Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (202327976)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202327976

Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust

30 April 2025

 

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 outstanding repairs.
  2. We have also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident has been the secure tenant of the property, which is owned by the housing association landlord, for about 10 years. She reports that she has several health problems including asthma.
  2. The resident reported various problems at the property in 2021 including damp and mould in the lounge. The landlord moved her family into temporary accommodation in November 2021 for works to be done. This included a new bathroom suite, a kitchen renovation, mould treatment and replacement of the front door.
  3. On her return to the property in around late December 2021 the resident told the landlord that its contractors had carried out some works, such as the kitchen renovation, poorly. She also said it had not installed the new bathroom as arranged. The landlord continued to carry out works after the family’s return, but the resident said these were also completed to a poor standard.
  4. The resident contacted the landlord in October 2022 to say it had still not completed some works it had agreed to carry out after her return to the property. The landlord visited in October 2022, agreed a schedule of works, and said contractors would complete them before the new year. However, the resident felt the contractors were doing a poor job.
  5. The resident complained on 12 December 2022. She repeated that the landlord had failed to carry out many of the agreed works. For example, she said the kitchen units were still incorrectly installed and the front door had not been replaced.
  6. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 21 December 2022 it upheld the complaint. It set out a schedule of works, including rectifying problems with the kitchen and bathroom and replacing the front door. It also specified works to address damp and mould.
  7. The landlord carried out works in early 2023 but, again, did not complete them to the resident’s satisfaction. She complained again on 7 August 2023, saying the landlord had failed to carry out repairs to a satisfactory standard. She said the contractors had damaged her appliances, installed kitchen units incorrectly, and the new bath had leaked through the ceiling and damaged her furniture. She also said it had communicated poorly.
  8. The landlord treated the second complaint as a request to escalate the first complaint to stage 2. In its stage 2 response of 9 October 2023 it again upheld the complaint. It said it had already carried out many of the agreed works and would carry out other works, such as replacing plaster damaged by the leak.
  9. In her referral to us in October 2023, the resident said the landlord had taken too long to carry out the works. She said some of the repairs were still not complete and she had to throw away furniture damaged by mould. She said she had waited in for appointments when contractors did not attend and the landlord’s failures had cost her £4,000 to £5,000.
  10. The landlord inspected the property in December 2023 and carried out works in early 2024. At that point, the resident wrote to us and said most of the work was done. However, she now says the problems continue. She says she would like the landlord to complete the repairs and compensate for for distress, inconvenience, lost work, and damaged belongings.

