Hyde Housing Association Limited (202104441)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202104441

Hyde Housing Association Limited

26 May 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 concerns how the landlord responded to the resident’s reports of leaks into the property and how it handled repairs to resolve the issue.

Background

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is a flat in a communal building
3. The resident experienced an issue of leaks into the property which he first reported to the landlord in February 2020. The landlord identified the source of the leak as the balcony from the property above. Work was raised to resolve the issue in March 2020.
4. On 11 November 2020, the resident wrote to the landlord and requested to raise a complaint into the matter. He described the elements of the complaint as:
   1. The leak had yet to be repaired and he had received poor communication from both the landlord and its contractor when requesting updates on the progress of the repairs.
   2. While he had been waiting for the work to be completed, the water damage in the property had worsened and one of the bedrooms was unable to be used.
5. A stage one complaint response was sent to the resident on 14 December 2020. The landlord apologised for the length of time it was taking to resolve the matter and the inconvenience that this had caused the resident and his family. It explained that its contractor had submitted a quote to replace the balcony in the property above, and once this had been approved, it would raise work orders for both the balcony and the remedial work required in the resident’s property.
6. The landlord then offered the resident £200 compensation, which it broke down as:
   1. £50 for the delay in acknowledging the complaint
   2. £50 for the delay in progressing the repair
   3. £50 for the distress and inconvenience caused
   4. £50 for the poor communications, time and trouble
7. The resident wrote to the landlord on 16 December 2020 and requested an escalation on the grounds that the work had yet to be completed and the compensation offer was inadequate.
8. The landlord wrote to the resident on 19 February 2021 and informed him that it had declined his escalation request. It also informed him that it had increased its compensation offer to £400, awarding an additional £200 for the delays in progressing the repairs.
9. The resident replied to the landlord on 25 February 2021 to state his dissatisfaction with its decision. He noted that not all of the elements of his complaint were addressed at stage one and the issue still remained outstanding.
10. The landlord agreed to resubmit the escalation request and wrote again on 19 March 2021 to confirm that the complaint had been escalated. A stage two complaint response was sent to the resident on 19 May 2021. The landlord informed him that:
    1. Work to replace the balcony had been completed and the contractor was arranging a water test to be carried out. Once the water test confirmed that there was no further water penetration, the landlord would complete the remedial work to the resident’s property.
    2. It apologised to the resident for its service failures in how it progressed the work and the poor customer service he experienced. It explained that it had arranged for a surveyor team leader to oversee the remaining work and post-work inspections.
    3. It had reviewed its compensation offer and had increased it to £550, which it broke down as:
       1. £50 for delay in acknowledging the complaint
       2. £50 for the poor communication and time and trouble taken
       3. £300 for the delay in progressing the repairs
       4. £150 for the distress and inconvenience caused
11. In a telephone call with this Service on 19 May 2021, the resident confirmed that the work to replace the balcony had been completed and that his outstanding issue of the complaint was that the compensation offered by the landlord was not sufficient and did not properly reflect the length of time the matter remained outstanding as well as the stress an inconvenience caused to his family in living with the leak.

Assessment and findings

12. In its complaint responses, the landlord acknowledged that it had not completed the repairs in a timely manner and that the resident received a poor level of communication. The landlord apologised, explained what steps it had taken internally to improve its procedures and offered £550 compensation for its service failures.
13. Where there are admitted failings by a landlord, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
14. The landlord acted fairly in acknowledging its mistakes and explaining what it did wrong. It put things right by apologising to the resident, awarding appropriate compensation, arranging the repair to the balcony and accepting to complete remedial works in the property. It looked to learn from its errors by appointing a single point of contact to oversee the repairs and by meeting with the contractor to agree a schedule of work to complete repairs.
15. The compensation payment was made in line with the Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance (which is available on our website). This suggests a payment of £250 to £750 in cases of considerable service failure or maladministration, but there may be no permanent impact on the complainant. As examples for when this level of payment should be considered, the guidance suggests:
    1. A complainant repeatedly having to chase responses and seek correction of mistakes, necessitating unreasonable level of involvement by that complainant
    2. Failure over a considerable period of time to act in accordance with policy – for example to address repairs; to respond to antisocial behaviour; to make adequate adjustments
16. In this case, it took more than a year for the issue to be resolved. Although there were some unavoidable delays as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, the landlord has stated that this was not acceptable. The landlord has also accepted that the level of customer service received by the resident from when the matter was first reported until a complaint was raised was also not satisfactory. A payment of £550 was therefore reasonable in the circumstances.
17. The resident has stated that he does not believe this this level of redress is sufficient. It would be useful to note that the Ombudsman’s awards of compensation are not intended to be punitive, and we do not offer damages in the way that a court might. In assessing an appropriate level of compensation, this Service takes account of a range of factors including any particular distress and inconvenience caused by the issues, the amount of time and effort expended on pursuing the matter with the landlord and the level of detriment caused by the landlord’s actions. Furthermore, the Ombudsman’s awards are generally moderate, taking into account the landlord’s need to make the most effective use of its limited resources as a social landlord for the benefit of all its residents.
18. Therefore, for the reasons set out above, the landlord has made an offer of redress to the resident which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily. The measures taken by the landlord to redress what went wrong were proportionate to the impact that its failures had on the resident.

Determination

19. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress to the resident in respect of how it responded to the resident’s reports of leaks into the property and how it handled repairs to resolve the issue which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the complaint.