Hyde Housing Association Limited (202226674)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202226674

Hyde Housing Association Limited

29 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:
    1. Concerns about a thermostat.
    2. Associated formal complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is the assured tenant of the landlord, a housing association, at the property, a 2-bedroom flat. The tenancy agreement states that the property has full gas central heating for which the landlord is responsible.
  2. In late November 2022, the landlord’s contractor installed a new gas boiler and thermostat at the property. Shortly after, the resident wrote to the contractor stating that the “Boiler Plus” regulations (Boiler Plus) said that new gas boilers must have one of a range of energy saving technologies and he wanted to know which his boiler had. In December 2022, the contractor replied saying that the boiler was fitted with a “smart control” thermostat which made it compliant with Boiler Plus.
  3. The resident responded to the contractor the same day saying that the thermostat was not smart. In the contractor’s response, it confirmed that the thermostat and boiler complied with Boiler Plus. The resident continued to dispute this and submitted a complaint about the service he had received from the contractor to the landlord. He said they had both provided a substandard service and he wanted a smart thermostat.
  4. In January 2023, the landlord and resident communicated about the boiler and thermostat. The landlord asked the boiler manufacturer if they complied with Boiler Plus and the manufacturer said it did. The landlord contacted the resident and said that, in its view, this was the end of the matter and he would have to direct any further queries to the manufacturer.
  5. The resident was not satisfied with this response and contacted the Ombudsman. Following this Service’s intervention, the landlord issued a stage 1 response on 13 April 2023, reiterating that the boiler complied with Boiler Plus and refusing to change it. However, it said that it had delayed in responding to the complaint and therefore offered £50 compensation for the delay.
  6. The resident escalated his complaint on 16 April 2023, saying that the contractor had misled him and the landlord had been dismissive of his complaint. In the landlord’s response of 20 April 2023, it said it would not escalate the complaint as no new evidence had been provided and it would not change its position.
  7. The resident then asked this Service to investigate and said he wanted a smart thermostat installed to make his boiler Boiler Plus compliant.

Assessment and findings

The resident’s concerns about a thermostat

  1. The Boiler Plus regulations were introduced by the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in April 2018. They say that all new gas combination boilers installed after this date must be at least 92% efficient. To this end, they must have 1 of 4 efficiency measures. These are flue gas heat recovery, weather compensation, load compensation or a smart thermostat.
  2. The resident asked the contractor in an email of 28 November 2022 to tell him which measure the new boiler had. It is clear that he phoned the contractor on at least one occasion in early December 2022 asking for the same information and that it carried out internal enquiries to find the answer to his question
  3. The contractor replied on 8 December 2022, 8 working days after the initial request. This was within an acceptable timeframe as there was no undue delay in its response. A member of the contractor’s accounts staff told the resident that the boiler complied with Boiler Plus because it had a smart thermostat.
  4. The resident responded that day saying that his thermostat was not smart. A smart thermostat is one which can be programmed via a smartphone. The employee then said the boiler was, nonetheless, compliant with Boiler Plus.
  5. Although the contractor was somewhat confused in its response, it is clear that it was trying to help. The person the resident spoke to was not a boiler expert and their initial response was incorrect. The thermostat was not smart but they corrected the information the same day. Their second response, that the boiler complied with Boiler Plus was, on the evidence seen by this Service, correct. The boiler has load compensation, one of the 4 efficiency measures required by Boiler Plus. The landlord did not, therefore, have to install a smart thermostat. Boiler Plus requires boilers to meet only one of the 4 measures, not all of them.
  6. The resident was not satisfied with this response and complained to the landlord on 8 December 2022. When investigating his concerns in January 2023, the landlord contacted the boiler manufacturer to check that the boiler complied with Boiler Plus. The manufacturer said that it did because it had load compensation. The landlord told the resident this in January 2023 and said that, if he wanted to dispute the matter, he should do so with the manufacturer.
  7. By contacting the manufacturer, the landlord demonstrated that it took the resident’s concerns seriously and explored different avenues to fully investigate his submissions and find a satisfactory resolution. It then promptly communicated the outcome of its enquiries to the resident, in an effort to allay his concerns, which was reasonable.
  8. The resident continued to press for a replacement thermostat, saying that the boiler had a Time Proportional and Integral control and not a load compensation control and therefore did not comply. However, given that the manufacturer had confirmed that the boiler and thermostat unit was compliant, it was reasonable for the landlord to rely on that expert opinion, and reiterate its position to the resident accordingly.
  9. The resident said in his stage 2 complaint that he considered the landlord’s suggestion that he should contact the manufacturer if he wished to discuss the matter further to be “unprofessional”. However, in the circumstances, the Ombudsman considers that it was a reasonable approach. The resident often expressed himself directly in correspondence with the landlord and it is, therefore, understandable that the landlord’s responses were occasionally also direct. The landlord’s language was not inflammatory but made it clear that the matter, or its involvement in it, was at an end.
  10. In the landlord’s stage 1 response, it said that, although its contractor had initially wrongly stated that the meter was smart, it corrected this the same day to say it was compliant with Boiler Plus. It said that, as this was the case, it did not agree that there had been any service failure.
  11. In the circumstances, this response was appropriate. Although the contractor did make an error, it corrected it as soon as this was pointed out. Further, it is significant that the main point the contractor sought to make, which was that the boiler and thermostat together complied with Boiler Plus, was correct. As this was the case, it did not need to provide a smart thermostat as the resident wished. The resident did not agree with this message but, on the evidence, the contractor was justified in giving it.
  12. The resident stated in his escalation request that the thermostat was “not adequate for my use” and that there were smart thermostats that cost about the same that would save him money. He said the government introduced Boiler Plus to save energy and that giving him a smart meter would do this. While appreciating the resident’s concerns about the financial cost and environmental impact of energy waste, this does not create an obligation on the landlord to meet his requests and go beyond its requirements (to comply with Boiler Plus, which it has). As a result, there is no evidence that the landlord failed to provide a reasonable standard of service, so the Ombudsman makes a finding of no maladministration.

