Hyde Housing Association Limited (202507686)

Decision
Case ID	202507686
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	Hyde Housing Association Limited
Landlord type	Housing association
Occupancy	Assured tenancy
Date	22 June 2026

Background

1. The resident lives in a third floor flat and has a young child who has disabilities. She complained to the landlord that regular lift breakdowns affected her day-to-day life.

What the complaint is about

2. The resident’s complaint is about how the landlord dealt with reports of lift breakdowns.
3. We have also considered how the landlord dealt with the resident’s complaint

Our decision (determination)

4. We have found:
   1. Reasonable redress by the landlord in how it dealt with the resident’s reports of lift breakdowns.
   2. Service failure by the landlord in how it dealt with the resident’s complaint.
5. We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

6. The landlord accepted there had been delays in fixing the lift. It apologised and said it would learn from the complaint. The compensation offered was reasonable.
7. There were slight delays in the landlord’s complaint responses at both stages of the complaints process.

 

Putting things right

Where we find service failure, maladministration, or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.

 

Orders

Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	Apology order The landlord must apologise in writing to the resident for the failures found in this report. The landlord must ensure: The apology is specific to the failures found in this report, meaningful, and empathetic. It has due regard to our apologies guidance.	No later than 20 July 2026

 

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our recommendations
We recommend the landlord reoffers the £200 compensation for complaint handling failures it offered if it has not already paid it to the resident. We have made our finding of reasonable redress on the basis that the landlord makes this payment

 

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
21 May 2024	The resident made a formal complaint about lift breakdowns. She said the lift broke down “every few days”, which meant she could not take her daughter to school or go shopping. She said she had called the landlord several times, but it had not dealt with the cause of the breakdowns.
7 June 2024	The landlord sent the resident its stage 1 response. It accepted there had been 8 callouts and said the lift doors were the main cause. It said it had also been out when the lift stopped due to a fire alarm, which was a safety measure. It said it did not uphold the complaint.
4 July 2024	In her request to escalate her complaint, the resident said there was still a problem with the lift.
13 August 2024	In its final complaint response, the landlord accepted it did not repair the lift at the “earliest opportunity”. It said specialist contractors inspected the lift on 9 August 2024 and did repairs the same day. It apologised and offered £200 compensation.
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident told us the lift breakdowns affected her and her child as it made it difficult to leave her flat. She said she had injured herself trying to carry her child up the stairs. She wanted a permanent repair.

 

What we found and why

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

Complaint	How the landlord dealt with the resident’s reports of lift breakdowns
Finding	Reasonable redress

What we have not investigated

8. The resident told us that she injured herself because of the lift breakdowns. It would be fairer, more reasonable, and more effective for her to make a claim for any injury caused. The courts are best placed to deal with this type of claim as they will have the benefit of independent advice to decide on the cause of any injury. We have not investigated this further. We can decide if a landlord should pay compensation for distress and inconvenience.

