London Borough of Hackney (202508265)

Background

1. The resident lives in a 2-bed flat in an 18-storey block with her autistic son.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of antisocial behaviour (ASB) from a neighbour.

Our decision (determination)

3. We found that:
   1. There was maladministration in the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of antisocial behaviour (ASB) from a neighbour.
   2. The landlord had made a reasonable offer of redress in relation to its complaint handing failures.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

Antisocial behaviour (ASB)

4. Although the landlord had acknowledged delays, record keeping and communication failings in its stage 2 complaint response, it did not show learning from the complaint and problems with communication and delays have persisted.

Complaints handling

5. The landlord acknowledged that there were delays in responding at stage 1 of its complaints procedure, and it had offered fair redress.

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.

Recommendations

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

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

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.

For fairness, we have increased the scope of the investigation beyond the landlord’s stage 2 complaint response. This is so we can fully consider the landlord’s handling of the substantive issues raised in the complaint.

What we have not investigated

The resident has described the impact of the ASB on her mental health. We do not dispute or look to diminish the impact that the resident says the ASB has had on her health. However, we cannot decide matters such as causation, liability, or damages as these are matters best resolved through the courts. 

In the interest of fairness, the scope of this investigation is limited to the issues raised during the resident’s formal complaint. This is because the landlord needs to be given a fair opportunity to investigate and respond to any reported dissatisfaction with its actions prior to the involvement of this Service. Any new issues that have not been subject to a formal complaint can be addressed directly with the landlord and progressed as a new formal complaint if needed.    

The resident would like a permanent move to another of the landlord’s properties. Part VI of the Housing Act 1996 includes transfer housing request requested by local authority residents. It sets out the circumstances where it must give reasonable preference to certain applicants, when making decisions about offers of property.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) can investigate complaints about applications for rehousing that fall under Part VI. Should the resident look to pursue this, she should contact the LGSCO to ask that they investigate this aspect of her complaint.