The associated formal complaint

  1. The landlord accepted that it had made complaint handling errors and offered the resident £50 in recognition of this failure. The Ombudsman has therefore considered whether this redress was adequate and appropriate in the circumstances.
  2. The landlord’s complaints procedure says it will acknowledge complaints within 5 days of receipt and provide a stage 1 response within a further 10 working days. It says a complaint is an expression of dissatisfaction no matter how made.
  3. The resident complained to the landlord on 18 December 2022. There is no record of an acknowledgement being sent. This was a service failure as the landlord failed to comply with its policy and the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
  4. The resident chased the landlord for a response on 18 December 2022 and 6 and 17 January 2023, referring explicitly to his “complaint”. However, the landlord appears to have continued to treat his complaint as an information request and not to have referred the matter to its complaints team. This was inappropriate.
  5. The landlord told the resident on 19 January 2023 that his boiler complied with Boiler Plus but only provided him with a complaint response after the Ombudsman’s intervention. This was poor service. It eventually provided a complaint response on 13 April 2023, 86 working days after the complaint, which constitutes an unreasonable delay.
  6. The landlord acknowledged its error in the stage 1 response and offered the resident £50 in recognition of it. However, in the view of this Service, because of the length of the delay, this offer did not adequately recognise the delay or the impact caused to the resident. Although it had explained that the boiler was compliant with Boiler Plus in January 2023, the resident waited a further 3 months for a resolution. This was understandably frustrating for him and, for that reason, an order for a slightly increased level of compensation is made.
  7. The resident also believes the landlord should have escalated his complaint to stage 2 when he asked it to do so on 16 April 2023. The landlord’s policy says it will make a decision on whether to escalate a complaint on the individual facts of each case. In this case, it refused on the basis that the resident had provided no new evidence so there was no reason to do so.
  8. The resident made several points in his escalation request. He repeated that the contractor had misled him in its initial response and said the landlord had taken an unprofessional approach in referring him to the manufacturer in January 2023. He also said that the engineer who had installed the boiler in November 2022 had not known what he meant by the Boiler Plus regulations and this was dangerous.
  9. The resident had already raised the first point in his original complaint and the landlord had responded at stage 1. He had provided no new evidence that could have led to a different response so it may have been reasonable for the landlord to decline the escalation request on that basis. However, the other 2 points the resident raised were inherently linked to the original complaint but addressed specific issues which had not been addressed by the landlord at stage 1.
  10. It would, therefore, have been appropriate for the landlord to do this by considering the points, and confirming its position, via a stage 2 response. It’s failure to do so meant that it did not take the opportunity of the complaints process to resolve the resident’s concerns at the earliest opportunity. Together with the delays in the stage 1 response, these failings amount to maladministration and an associated order is made for the landlord to pay a further £100 compensation, in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was:
    1. No maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s concerns about a thermostat.
    2. Maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the associated formal complaint.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of this decision, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £150 compensation, inclusive of the £50 already offered, for the identified failings in its complaint handling.