What we have investigated

9. The way in which the landlord deals with reports of lift breakdowns is set out in its lift management plan. This says it should attend all breakdowns as an emergency repair. Its repairs policy says it must attend emergency repairs within 4 hours and make faults safe within 24 hours.
10. It is unclear from the evidence provided who reported the lift faults at the resident’s block. However, the evidence shows 8 reports between 31 January and 10 May 2024:
    1. 31 January 2024. The contractor attended the same day. It repaired the lift push button and left the lift in working order.
    2. 22 February 2024. The contractor attended the same day. It found the lift “misused” and it needed to fit new parts, which meant it needed to return the next day. It fitted the parts the next day and left the lift in working order.
    3. 9 March 2024. The contractor attended the same day and found the lift out of order due to a faulty door. Its notes say it could not repair the lift that day. It is unclear when it repaired the lift.
    4. 2 April 2024. The contractor attended the same day and found a faulty lift door. Its notes say it re-aligned a part and left the lift in working order.
    5. 9 April 2024. The contractor attended the same day and found the lift was working. Its notes say a fire alarm triggered the fault.
    6. 12 April 2024. The contractor attended the same day and found the lift door out of alignment. Its notes say it did repairs and left the lift in working order.
    7. 29 April 2024. The contractor attended the same day and found the lift out of order. Its notes say it reset the lift and left it in working order.
    8. 10 May 2024. The contractor attended the same day and found no fault with the lift.
11. These records show the landlord responded reasonably to all the reports, as it attended the same day. On 6 out of 8 occasions, it fixed the lift on the same day. On another occasion, it returned to fix the lift the next day as it needed a new part.
12. We have not seen whether the landlord provided any communications to the residents when it attended each breakdown, especially when it could not fix the lift the same day. It would have been reasonable for it to do this.
13. Although the cause of the breakdowns appears to be varied, at least 3 related to the lift doors. Because of this, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to have investigated the cause after its contractors found a third fault related to the doors on 12 April 2024. However, it did not do this until after the resident escalated her complaint in July 2024. This was a failure by the landlord.
14. In her complaint on 21 May 2024, the resident explained that as she lived in a third floor flat with a child with disabilities, the lift breakdowns affected her day-to-day life. She said the lift had not worked properly since the fire service rescued someone from the lift “a few months” before. She said the landlord’s contractor reset the lift after each report but had not dealt with the cause of the breakdowns.
15. The landlord received a further report of a lift fault on 5 June 2024. Its notes say the fault related to the lift door.
16. After the landlord sent its complaint response on 7 June 2024, in which it said there had been no failures in its response to the reports, it responded to 3 further lift faults between 17 June and 3 July 2024. The resident asked the landlord to escalate her complaint on 4 July 2024 because she said it had not dealt with the cause of the problem.
17. On 30 July 2024 the landlord sent its engineer to investigate the cause of the breakdowns. It noted the problem was intermittent and “difficult to pin down”. Because of this it reasonably arranged for specialist lift engineers to attend on 9 August 2024 to do a “full technical survey”. We have not seen the survey report, but the landlord’s notes said the specialists did most adjustments to the lift on the day but would need to return to fit a new lift passenger communication device.
18. We accept the lift breakdowns were intermittent, making it difficult to find the cause. Because of this it was reasonable for the landlord to arrange for specialist engineers to do an inspection in August 2024. However, it could have arranged this in April 2024. That said, we have only seen evidence of 4 more reports of breakdowns after the complaint.
19. In its final complaint response on 13 August 2024, the landlord accepted it did not complete the lift repairs at the “earliest opportunity”. It said it should have communicated better and acted quicker. It said it had given feedback to the lift maintenance team about the failures. It apologised for the time it took to fix the lift and offered £200 compensation for delays, inconvenience, and time and effort.
20. In June 2026 the resident told us that since her complaint, the lift had “only broken down a few times”. She said although the lift was no longer a problem, the landlord did not deal with the situation properly at the time.
21. Overall, we have found the landlord’s final response was reasonable. It accepted there were failings in how it dealt with the reports of lift breakdowns and acknowledged it should have acted sooner. It reasonably apologised and said it had learned from the complaint. We acknowledge the inconvenience caused to the resident, but the amount of compensation offered is in line with our compensation guidance and was reasonable for a service failure which caused distress and inconvenience over a short duration.

Complaint	How the landlord dealt with the resident’s complaint
Finding	Service failure

22. The landlord has a 2 stage complaint process. It says it will acknowledge complaints within 5 working days. It will then respond at stage 1 within 10 working days, and at stage 2 within 20 working days. This is in line with our Complaint Handling Code (the Code).
23. The resident complained on 21 May 2024. It acknowledged 23 May 2024 but did not explain when she would receive a response, which it should have done to manage her expectations. It sent its complaint response on 7 June 2024, which was 11 days later and slightly outside its policy timescales.
24. The resident asked the landlord to escalate her complaint on 4 July 2024. It did not acknowledge this until 13 working days later, on 22 July 2024. This meant that when it sent its final response on 13 August 2024, although it was within its response timescale after the acknowledgement, it was 29 days after the resident’s escalation request. t
25. In line with our compensation guidance, there were failures by the landlord in its complaint handling of a short duration, which did not affect the overall outcome for the resident. In these circumstances, an apology would be a suitable remedy.

Learning

26. The landlord should ensure it escalates complaints promptly and gives information on when it will respond in line with its policy and the Code.

Knowledge and information management (record keeping)

27. There are some gaps in the repair records. A clear guide for repairs teams and operatives is likely to ensure contractors know what to record and that landlords can access it. The landlord may wish to review our Spotlight Report on Knowledge and Information Management.

Communication

28. We have not seen evidence that the landlord gave information to residents about the lift breakdowns. Effective communication ensures landlords manage expectations, even when delays occur, and how they can mitigate the impact of these. The landlord may wish to review our Spotlight Report on Repairing Trust.