GreenSquareAccord Limited (202347909)

Decision
Case ID	202347909
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	GreenSquareAccord Limited
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Assured Tenancy
Date	18 November 2025

Background

1. The resident lives in a first floor flat. She has physical and mental health conditions. The landlord has recorded these vulnerabilities. The resident complained about a boarded window in the communal area on the same floor as her flat.

What the complaint is about

2. The resident’s complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
   1. repairs to a window in the communal area.
   2. the associated complaint.

Our decision (determination)

3. We found that there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of:
   1. repairs to a window in the communal area.
   2. the associated complaint.

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

Summary of reasons

The landlord’s handling of repairs to a window in a communal area

4. It took over 2 years for the landlord to complete the repair. During this time there was confusion over contractor attendance and the works required. The landlord also delayed in confirming that it needed to instruct a different contractor due to cladding. It also failed to keep the resident updated as promised.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

5. The landlord failed to respond to the resident’s complaint at stage 1 despite attempting to handle the complaint at this stage twice. It also delayed in acknowledging the resident’s stage 2 complaint and providing a stage 2 response. The landlord failed to take any action when the resident contacted it about her complaint in November 2023. It also incorrectly told the resident that she had not provided evidence of this in its stage 3 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.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures identified in this report. The landlord must ensure: The apology is specific to the failures identified in this decision, meaningful and empathetic. It has due regard to our apologies guidance.	No later than 16 December 2025
2	The landlord must pay the resident £400, in addition to the compensation it has already paid, made up as follows: £200 for any distress, upset and inconvenience caused by its handling of repairs to a window in the communal area. £200 for any distress, upset and inconvenience caused by its handling of the associated complaint.   This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date.	No later than 16 December 2025

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
25 April 2023	The resident raised a complaint about the communal window, which she said was boarded when she moved into the property during July 2022. She said that she first requested a repair in August 2022, and numerous times after that, but the landlord had not responded. She said heat escaped through the gap in the board and it let snow and rain into the building.
27 April 2023	The landlord apologised for the length of time taken to book the repair. It said it had raised this as a complaint and would respond within the next 7 working days. It also said it had chased the repair.
10 May 2023	The resident escalated her complaint to the customer care team. She said she had not been contacted or updated about the repair.
22 May 2023	The landlord said a manager would contact her in the next 48 hours. It said should a manager fail to contact the resident, or she was not satisfied, it could pass this to its customer care team.
31 May 2023	The resident requested that the landlord forwarded her complaint to its customer care team because it had not contacted her.
20 June 2023	The landlord acknowledged the resident’s stage 2 complaint. It apologised for the delay in doing this. It said it usually aimed to respond within 10 working days. However, due to reduced capacity this would take up to 20 working days which would be 18 July 2023.
25 July 2023	The landlord sent its stage 2 response. It apologised for the delay in acknowledging the resident’s complaint and providing a response, the delay in it repairing the window and its lack of communication. It said that: it emailed the resident on 28 June 2023 and said it needed to extend its response date to no later than 25 July 2023. it assessed the boarded window on 28 April 2023 and confirmed that it would need to remove the glass canopy and erect scaffolding to replace the window frame and glass. it had raised a request to its contractors to erect scaffolding and for other contractors to attend to the window repair. it had fed the lack of communication back to the relevant manager to address its internal process. it would email the resident to advise when it had confirmed a start date for the repair. it had upheld the resident’s complaint due to the lack of communication she received and was sorry for any distress and inconvenience caused. in recognition of the service the resident had experienced and by way of apology it would pay £50 as a goodwill payment. the resident could escalate her complaint to stage 3 if she remained unhappy.
26 July 2023	The resident requested additional compensation for distress, inconvenience and financial loss. She said that due to her health conditions she could become extremely poorly without adequate heat, and she had used more energy due to heat escaping through the inadequately boarded window.
27 July 2023	The landlord agreed to offer an additional £50 as a gesture of goodwill taking the total to £100. It said it would update the resident after 7 August 2023.
6 November 2023	The resident said that the window repair remained outstanding. She said the landlord erected scaffolding but did not start any work, the scaffolding remained in place, and the landlord assured her it would keep her updated.
30 October 2024	The landlord exchanged emails with this Service. We agreed that it could issue a stage 3 response to the resident.
4 November 2024	The landlord acknowledged the resident’s stage 3 complaint. It said it would provide a written response within 20 working days by 2 December 2024.
15 November 2024	The resident provided a copy of her email from 6 November 2023. In the accompanying email she said she sent the email in November 2023. She said the landlord removed scaffolding around this time and erected it again around June 2024 but then removed it again. She said the landlord did not start any work whenever it erected scaffolding.
18 November 2024	The landlord provided its stage 3 response. It said: it had “let the resident down”. it was unable to see that the resident contacted it in November 2023, as it had not received evidence from her, so was unable to comment on whether it should have updated her. it was unable to provide evidence of any correspondence to the resident following its stage 2 response. It was sorry this was the case. it had raised a repair for the window and attended on multiple occasions and erected scaffolding in this time. However, it did not complete a repair as it unable to remove cladding. it had referred the repair to an external contractor but due to the nature of the required work it was unable to give a specific timeframe for it to complete this. its stage 2 response did not provide escalation rights to the Ombudsman, but it did provide information on how to escalate to stage 3 as required under its previous complaint process. due to the impact of continued failures, it offered £200 consisting of £100 for distress and inconvenience and £100 for the resident’s time and trouble pursuing the matter. this was in addition to the £50 offered at stage 2 for a total of £250.
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident referred her complaint to us as the repair to the window remained outstanding. She wanted the landlord to complete the repair and pay compensation for her increased energy bills, distress caused and the impact on her health conditions. The landlord has since completed the repair.

