Hyde Housing Association Limited (202200445)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202200445

Hyde Housing Association Limited

5 November 2024

 

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 request for repairs to mortar.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident has been a secure tenant of the landlord since 2009. The property is a 2 bedroom maisonette and the landlord is a housing association.
  2. The resident has raised a number of concerns about the landlord’s service over the years, which have been the subject of separate complaints. A number of these have been determined, or are awaiting investigation, by this Service, and are not addressed within this report. In particular, it should be noted that an associated complaint regarding draughts following window and door replacements is being dealt with under separate case reference 202404052.
  3. The resident reported that mortar under windows needed repairing on 5 November 2021 as there was a draught. An engineer attended on 3 December 2021 but was unable to complete the repair and another appointment was made for 14 January 2022.
  4. On 11 January 2022 the resident cancelled the appointment. She said she had made 4 telephone calls in order to rebook, but had been unable to speak with anyone in property services. She asked for someone to confirm receipt of her email and for a new appointment on a Monday or Friday. The landlord told the resident on 17 January 2022 that it had made another appointment for Monday 31 January 2022 between 1pm and 6pm.
  5. The resident emailed the landlord on 20 January 2022 and explained she had made 5 telephone calls and sent 1 email in order to get a response, and had had to raise a formal complaint. Instead of the appointment made, she asked for a morning appointment on a Monday or Friday, and provided details of when she would not be available.
  6. The resident chased the landlord for a response to her request to reschedule the 31 January 2022 appointment, on 27 January 2022. It replied the same day and said an engineer had attended the day before, but had been refused entry. The resident explained that the engineer that came said it was there to do electrical work which was not needed. Therefore, the engineer had been sent by the landlord in error.
  7. On 1 February 2022, the resident notified the landlord that, despite cancelling the 31 January 2022 appointment, an engineer had attended and it was therefore recorded as no access.
  8. The resident contacted the landlord on 1, 3 and 4 February 2022 as she had had no acknowledgement of her complaint or a stage 1 response. She said she had asked 11 times for the repair to be done and reiterated that an engineer attended on 26 January 2022 with no notice, to carry out an electrical repair that was not needed. She asked again for a morning repair appointment and for her complaint to be escalated to stage 2.
  9. On 7 February 2022 the landlord explained the nearest date available that met her requirements was 11 March 2022 between 8am and 1pm and the resident replied by asking if this was the best the landlord could do and referred to the issues she had had arranging an appointment. The landlord explained that due to her availability it was restricted but it had noted to contact her in the event of a cancellation. It also said her formal complaint had not been allocated to a resolution officer yet as there was a backlog and formal complaints were taking slightly longer than usual to action; so, it could not say who was looking into it.
  10. An engineer attended on 11 March 2022 and the landlord’s records say the resident explained where there was a draught and the engineer raked out the area, applied foam and pointed the area.
  11. The landlord acknowledged the stage 1 complaint on 27 May 2022 and said the initial complaint had been considered informally. It advised the resident on 21 July 2022 that it needed more time to consider the complaint and it would respond by 4 August 2022.
  12. On 27 July 2022, an engineer attended to address a new issue the resident had reported, but while there, it also checked the work that had been carried out to repair the mortar. The resident was not sure whether the March 2022 repair would prevent a draught as it was not Winter, but the landlord’s notes record the engineer was satisfied with the work.
  13. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 12 August 2022. Although the repair was done in March 2022, it referred to the patching up of rendering taking place in July 2022. It went on to say “the Housing Ombudsman, they advised us that you had made 12 requests for an appointment and requested a formal complaint on 17 January 2022. From what I can see, this was raised as an informal complaint.” It did not uphold the complaint.
  14. The resident asked for her complaint to be escalated to stage 2 the same day.
  15. Following the Ombudsman’s further intervention in November 2022, the landlord issued a stage 2 response on 17 January 2023 and upheld the complaint. It explained that it had not done so at stage 1 because it thought the focus was on the resident saying there had been 12 missed appointments, rather than 12 attempts to make an appointment. It apologised for the delay in responding and offered compensation of £350 (£150 for the handling of the complaint, £100 for the handling of booking an appointment for an inspection, and £100 for the distress and inconvenience caused).

