments it needs to consider regarding this.