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.

Complaint	The landlord’s handling of repairs to a window in the communal area.
Finding	Maladministration

What we did not investigate

6. The resident told us that the issues impacted her health conditions. It would be fairer, more reasonable and more effective for the resident to make a personal injury claim for any injury caused. The courts are best placed to deal with this type of dispute as they will have the benefit of independent medical advice to decide on the cause of any injury and how long it will last. We have not investigated this further. We can decide if a landlord should pay compensation for distress and inconvenience.
7. The resident has said that the broken window was a breach of fire safety regulations, and it could not be opened after repair due to the lack of a safety catch. These issues did not form part of the original complaint brought to us and it is unclear if the resident raised them with the landlord. Accordingly, this investigation will only consider the issues addressed in the landlord’s complaint responses of 25 July 2023 and 18 November 2024.

What we did investigate

8. The landlord has not provided any evidence that the resident requested a repair to the communal window in August 2022. Its records indicate that it was unaware of online repair requests at the time. Even so, it raised a repair on 13 December 2022. Based on the documentary evidence provided it would be unreasonable to consider this a routine repair that fell within the 28-day response time in its repair policy. However, the landlord did not complete this repair until 24 January 2025, over 2 years later. This was an unreasonable delay.
9. During this time the landlord’s records show confusion over which contractor should attend to the repair. On occasion, this led to it erecting scaffolding and then removing it without starting any work. An operative attended on 9 January 2023 but lacked the correct tools to complete the repair. The landlord’s records from 21 February 2023 show that it required window fitters to measure up due to a canopy. The resident chased the repair on 11 April 2023 when the landlord noted that it needed to erect scaffolding to measure the window. The landlord did not raise a job to erect scaffolding until 8 July 2023. It is unclear why the landlord did not arrange to erect scaffolding before this.
10. Additionally, the landlord’s records from 19 July 2023 show that the contractor had confirmed the actuator for the Automatic Opening Vent (AOV) was working. However, it raised a repair to the contractor to complete this repair on 6 September 2023. The landlord’s records from 27 October 2023 show that this was not required and it could remove the scaffolding. The landlord chased this contractor for an update on 12 December 2023. It confirmed it as complete on 14 December 2023. However, the repair to the window remained outstanding. These record keeping failures and communication issues contributed to the delays in completing the repair.
11. The landlord raised another repair for the window on 15 March 2024. However, its records from 20 June 2024 show that it was still to measure the window despite being aware of this for around 16 months. The landlord noted on 13 August 2024 that it was awaiting a response regarding the window being located behind wall cladding. In its stage 3 response the landlord said it had instructed an external contractor to complete the repair due to the cladding. The landlord should have ascertained that it may need to instruct a different contractor earlier. This contributed to the delays in completing the repair.
12. Additionally, the landlord did not contact the resident as it said it would when she contacted it on 11 April 2023. It also failed to contact the resident as stated in its email of 22 May 2023 or keep her updated as stated in its stage 2 response. It failed to provide an update to the resident after 7 August 2023 as stated in its email of 27 July 2023 or respond to her email of 6 November 2023 regarding the repair of the communal window.
13. The landlord has acknowledged its failings regarding the repair of the communal window in its complaint responses and apologised. Its records show that it has paid a total of £350 compensation for this. It arranged for a suitable contractor to complete the repair to the communal window. The landlord has taken some steps to put things right in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles.
14. However, the compensation paid does not adequately reflect the distress, upset and inconvenience caused to the resident, due to the length of time taken to complete the repair, in line with our Remedies Guidance. Therefore, we have ordered the landlord to pay additional compensation.