6. The process of investigating ASB can be frustrating to residents who may feel that a landlord has taken too long to progress their case or has failed to consider historical incidents in its response. However, the landlord must follow its policies and procedures and legal obligations in responding to reports of ASB.
7. Responsibility for any ASB lies with the perpetrator, and not the landlord. The landlord must obtain evidence and decide what action to take dependent on the evidence gathered and the nature of the incident reported.
8. Consequently, our role is not to consider whether ASB has occurred or conclude what actions the landlord should have taken. These judgments are for the landlord and not the Ombudsman. However, we can look at how a landlord has responded to the reports it has received, and whether it followed its policies and procedures and acted reasonably in all the circumstances of the case. This means that there can be cases where ASB is ongoing but also where the landlord has done all that it can based on the information it has.
9. The landlord’s ASB policy says that it will use a victim-centred approach when assessing the impact of ASB. This follows the recommended approach detailed in the ASB Crime & Policing Act statutory guidance which says that the welfare, safety, and well-being of victims must be the main consideration at every stage of the process. The landlord has shown that it undertook regular risk assessments with the resident, to assess the impact the ASB was having on her and her household. This resulted in a referral to a local ASB Advice Panel in May 2025 which considers high risk cases. These steps were in line with good practice and the landlord’s policy.
10. The landlord did not contact the resident within the timescales in its ASB policy in response to her first report in September 2024. However, when it did respond, it acted in line with its policy by writing to the alleged perpetrator and arranging a visit to their home in October 2024.
11. That said, it did not take further steps to address the ASB between October 2024 and February 2025, even though the resident continued to chase this with the landlord and report ASB incidents. This was unsatisfactory. The guidance says that early intervention can be an effective tool in managing ASB, by providing a clear message that landlords will not tolerate ASB. This was a missed opportunity to address the issues with her neighbour at an early stage.
12. The statutory guidance provides examples of early intervention measures other than verbal or written warnings. These include mediation, acceptable behaviour contracts, and community protection warnings. The evidence provided by the landlord does not support that it considered these interventions.
13. There was a delay in passing the ASB case to the specialist ASB team. The resident described in her correspondence with the landlord that she had approached the specialist ASB team initially who had directed her to her housing officer, and her housing officer had then directed her to the ASB team. This was unsatisfactory and would have caused frustration to the resident who did not know who best to direct her reports to.
14. Further, there was a lengthy delay between the housing officer saying they would refer the resident’s case to the specialist ASB team, and this being actioned. As no section took ownership of the case for this period, this left the resident without a service. Where the landlord makes a request to escalate the case, there should be procedures in place to ensure that the resident continues to receive support, pending the case being allocated.
15. The landlord also recognised a delay in referring the case to the multi-agency ASB advice panel. The high scoring risk assessment in January 2025 should have triggered this process, however it was not until May 2025 that the ASB team made the referral, which was unsatisfactory.
16. When the case was passed to the ASB team on 20 February 2025, the landlord acted in line with its policy by allocating a named officer to the resident, who contacted her to discuss her reports. It is understandable that the landlord could not share all the action it had taken with the neighbour, this would be in line with data protection restrictions and its policy. We have not seen evidence, however, that it agreed formal ‘action plans’ with the resident, with action points reviewed periodically. This would have helped to manage the resident’s expectations and would have reassured her that it was taking her reports seriously.
17. Further, the resident has said that she had to constantly chase for updates with her case. We have noted that the evidence provided shows that the landlord had given assurances to provide updates to the resident, but when this did not happen, the resident was put to time and effort in following this up.
18. For example, in June 2025 the landlord said that it would link in with the building management team to obtain any CCTV footage, but we have not seen evidence that it updated the resident in response to this. In May 2025, it said it would update the resident following a proposed meeting with her neighbour, but it did not do so until June 2025, after the resident chased twice for a response. This was not in keeping with its policy which says that it will ensure that residents are kept up to date on the progress with her case or confirm all developments and agreement in writing.
19. It was reasonable for the landlord to try and help the resident to activate the NoiseApp as this is one of the most effective ways to collect evidence of alleged noise nuisance. The NoiseApp is used throughout the social housing sector as a tool to record noise nuisance on a resident’s mobile phone. It was also right for the landlord to provide an alternative means of the resident recording the noise, in diary sheets, when she continued to be unable to use the app.
20. However, there were delays in progressing this, which would have delayed evidence gathering of noise nuisance. The resident was first provided with a link to the NoiseApp in November 2024. She reported problems with accessing it in December 2024 and was given advice and later passed to the landlord’s support team, but there was a disagreement between the landlord and the resident as to the outcome of this and in the absence of contemporaneous evidence, we cannot make a finding. However, the issues with the NoiseApp were not resolved, and it was not until August 2025 that the landlord referred the matter to its noise team so that recording equipment could be installed in the resident’s home.
21.  The resident had informed the landlord that she had contacted the police and had crime reference numbers. Therefore, it would have been reasonable to see evidence of the landlord linking in with the police following the report or discussing it with the resident further. Such information can be vital in aiding a landlord’s own investigations and for considering the steps it can take for both the resident and the alleged perpetrator.
22. There were other steps the landlord could have taken to investigate the noise reports. It could have spoken with other tenants in the block and issued letters asking its tenants to be mindful of noise and encouraging any witnesses of ASB to report the issues. It is not clear from the evidence provided that the landlord had done so. These actions would have followed the landlord’s ASB policy.
23. The resident has said that as an outcome she would like the landlord to take legal action against the neighbour. Landlords need to have a robust case to meet the evidential threshold for legal proceedings against a resident. Further, courts will need to be satisfied that legal action is a last resort and that landlords have exhausted other non-legal interventions before taking court action. It can therefore take time to gather evidence of ASB, and if legal action is not successful because a court is not satisfied that the evidential threshold is met, there can be a reputational impact on the landlord as well as costs implications.
24. In its complaint response, the landlord accepted that its handling of the resident’s reports was poor and not in line with its policy. It acknowledged that there were delays in acting, and poor record keeping which meant that it did not keep the resident updated. The landlord offered compensation of £450 for these failings. It awarded a further £320 for ongoing recognised failings on 14 November 2025.
25. Where the landlord has accepted that there were faults in his handling of the issues, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily. We consider 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.
26. Although the landlord had offered the resident further compensation in November 2025, we are unable to find that this is reasonable redress in the circumstances. This is because firstly, the redress was not fairly offered during the landlord’s complaint procedure to resolve the issue. Secondly, there were ongoing failings and while the landlord had acknowledged this in its stage 2 response, it did not show how it had learned from outcomes.
27. In not providing this information, we cannot conclude that the landlord took sufficient steps to prevent the failures happening again in future. The resident has continued to raise concerns about lack of communication, and poor management of her case. The impact of its poor information handling caused time, trouble, and distress to the resident.
28. For this reason, we find there to have been maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s ASB reports. Although we have not ordered the landlord to pay further compensation to the resident, we have ordered it to take further steps to put things right.

29. There were delays in responding to the resident’s stage 1 complaint. However, the landlord acknowledged this at stage 2 and offered £30 compensation for the resident’s time and trouble.
30. There was also a delay responding to the resident’s stage 2 complaint, but the landlord acted in line with its policy by informing the resident in advance, giving reasons for the delay, extending the deadline by no more than 10 days and providing our details.
31. We therefore find that the landlord had acknowledged complaint handling failings at stage 1, but had apologised and offered compensation, and that this was a reasonable offer of redress which satisfactorily resolves this aspect of the complaint.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

32. Landlords should clearly record ASB action plans and diarise dates for review, to ensure that it follows up tasks promptly, and in doing so manages resident expectations.

Communication

33. Landlords should also ensure that they keep residents up to date with the progress of their ASB case, staying connected with them even where updates may be delayed, and confirming with them when a case is opened and closed.