London Borough of Havering Council (202340938)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202340938

Havering Council

6 June 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 resident’s reports of antisocial behaviour (ASB) and noise nuisance by a neighbour.
  2. We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident is the secure tenant of the property and the landlord is a council. We distinguish between the council acting in its landlord function (by referring to ‘the landlord’) and its wider involvement with ASB cases (by referring to ‘the council’).
  2. The property is an upstairs flat in a small residential block. The resident of the flat below is referred to as ‘the neighbour’. The resident records that she has various nervous and physical health concerns, which she attributes to the stress caused by these events.
  3. The resident has occasionally reported noise and ASB from the neighbour’s flat since 2018. In June 2023, she told the landlord the neighbour often came in drunk late at night and listened to loud music. She said this had been going on for years and would often last all night. She said that, when she asked the neighbour to stop, they would be abusive.
  4. The resident continued to make similar reports throughout the remainder of 2023 and early 2024. The landlord suggested she completed noise diary sheets. In December 2023, she provided completed diary sheets and several videos of incidents and the landlord then sent a warning letter to the neighbour. The resident said this letter had no effect on their behaviour.
  5. The resident complained formally to the landlord on 16 December 2023. She said she had sent videos and diary sheets and the landlord had taken no meaningful action to control the neighbour’s behaviour. She said this was making her ill.
  6. In the landlord’s stage 1 response of 4 January 2024 it accepted it had failed to respond adequately to the resident’s concerns as no housing officer had been allocated to her address. It said a housing officer was now in place and had asked for noise monitoring equipment (NME) to be installed. It also suggested she should call the police if she experienced problems in future.
  7. The resident responded the same day saying the police would not be interested in a noisy neighbour. She continued to report noise and, on 5 February 2024, she made a further complaint. The landlord refused to open a further investigation as it was already investigating her previous complaint and would respond shortly.
  8. The landlord installed NME at the property in late February or early March 2024. It reviewed the evidence from the NME in April 2024 and found that it showed evidence of noise related ASB. The council issued a community protection warning (the warning) under the Antisocial Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014 on 6 June 2024.
  9. The resident continued to report ASB by the neighbour throughout the remainder of 2024. She was not happy with the landlord’s response to her concerns and, in October 2024, approached the council for further action. It said that, while there was evidence of ASB, this was the landlord’s investigation and it would have to decide.
  10. In November 2024 we wrote to the landlord asking it to provide a stage 2 response to the resident’s complaint. On 15 November 2024, the resident made another complaint about the landlord and the service she had received from her housing officer. She said they had failed to deal with her reports of noise and had been rude to her.
  11. The landlord provided a stage 1 response for her 15 November 2024 complaint on 24 November 2024. It said it could not deal with her:
    1. Complaint, as her previous complaint had completed the complaints procedure and was now with us.
    2. Reports of ASB, as she had not filled in diary sheets.
    3. Claim the housing officer had been rude to her, as it did not record calls.
  12. We wrote to the landlord again in December 2024 and issued a complaint handling failure order for its failure to provide the resident with a stage 2 response to her January 2024 complaint.
  13. The landlord sent a stage 2 response for the January 2024 complaint on 9 January 2025. It said the resident had refused her housing officer’s offer of mediation. She had also refused to complete more diary sheets and, therefore, it could not investigate her reports of ASB. It said it would install NME again in the near future. It partially upheld the complaint as the response was late.
  14. In her referral to us, the resident said she wanted the landlord to control the neighbour’s behaviour and to receive better service from her housing officer.