Assessment and findings

Landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for repairs to mortar

  1. Upon receiving the resident’s request for mortar repairs, the landlord made an appointment for an engineer to attend 20 working days later. While it attended within the timescales set out in its Responsive Repairs Operational procedure, it was unable to complete the repair within that timescale. Although another appointment was agreed with the resident, it is from this point that issues arose.
  2. It took the landlord a further 3 months to carry out the necessary repair, during which time the resident made a number of attempts to rearrange the appointment to a suitable time. There were also 2 occasions when engineers attended when they were not supposed to. The evidence shows the resident had difficulties speaking with someone and getting a prompt response from the landlord, and this clearly led to her increasing frustration.
  3. To recognise its shortcomings in relation to the substantive repair, the landlord offered the resident £100 for its handling of booking an appointment for an inspection and £100 for the distress and inconvenience caused. There was a delay in the mortar being repaired, and the Ombudsman appreciates the resident had to chase for the appointment to be rearranged, but it also accepts the landlord was restricted by the resident’s limited availability.
  4. Overall, the delay was short-lived and the repair needed was minor, so the delay caused limited inconvenience to the resident. The £200 compensation offered sufficiently recognises the modest impact the landlord’s poor service had on the resident and it is in line with this Service’s remedies guidance. Therefore, it is the Ombudsman’s view that the redress already offered by the landlord was reasonable in the circumstances.

Landlord’s complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s Complaints and Compensation Policy Statement at the time said if a customer wanted it to “put things right with a minimum of fuss when it is clear what has gone wrong, they may choose the informal complaint route”. For example re-booking a missed appointment or completing an outstanding repair. In that situation contact would be made with the customer within one working day and an answer given within 5 working days.
  2. It goes on to say that a customer could request the matter be dealt with as a formal complaint, or it would escalated to such, if it was not suitable for an informal resolution. The landlord would aim to respond to a complaint at stage 1 within 10 working days and if the customer escalates the matter to stage 2, a response would normally be issued within 20 working days.
  3. In this case, the resident wanting to rebook an appointment was certainly something that could have been addressed as an informal complaint. However, there is no evidence of the landlord contacting the resident within one working day as it should have done so if it was attempting to address matters informally. However, it then offered the resident a new appointment within 5 workings days of her saying she was unhappy on 11 January 2022. Therefore, the landlord did attempt to resolve the complaint informally, as it said.
  4. However, the resident then made it clear she wanted to escalate her complaint formally and although the landlord explained it had a backlog of complaints, it did not provide revised timescales for when she could expect a response. As her expectations were not managed, this led to her referring her complaint to this Service for assistance.
  5. It took the landlord from January to 27 May 2022 to acknowledge the formal complaint, which represents a significant and unacceptable delay. Having then told the resident she could expect a response by 4 August 2022, it failed to adhere to that deadline, inevitably adding to her frustration at how things were being handled. This indicated to the resident that the landlord was not taking her complaint seriously and was not focused on finding a timely resolution. The landlord’s stage 1 response then failed to acknowledge that there had been a delay in addressing the formal complaint, which was a missed opportunity to apologise and put things right.
  6. There was then a further delay in the landlord responding at stage 2, despite being prompted by this Service. In addition, although the landlord accepted a shortfall in its service at stage 2, it gave misinformation about its stage 1 investigation which directly contradicted the contents of the stage 1 response. The evidence indicates that the landlord had correctly understood the stage 1 complaint, but had simply failed to address it until stage 2.
  7. The landlord’s Complaints and Compensation Policy Statement says the landlord may consider paying compensation where it failed to deliver a service to the advertised standard, or in recognition of the time and trouble taken by the customer to make their complaint as well as for distress and inconvenience.
  8. While the landlord did ultimately acknowledge that its complaint handling fell short, its offer of £150 did not take in to account all the failures identified in this report. As a result, it did not sufficiently recognise the months of delay at both stages 1 and 2, as well as it not addressing the crux of the complaint within the stage 1 response.
  9. Therefore, a finding of maladministration is made and the level of compensation has been increased from £150 to £350, in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaints about the resident’s request for it to repair mortar at the property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in relation to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within the next four weeks the landlord should:
    1. Apologise to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
    2. Pay the resident £350 compensation for its poor complaint handling (inclusive of the £150 compensation offered for complaint handling during the complaint process).

Recommendation

  1. If it has not already done so, the landlord is recommended to pay the resident the £200 compensation offered during the complaint process for the handling of the mortar repairs (in addition to the £350 ordered above). This offer recognised genuine elements of service failure and the reasonable redress finding is made on that basis.