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Haringey London Borough Council (202228446)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202228446

Haringey London Borough Council

22 January 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 the resident’s concerns regarding:
    1. The implementation of the current mowing and maintenance schedule.
    2. The maintenance of the communal green areas.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Jurisdiction

  1. What the Ombudsman can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Scheme. When a complaint is brought to this Service, the Ombudsman must consider all the circumstances of the case, as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. Part of the resident’s complaint to the Ombudsman (brought in February 2023) concerned the landlord’s implementation of a grounds maintenance schedule. However, there is no evidence that this issue formed part of his complaint to the landlord which exhausted its complaints process in October 2022, and is under investigation here (this solely concerned the maintenance of the communal green space).
  3. Instead, the schedule implementation complaint was raised in November 2023 and responded to by the landlord at stage 1 the same month. Thereafter, there is some uncertainty around the progress of this complaint. In an email to the landlord of 16 February 2024, the resident expressed his dissatisfaction with its complaint response of 9 February 2024 (no copy provided to this Service). The landlord has advised the Ombudsman that the stage 2 investigation for this complaint was ‘halted’, but this Service understands that it was merely delayed and the February 2024 response constituted the landlord’s stage 2 response.
  4. While the resident had previously raised concerns about the implementation of the schedule to the Ombudsman, it was not until the matter exhausted the landlord’s complaints process that we could consider it further (in accordance with paragraph 42.a of the Scheme). Now that the landlord has issued its final response, the resident would need to decide whether he is satisfied with its position. He has not yet referred this complaint to the Ombudsman for further consideration since receiving the final response.
  5. In accordance with paragraph 41.a of the Scheme, this Service cannot investigate a complaint which has not been referred to us by someone who can use the Scheme. As a result, the issues around the implementation of the schedule are currently outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and are not considered further in this report.
  6. If the resident is dissatisfied with the landlord’s stage 2 response of February 2024 and would like the Ombudsman to consider the matter further, he should notify this Service as soon as possible, and within 12 months of the final response (in accordance with paragraph 42.b of the Scheme). We would then create a new case and progress the complaint as a separate matter under a new case reference.

Background

  1. The resident has been a secure tenant of the landlord, a local authority, since 2009. The property is a ground floor, one bedroom flat.
  2. Since at least March 2022 the resident was in contact with the landlord regarding the condition and lack of maintenance of the communal green areas. He raised several concerns including the areas not being mown short on a regular basis, the amount of undergrowth this had allowed to grow (which he said included mildly poisonous plants) and the need to remove rotten wooden planters.
  3. On 20 September 2022 the resident raised a complaint about the lack of grounds maintenance and the standard of the maintenance that had been carried out. He said there had only been minimal grounds maintenance that year, and that since 2017 the mowing and maintenance had gradually reduced each year. He also said that the areas that had been maintained were not cut short and a lot of undergrowth was left untouched. He asked that the landlord return the frequency and quality of the grounds maintenance to what it had previously been. He also asked to be compensated for all the previous years when the grounds maintenance was not carried out properly.
  4. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 6 October 2022 it said:
    1. The mowing had been partly carried out as a preliminary measure until the upcoming consultation with residents and the final local mowing regime agreement was confirmed. It upheld this element of the complaint and apologised for the incomplete mowing of the green areas.
    2. The gardeners would be mowing the grass as per the previous arrangements until the consultation was complete.
    3. It did not uphold the request for compensation as grounds maintenance work had been carried out since 2017 and, due to the way the charges were set up, residents did not currently pay the full cost of the service.
  5. The resident escalated his complaint to stage 2 on 20 October 2022. He reiterated his concerns about the standard and frequency of the ground maintenance since 2017 and gave specific instances of poor mowing in 2021 and 2022. As a result, he wanted the landlord to refund what he had paid for the grounds maintenance service during this period. While the landlord logged and acknowledged this stage 2 complaint, no response was issued.
  6. The resident confirmed that he wanted the Ombudsman to investigate this complaint in February 2023. He said the landlord had not been properly maintaining the communal grass areas which had caused them to be overgrown and full of ‘toxic’ plants which were a risk to residents’ health.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident has raised concerns about the grounds maintenance service dating back to 2017, but no formal complaint was raised about the issue until September 2022. It is important that complaints are brought to the attention of the landlord within a reasonable time of the problem occurring, usually within 12 months (reflected at paragraph 42.c of the Scheme). This is so that the landlord has an opportunity to resolve the issues whilst they are still ‘live’ and whilst the evidence is available to properly investigate them. As a result, this investigation is focused on events from September 2021 onwards (12 months before the formal complaint was made). Any events that happened before this date are considered for context but not formally assessed or determined as part of this investigation.
  2. The resident has also raised concerns about the amount of service charge levied for the grounds maintenance service. However, it is not for the Ombudsman to consider complaints about the level of service charge or any increase in a service charge (reflected at paragraph 42.d of the Scheme). Instead, these matters fall within the jurisdiction of the First Tier Tribunal. As a result, these matters are not considered further in this report, but this Service has investigated the landlord’s handling of the complaint about those issues.

