Homes Plus Limited (202116484)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202116484

Homes Plus Limited (previously ,South Staffordshire Housing Association)

28 February 2022

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 reports of pests in her loft.

Background and summary of events

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. She lives in a semi-detached house. The properties either side of her are not owned by the landlord.
3. The resident advised the landlord in March 2021 that she had reported a pest infestation to pest services and that they had attended. She later explained that the pests were accessing her home through her neighbour’s property. A surveyor attended in May 2021 upon the landlord’s request. They recommended a four stage pest treatment, and follow on work as there were signs of a rat or squirrel infestation in the loft. The landlord says the treatment was completed in July 2021, and the follow on work in September 2021.
4. The resident raised a formal complaint to the landlord in May 2021 concerning its handling of the pest issue. She asked to be reimbursed for costs incurred from pest services, and for all follow on work to be completed. In its final complaint response, the landlord acknowledged its delays in completing repairs, and poor communication. It said it had fed this back to its repairs manager to identify improvements to prevent these mistakes from occurring in future. It asked the resident to provide evidence of her damaged belongings.
5. In the resident’s complaint to this Service, she said she wanted the landlord to reimburse her for her damaged belongings, and to compensate her for the distress and inconvenience caused, and for her time and trouble. She also said the pests had returned. The landlord has since confirmed that pest services attended twice in December 2021 to carry out treatment, and in January 2022 they found no further sign of activity.

Assessment and findings

6. The landlord’s neighbourhood management policy explains that if there is a pest infestation due to a structural defect, it will repair the defect and arrange treatment. The landlord’s compensation policy states it will offer compensation when it has failed to meet published standards (repair timescales), or for distress and inconvenience when it has not met a service standard. The customer is expected to provide reasonable evidence of damage or loss eg photographs.
7. On 13 April 2021 the resident told the landlord that the pests were entering via the neighbouring property. Accordingly, the landlord should have considered whether there were any entry holes requiring repair. However, there is no evidence that the landlord took any further action in this regard until 6 May 2021, when it referred to the matter to a surveyor. This was an unreasonable delay.
8. There was a further delay following the surveyor inspection as the landlord raised the order for the treatment works several weeks later, on 28 May 2021, with the pest control contractor attending over several appointments in June and July 2021. It is unclear when the final pest treatment was completed; although the landlord has provided evidence to show the final treatment was scheduled for 5 July, the resident told the landlord on this date that the treatment could not go ahead as the contractor attended unannounced and she had not cleared the loft space as she was unaware of the appointment.
9. The available evidence shows that there was a further delay in the landlord arranging the follow-on works to remove the loft insulation and block up entry holes as this order was not raised until 23 August 2021, with the works completed on 14 September 2021. It appears that the works did not fully resolve the situation as the pests returned, and resulted in a another series of treatment works. There is also evidence of the resident chasing the landlord on multiple occasions for updates on the works between May and September 2021, but no evidence that the resident’s calls were returned, suggesting that the landlord’s communication was inadequate.
10. In its complaint responses the landlord acknowledged some of its shortcomings, explained why they had occurred, apologised for them, and set out how it would ensure it did not repeat similar mistakes (by advising its team of where its service had fallen short of what was expected). Nonetheless, it failed to offer the resident compensation even though its compensation policy allows it to when it has failed to meet published or service standards. The landlord should have offered the resident compensation as its apology and reassurance that it had fed back its errors to its team were insufficient, and not proportionate to the impact its failings had on her. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance (published on our website) suggests that payments in the region of £50-£250 are suitable in situations in which there has been a service failure by the landlord which had an impact on the resident but was of short duration, such as repair delays. An order for compensation has therefore been made, as set out below.
11. The resident is dissatisfied that the landlord has not compensated her for her damaged items and says she was told a contractor would take photographs of the damaged items but did not do so. In its complaint responses the landlord asked the resident to provide evidence of the damaged items so it could investigate further. This was in line with the compensation policy and the landlord would not be expected to offer compensation unless it had proof that there was damage which it was responsible for. As such, the landlord’s response to this query was reasonable. It also reimbursed the resident for the costs she incurred from pest services which was appropriate given that its policy is that it will arrange treatment works where pests are entering due a structural defect.
12. The landlord has told this Service that it has not identified any entry holes other than the cross-flow ventilation space which is standard for the property type and cannot be blocked as it will impede ventilation. However, this contradicts what the landlord told the resident in its stage two response ie that it had identified where the entry holes were and that it had repaired these holes on 14 September 2021. An order has therefore been made to address this matter, as set out below.

Determination (decision)

13. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s reports of pests in her loft.

Orders and recommendations

14. The landlord is ordered to do the following within four weeks of the date of this report:
    1. Pay the resident £250 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of her reports about the pest infestation.
    2. Confirm how the pests were entering the loft and if this was through the ventilation space, then it should consider what action can be taken to ensure that pests cannot enter and the loft is adequately ventilated. The landlord should confirm its position on this in writing to both the resident and this Service.
15. It is recommended that the resident provides the landlord with photographs of the damaged items within the next four weeks if she has not already done so.