Assessment and findings

Reports of outstanding repairs

  1. The resident has raised concerns about the property over several years, but no formal complaint was raised until December 2022. In the interests of fairness, and considering the availability of evidence, this investigation is focused on events from late-2021. Historical issues are considered as contextual background to the current complaint, but are not assessed as part of this investigation.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy says repairs and maintenance must ‘be of high quality, offer value for money and sustain stock’. It says it will provide ‘prompt, efficient, cost effective and courteous service’ to residents. It says it will deal with routine repairs within 20 working days of being informed of a problem. We consider that all of the resident’s concerns could be handled as routine repairs as they were not emergency or urgent repairs.
  3. This, on the evidence, is not what happened during these events too. In fact, the landlord admitted as much in its stage 2 response in October 2023. It said, “We have identified areas of our job ordering process which for major work such as this, were not sufficiently controlled or detailed.” It said that it had implemented new guidelines to ensure that work “is more thoroughly described and specified”. This was an appropriate response to this failure.
  4. The landlord also repeatedly failed to meet its 20-working day repair timeframe. The resident first reported her concerns in late 2021 and some of the repairs were not completed at the time of the stage 2 response in October 2023. Indeed, as stated above, the resident continues to raise concerns.
  5. Following the resident’s initial reports, and the works identified and completed in November and December 2021, the resident raised her concerns about the poor and incomplete works. She says the contractors agreed to return and resolve the problems, but they did not do so. The contractors ultimately returned to install the bathroom in early 2022, after the family has moved back into the property. However, this was poorly done as a leak from the bathroom caused damage to the lounge below and the contractors returned in May 2022 to attend to a leak.
  6. The resident did not raise concerns with the landlord again until her complaint in December 2022. Therefore, the landlord was not on notice of some of the problems during most of 2022. After her complaint on 12 December 2022, the landlord arranged for a further inspection. It then issued its stage 1 response on 21 December 2022 which said that it would carry out works including:
    1. Remedying poor works in the kitchen.
    2. Remedying poor works in the bathroom which was leaking and damp.
    3. Fixing the toilet to the floor.
    4. Remedying damp in the living room
    5. Repairs to the front and back doors which were rotten and wet.
  7. This was an appropriate response. However, as some of the 2022 repairs were also in the 2021 list, this shows the landlord had already failed to meet its previous commitments for 12 months. While the landlord ‘upheld’ the complaint (which not a term we use) it failed to explain why the delays had occurred. It would have been appropriate to have done so, and to offer some form of financial redress. Its failure to do either meant its complaint response failed to acknowledge in a meaningful way the delays there had been to date. This amounts to maladministration and we have, therefore, ordered the landlord to pay compensation for the identified failings.
  8. Although the landlord said it would carry out the works without delay in its December 2022 complaint response, it did not do so. It completed the repairs slowly over the next 8 months. It replaced the back door in March 2023. In July 2023 the resident said she was “very happy” with the works which were nearly complete and only a few jobs, such as the front door and decorating, remained.
  9. However, in August 2023 the resident complained to the landlord again, saying that many works remained outstanding. In its stage 2 response in October 2023, the landlord said most of the works were now complete. It said it had repaired the leak in the bathroom, replaced taps and a shower screen, addressed damp in the downstairs toilet, and carried out repairs in the kitchen. It said the only outstanding works were significant plaster damage in the lounge caused by the leak from the bathroom and damp issues in the hall.
  10. It is clear that, by this time, the original repairs from December 2021 had been largely completed and the outstanding repairs had been added in 2023. However, the landlord took an unacceptable amount of time to complete its repairs, over 20 months. This clearly failed to comply with the repairs policy and was extremely poor handling of the residents reports of repairs.
  11. The landlord “upheld” the stage 2 complaint also. This time, it explained the delay in the works, saying “our job ordering process which for major work such as this, were not sufficiently controlled or detailed”. It said it had introduced new systems to ensure this did not happen again. Because of this, we have not ordered it to review its repairs process in this report.
  12. The landlord also agreed to redecorate parts of the property.  However, given the extent of its failures, it should also have offered compensation. The landlord’s feedback policy does not contain any guidelines for levels of compensation. For that reason, we have looked at our own guidance on remedies to determine a suitable compensation award. The extended failure to repair the property over a period of 20 months justifies a finding of severe maladministration.
  13. Our guidance says that compensation awards for severe maladministration may generally be upwards of £600. However, in this case, the landlord offered to redecorate areas of the property. This has a financial value and we have reduced our award in recognition of this. We have therefore ordered it to pay the resident £600.
  14. The landlord accepts that it was at fault, but says it has completed the repairs identified in 2021. It says outstanding works emerged during the period under investigation, such as damp and mould appearing in the hallway in 2023. For this reason, we have ended our investigation in October 2023, at the time of the stage 2 response and the resident’s referral to us. The landlord has not had the opportunity to investigate and respond to the more recent reports via its complaints process and it must do so before we investigate. If the resident wishes to pursue these matters further, she will need to complain formally to the landlord again. If she is not satisfied with its response, she can ask us to investigate again.
  15. As the works the resident originally complained about are now complete, we have not made an order requiring the landlord to complete a schedule of any outstanding works. However, in an effort to move matters forward and rebuild the landlord/tenant relationship, a recommendation is made for the landlord to do so.
  16. The resident says the landlord’s failings have cost her between £4,000 and £5,000. This is comprised of lost income caused by missing work for contractors to come, only for them not to attend, and property damage. We do not have sufficient evidence to order the landlord to reimburse the resident for these costs and it is not our role to do so. However, we have ordered it to consider any evidence she provides to prove lost income. We also ordered it to invite her to make a claim against its public liability insurance for damaged belongings

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s feedback policy (the policy) says it will catalogue and acknowledge complaints within 2 working days. It will provide a stage 1 response within 10 working days. It will acknowledge escalation requests within 5 working days and provide a stage 2 response within 15 working days more.
  2. The resident first complained on 12 December 2022 and the landlord responded on 21 December 2022, in line with its policy commitment. The resident did not ask to escalate her complaint to stage 2. Instead, she complained again in mid-August 2023, 8 months after receiving the first response. The landlord treated this as an escalation request and opened a stage 2 investigation. It says it did so because the subject matter of the complaint was similar to that of the December 2022 complaint.
  3. According to the policy, the landlord should not have done this. It says a complainant must ask to escalate a complaint to stage 2 within 10 working days of the stage 1 response. Even though there was overlap, it should have treated the August 2023 contact as a fresh complaint. However, its decision to treat it as an escalation request caused the resident no significant disadvantage.
  4. The landlord provided its stage 2 response in October 2023, 55 working days after the second complaint. This missed its policy deadline by 45 working days, which was a service failure. In line with our guidance on remedies, which says awards for service failure should be up to £100, we have ordered the landlord to pay the resident £100.
  5. On 8 February 2024 we issued the statutory Complaint Handling Code (the Code) which sets out how landlords must handle complaints. The new Code has applied since 1 April 2024. We have a duty to monitor compliance with it. We assess landlords using our Compliance Framework and take action where landlords do not meet the requirements of the Code. As a result, we have made no specific order about the landlord’s compliance with the Code.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was:
    1. Severe maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s reports of outstanding repairs.
    2. Service failure in the landlord’s handling of the formal complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord is ordered to provide us with evidence that it has:
    1. Paid the resident a total of £700 compensation comprising:
      1. £600 for its handling of her reports of outstanding repairs.
      2. £100 for its complaint handling.
    2. Invited the resident to:
      1. Claim on its public liability insurance for lost possessions.
      2. Provide evidence of lost income and, if received, compensate her for this loss.

Recommendation

  1. The landlord should complete works at the property as soon as possible, creating and providing the resident with a schedule of works.