Maintenance of the communal green space

  1. The landlord’s published grounds maintenance schedule says that grass will be cut throughout the year, when required, to maintain a height of 50 to 60mm. It says the normal grass cutting regime starts at the end of February, with fortnightly cuts from the end of May to the end of July. It says shrub and rose beds will be pruned throughout the summer period to ensure adjacent pathways, windows or doors are kept free from obstructions. It also says these areas will be maintained to be 95% free of weeds.
  2. The landlord has not provided any grounds maintenance work reports for the period September 2021 to 20 October 2022. However, based on the resident’s communications with the landlord and the concerns raised, the Ombudsman is satisfied that grounds maintenance works did take place during that time. It is the resident’s position that they were not as frequent or to the quality expected.
  3. Similarly, the landlord has not provided copies of its replies to the resident’s emails from March 2022 until he raised his complaint in September 2022. However, in some of the resident’s emails he refers to previous emails received from the landlord. Based on this, the Ombudsman is satisfied that the landlord was responding to the resident’s emails about the frequency and quality of the grounds maintenance.
  4. In response to the resident’s complaint the landlord sought information from the park service manager regarding why the mowing had only been partly carried out. It was reasonable for the landlord to make these enquiries and appropriate for it to rely on the information provided by them. A landlord is entitled to rely on information provided by its contractors in the absence of evidence to the contrary. The landlord did not fully explain why an upcoming review of the regime led to the mowing being only partly carried out, but it was appropriate and proportionate for it to uphold this element of the complaint and apologise.
  5. In his escalation request, the resident continued to raise concerns about the frequency of the grounds maintenance as well as the quality of the mowing and the impact this had on the green areas. The landlord did not issue a stage 2 response and it has not provided evidence that the green areas were returned to the original maintenance schedule as it said it would in its stage 1 response.
  6. Additionally, the Ombudsman has not seen evidence that any maintenance works carried out were in line with its published schedule. Without this evidence, the Ombudsman cannot reasonably conclude that the landlord maintained the green areas in line with the schedule. The landlord has also not provided evidence of responding to the resident’s concerns following the escalation. It has therefore not shown that it responded in line with standard industry practice. These failures caused the resident avoidable inconvenience as he continued to contact the landlord with concerns about the grounds maintenance and the state of the green areas.
  7. The landlord has provided evidence which shows the frequency of the grounds maintenance after the resident escalated his complaint. This shows that from April to November 2023 the grass was cut twice a month and then again in March 2024. The information also shows that, in June 2023 and January 2024, the shrubs and hedges were pruned. The landlord has provided copies of 10 inspection reports from May 2023 to March 2024 which say that the grass and hedges/shrubs were well maintained.
  8. Overall the landlord’s failures can be summarised as a failure to follow its grounds maintenance schedule during the period in question and to adequately communicate with the resident. Cumulatively these failings amount to maladministration.
  9. In view of this, the Ombudsman orders the landlord to apologise for the failings identified in this report and pay £300 compensation. This sum is in line with this Service’s published remedies guidance for failings which did not have a lasting impact on the resident. The Ombudsman also orders the landlord to write to the resident and confirm what steps it will take to monitor the grounds maintenance works and ensure the green areas are maintained in line with the agreed maintenance schedule.
  10. The Ombudsman notes that the resident believes the landlord should refund all grounds maintenance fees paid from 2017 onwards. However, the Ombudsman does not consider that the landlord needs to do so. As explained above, the Ombudsman has only considered the landlord’s actions from September 2021 onwards and it is not for this Service to determine the reasonableness of the charges. This Service would only consider whether the service charges include a charge for a service which has not been provided at all, rather than assessing whether or not the charges were reasonable for the level of service provided.
  11. Based on the available evidence the Ombudsman is satisfied that the landlord was managing the grounds maintenance to some extent during the relevant time. As such, there is no evidence to show the resident was charged for a service which was never provided. In the circumstances, it would not, therefore, be appropriate to order any refund of service charges.

Complaint handling

  1. Under the landlord’s complaints policy and the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code), landlords should issue a stage 1 response within 10 working days and a stage 2 response within 20 working days.
  2. In this instance, the resident raised his complaint on 20 September 2022 and the landlord issued its stage 1 response on 6 October 2022, 12 working days later. While this response was 2 days late, this was a short delay and there is no evidence of a significant impact on the resident or the outcome of the complaint.
  3. The resident escalated his complaint to stage 2 on 20 October 2022, so the landlord had until 17 November 2022 to issue its stage 2 response. However, the landlord has confirmed that no stage 2 response was issued as it thought the matter had been dealt with under a different reference. The landlord also confirmed that it did not contact the resident to inform him of this due to the confusion caused by the amount of correspondence about the issue.
  4. The landlord’s failure to issue a stage 2 response was unreasonable and not in keeping with the Code. Additionally, the landlord’s belief that the issues raised under this complaint had been dealt with under a different reference indicates a failure in its record keeping practices.
  5. Overall, the landlord’s failures can be summarised as a failure to adhere to the Code, adequately record and monitor the complaint, and adequately communicate with the resident. Cumulatively these failures amount to a maladministration as they led to avoidable inconvenience, and time and trouble to the resident as he continued to contact the landlord about the issues raised in his complaint.
  6. In view of this, the Ombudsman orders the landlord to apologise for the failings identified in this report and pay £75 compensation. This sum is in line with the Ombudsman’s published remedies guidance for failings which did not have an impact on the outcome of the complaint nor a lasting impact on the resident.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 41.a of the Scheme, the complaint about the implementation of the grounds maintenance schedule is outside the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s:
    1. Concerns about the maintenance of the communal green areas.
    2. Associated formal complaint.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this determination the landlord must provide this Service with evidence that it has:
    1. Apologised to the resident for the failures identified in this report. This written apology must be from a member of the landlord’s management team and should follow the Ombudsman’s apologies guidance on our website.
    2. Directly paid to the resident £375 compensation, comprised of:
      1. £300 for the time, trouble and inconvenience caused by its poor management of the grounds maintenance.
      2. £75 for its poor handling of the complaint.
    3. Written to the resident and confirmed what steps it will take to monitor the grounds maintenance works and ensure the green areas are maintained in line with the agreed maintenance schedule.