Assessment and findings

Reports of ASB and noise nuisance

  1. The resident says she has experienced ASB for many years, but there is no evidence of her making reports for several years before June 2023. In the interests of fairness, and considering the availability of evidence, our investigation is focused on events from June 2023 to the end of 2024, when the complaint completed the landlord’s complaint process.
  2. It is not our role to determine whether ASB occurred. However, we can assess how a landlord has dealt with matters during the events under investigation and assess whether it followed proper procedure and good practice and behaved reasonably.
  3. The landlord’s ASB policy says it will take reports of ASB seriously and respond within 5 days. It will gather information, encourage reporting, and take steps to end ASB. It says it has 4 key principles in ASB enforcement though it lists only 3 in its policy. These are prevention, enforcement, and rehabilitation. It says it will work with partner agencies.
  4. We have established that, throughout the course of these events, the landlord failed to comply with its own policy, procedure and good practice. On the evidence we have seen, it provided a poor service throughout. It failed to respond to the resident’s reports of ASB either within 5 days or at all on many occasions.
  5. In its January 2024 stage 1 response, the landlord explained that, in late 2023, due to understaffing, it had no housing officer in place for the property. It therefore “upheld” the complaint and said it had appointed a housing officer who she could contact in future. This was an appropriate response but did not go far enough. The landlord failed to apologise or offer compensation as would have been appropriate given that the resident had been reporting ASB for 6 months. This was particularly the case as she clearly found the situation extremely difficult. In many emails to the landlord, she set out her frustrations and said she could not sleep on many nights.
  6. Thereafter, the resident continued to report ASB to the landlord with no meaningful response. There are no records of visits from a housing officer or further contacts with the neighbour. She reported frequently that the neighbour was contravening the June 2024 warning but the landlord failed to investigate meaningfully. She frequently asked for updates without response.
  7. The only response to the resident’s situation was the installation of NME promised in the January 2024 stage 1 response. It installed the NME in late February or early March 2024. However, it failed to review the recordings until 24 April 2024, more than a month after they were made. It then failed to issue the warning to the neighbour for a further 6 weeks, on 6 June 2024.
  8. These delays were caused by officers going on leave. Given the resident’s state of mind, and the fact the landlord had found good reason to suspect ASB was taking place, it should have acted sooner. We have recommended that it consider changing its systems to allow investigations to continue when officers go on leave.
  9. The landlord issued the warning in co-operation with the council. We have seen no evidence of any policy or guidance detailing how the two bodies will divide responsibilities in cases like this. In our view, this contributed to the resident’s distress and we have recommended that the landlord consider creating guidance to help delineate responsibilities to prevent confusion and delays in future cases.
  10. Once the warning was in place, the resident continued to report ASB by the neighbour throughout the rest of 2024. The landlord did not take any meaningful action in response. The resident asked repeatedly for calls and updates and we have seen no evidence that she received either. The landlord has said she refused to provide diary sheets, but she denies this. We are not in a position to say who is correct but, given the level of the resident’s distress, we would expect to see evidence of greater involvement from housing officers.
  11. The resident ultimately contacted the council officer who had arranged the warning. That officer reviewed her videos and said that, in his view, they could not be said to show evidence of noise ASB although it did show an admission by the neighbour. He therefore found there might be reason to act but he could do nothing as this was a matter for the landlord. There is no evidence the landlord responded to these concerns.
  12. In November 2024, in its second stage 1 response, the landlord said the noise was not a statutory nuisance but had been caused by a flaw in the way the building had been built. That being the case, the landlord should have considered dealing with the resident’s complaints in a different way than through its ASB team. It might also, given that the neighbour had already received the warning, have considered using both ASB and other methods to address the resident’s concerns.
  13. We issued a spotlight report on Noise Complaints called Time to Be Heard in October 2022. In it, we said, “It is time for landlords to develop a strategy for handling non-statutory noise seriously, sensitively and proportionately.” The report said it is imperative that residents’ complaints are treated with respect. In this case, the landlord merely stated that the problem was caused by the building, and this was not appropriate.
  14. The report says landlords should keep better records particularly of phone calls. If a landlord feels there is a problem with the design of a building it should consider steps to improve the situation including mediation. In this case, the landlord did offer mediation, but the resident did not feel it would be helpful. She had, she says, been abused by her neighbour for several years by this point so her refusal was understandable.
  15. It was therefore inappropriate for the landlord to say that, because she had refused mediation, it could do nothing for her. These serious failures, which left the resident with no assistance, are at odds with its ASB policy. This says the landlord will take reports of ASB seriously, and there is no evidence that it did so. The length of the delays, serious lack of action, and significant impact on the resident amount to severe maladministration.
  16. The landlord failed to properly acknowledge its failings or offer any financial redress, which was inappropriate. The landlord’s Goodwill Gesture and Discretionary Payment Policy says the maximum compensation payment that can be offered without authorisation is £30. It provides no guidance on higher payments that may be appropriate. For that reason, we have referred to our own guidance on remedies to calculate an appropriate sum.
  17. This guidance states that, in cases of severe maladministration, compensation in excess of £600 may be appropriate. We take into account the severity of the failings, the impact on the resident, and whether the landlord’s actions exacerbated the situation. In this case, given the continual failures we have seen, we have ordered the landlord to pay £800 compensation.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy says, on receipt of a complaint, it will acknowledge it within 3 days. The acknowledgment will set out the points complained of. It says it will provide a complaint response dealing with each point within 10 working days with a possible extension of a further 10 working days if required. It says it will respond at stage 2 within 20 working days.
  2. The landlord’s complaint handling did not meet the requirements of its policy. It did not acknowledge the resident’s complaints and it did not provide reasoned complaint responses. It provided a stage 1 response in January 2024 and did not provide a stage 2 response until January 2025 after being issued a complaint handling failure order by us.
  3. The resident made several formal complaints. The landlord refused to process these as it said it had already responded to her initial complaint in January 2024. It later said this complaint was with us so it could not deal with it, but this was not the case. Her new complaints were clearly about reports the landlord had not yet responded to. These had not been included in her earlier complaint and so the landlord should have opened a new complaint and considered it.
  4. Even in early 2024, the landlord’s stage 2 response written after our intervention provided no meaningful engagement with the complaint. Overall, the landlord provided an inadequate complaint service which justifies a finding of severe maladministration.
  5. As stated above, a finding of severe maladministration will often attract significant levels of financial redress. However, our awards for complaint handling failures are usually lower than others, given the lesser impact on the resident. For that reason, we have ordered a payment of £300. We have also ordered the landlord to review its complaint handling systems to see what learning it can glean from this case.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was severe maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
    1. Reports of ASB and noise nuisance by the neighbour.
    2. Associated formal complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks the landlord must provide us with evidence that it has:
    1. Sent the resident a letter apologising for the failures identified in this report and setting out what it will do to ensure it deals appropriately with her concerns in future.
    2. Paid the resident £1,100 made up of:
      1. £800 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of the ASB and noise reports.
      2. £300 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its complaint handling.
    3. Reviewed its actions in this case to identify possible improvements (with particular reference to ASB, noise, and complaints) and identified areas for improving its service and/or amending its policies.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord is recommended to consider amending its policies in line with the findings set out above. In particular, it should consider formalising its relationship with the council around noise and ASB.