Complaint	The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.
Finding	Maladministration

15. At the time of the resident’s complaint the landlord operated a 3-stage complaint process. However, it has since amended this to a 2-stage complaint process that is compliant with the Complaint Handling Code (the Code). Following the resident raising her complaint the landlord told her on 27 April 2023 that its planning team would respond within the next 7 working days. This was not in line with the landlord’s complaint policy which stated that at stage 1 it would attempt to resolve the resident’s complaint within 48 hours.
16. The landlord did not contact the resident, so she asked to escalate her complaint on 10 May 2023. The landlord responded on 22 May 2023. This was not within the timescales stated in its complaint policy. Additionally, the landlord passed the complaint to the manager of the planning team to respond within 48 hours in line with its complaints process at stage 1. It had already referred the resident’s complaint to the planning team and could have escalated to stage 2.
17. The landlord failed to contact the resident, prompting her to request escalation to stage 2 on 31 May 2023. The landlord acknowledged this on 20 June 2023 outside the 2 working days stipulated in its complaint policy. It apologised for this and advised the resident it may take it until 18 July 2023 to respond. The landlord provided this response on 25 July 2023. It said it had emailed the resident on 28 June 2023 to inform her it would need additional time. It has not provided a copy of this email. The landlord apologised again for the delay in acknowledging the resident’s complaint and the delay in providing this response and identified learning opportunities.
18. The resident emailed the landlord on 6 November 2023 because the repair remained outstanding, and it had not kept her updated. The landlord failed to either escalate the resident’s complaint or raise a new complaint considering the amount of time since the stage 2 response. This was not in line with its complaint policy which states that it would treat any expression of dissatisfaction as a complaint.
19. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s stage 3 complaint on 4 November 2024 following our agreement. It sent its stage 3 response on 18 November 2024 in line with the 20 working days stated in its complaint policy. It explained that the resident had not completed its complaint process from when she originally raised her complaint. It acknowledged that it had not contacted her following the stage 2 response. However, it said that the resident had not provided evidence of her contacting it in November 2023. The resident had provided this on 15 November 2024.
20. The landlord has acknowledged some of its delays in its complaints responses and apologised for this. However, it failed to acknowledge that the resident contacted it about her complaint in November 2023. It also incorrectly said that the resident had not provided evidence of this. The landlord’s failure to either escalate the resident’s complaint in November 2023 was a missed opportunity to resolve the issue. It also contributed to the delay in the resident seeking redress through this Service. Therefore, we have ordered compensation in line with our Remedies Guidance.

Learning

Knowledge and information management (record keeping)

21. The landlord did not provide a copy of the email it said it had sent to the resident extending the response time for its stage 2 response. It also failed to recognise that the resident had provided evidence of her contacting it in November 2023. It did not provide a copy of this other than the one later provided by the resident. Additionally, the landlord raised repairs to the incorrect contractor despite its records showing this was not required.

Communication

22. The landlord failed to keep the resident updated or contact her as it said it would. The landlord demonstrated a lack of oversight of its contractors, which may have contributed to the failings identified.