Longhurst Group Limited (202303682)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202303682

Longhurst Group Limited

24 April 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

This complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about the standard of the grounds maintenance service at his block.

Background

The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The tenancy commenced on 4 February 2022.The property is a 1-bedroom flat. The landlord confirmed to this Service that it is aware the resident is unable to read or write and it has an alert on its system to call the resident where possible. The landlord also said the resident advised it that he has Autism, ADHD, and bipolar disorder, and receives support from a support worker.
On 28 April 2023, the resident complained about the standard of the grounds maintenance at his block. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 5 May 2023. In its acknowledgement the landlord said it had spoken to the resident that day and would provide its response by 6 June 2023.
The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 23 May 2023 in which it referred to having spoken to the resident that day. The landlord said:
1. Its estate contract manager and another colleague had visited the resident’s block on 18 May 2023 and accepted that the service was not what they expected.
2. It agreed to deliver a programme of works to improve the area, and not just get it back to the standard expected. The landlord confirmed that the works included:
  1. To remove the full area to the back of the parking area and replace it with a raised bed.
  2. To populate the raised bed with appropriate shrubs to add colour.
  3. To cut back and renew the barked areas across the site and include new shrubs where required.
3. The landlord said it would pay for the works through its improvement funds and that it expected to ‘spend well over any contribution to the site.’
4. Its Estates Contract Manager said these works would be completed before the end of July 2023, if not earlier, and he would revisit again after the improvement works had taken place to ensure the site was significantly improved.
On 15 June 2023, the resident called the landlord to escalate his complaint. He felt the landlord should not have closed his complaint until it had completed the works, as he had been promised completion of works before which had not then happened. The landlord noted on 19 June 2023 that it spoke with the resident to confirm the reason for his escalation request and to advise that it aimed to provide its final response by 14 July 2023.
The landlord contacted its contractor on 20 June 2023 to request a quote following its site visit of 18 May 2023. The landlord chased its contractor for their quote on 6 July 2023, asking that they look at this urgently as the works were to be completed by the end of July 2023.
The landlord issued its final response on 14 July 2023. It offered the resident its ‘sincere apologies’ for the stress and inconvenience resulting from the resident having to raise his ground maintenance concerns. It then went on to confirm that it had approved the works, which were due to start the week commencing 29 July 2023. The landlord offered the resident a £50 goodwill payment, referring to having offered him £200 compensation in its stage 2 response to a previous complaint made by him about the same matter.
The works planned for the week commencing 29 July 2023 were delayed. The contractor reported this was due to the weather. The landlord’s records note that it sent out letters to all residents advising the new start date would be 10 August 2023.
On 11 August 2023, the landlord recorded that the full area to the back of the parking area had been cleared and replaced with a raised bed, with appropriate shrubs being planted to add colour. The cut back and renewal of the barked areas across the site and new shrubs, where required, remained outstanding.
On 15 August 2023 the resident called the landlord to say he was not happy with the state of the garden, that there was meant to be a gardener who attended once a month and the agreed works were not completed on 10 August 2023.
`On 16 August 2023, the contractor emailed the landlord to confirm it had completed the works. The landlord’s records note that this was confirmed and inspected by its estates service team.
Following the completion of the works, the resident remained dissatisfied, stating that the works were not completed, and healthy hedges had been pulled up by the contractor. The resident also said that nothing had been done about the standard of the ground maintenance service provided and the situation was making him feel depressed.
Following the resident’s contact the landlord raised the issue of the hedges with its contractor who advised that these were removed to make the garden lower maintenance.

Assessment and findings

Scope

Following the complaint considered in this report, the resident raised concerns with the landlord about the drainage of water from the communal garden and this causing damp in his property. This Service has noted resident’s concerns but will not be able to review the landlord’s handling of these matters as the landlord has not had the opportunity to review these through its formal complaints procedure.
During the complaints process the resident referenced the impact of the landlord’s actions on his health. Whilst the Ombudsman empathises with the resident, it is beyond the remit of this Service to decide whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and his health. Whilst we cannot consider the effect on health, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced because of any failures by the landlord. This will include whether any disabilities or vulnerabilities meant that the resident may have been more adversely affected by any identified failures by the landlord.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about the standard of the grounds maintenance service at his block

In accordance with its Estate Management Policy the landlord would be expected to ensure that communal gardens were maintained in line with the contract agreed, inspected for adherence to the contract, and customers asked for their feedback.
The Ombudsman also would expect the landlord to have a robust system in place for the oversight of its contractors to satisfy itself that its contractors were maintaining the standard expected, such as by carrying out regular estate inspections.
The landlord has advised this Service that the resident’s scheme has no grass cutting and therefore would have been scheduled for a monthly visit. During each visit the landlord said that it would expect the following tasks to be completed:
1. Sweep, clean and tidy of hard standing areas.
2. Litter picking.
3. Shrub maintenance (of which those on the scheme are young plants therefore minimal pruning is required).
4. Weed control.
It is evident the resident has had longstanding concerns about the standard and frequency of the grounds maintenance service provided at his block. Prior to the complaint considered in this case, the resident had previously complained to the landlord about the frequency and standard of the grounds maintenance. The landlord handled this through its formal complaints process, for which it issued its final response on 25 January 2023.
The outcome of that complaint was that the landlord arranged for its grounds maintenance contractor to attend and undertake works, which the landlord noted the resident was happy with. The landlord also offered to reimburse the resident for the grounds maintenance service charge back to February 2022. The resident has not bought this complaint to this Service; however, reference has been made to this to provide context to the complaint that is the subject of this investigation.
In accordance with this Service’s complaint handling code, the landlord would have been expected to have learnt from the failures it acknowledged in the resident’s previous complaint and taken steps to ensure that this did not happen again in the future. However, it is evident that in this case it failed to do so as the resident made a new complaint about the same issues within 3 months of the landlord’s previous final response.
The resident’s concerns were confirmed during a site visited by the landlord’s estate contract manager and another colleague on 18 May 2023, where the landlord identified that the standard of the grounds maintenance at the resident’s block was ‘not what they expected’.
Given that was the case, and in line with its Estate Management Policy, this Service asked the landlord to provide evidence of its grounds maintenance/gardening logs for the resident’s block for the period covered by this complaint. We also asked for any other grounds maintenance/gardening contract management documents for the block, which related to this period. The purpose of this was for this Service to investigate whether there had been any failures by the landlord in respect of its ongoing management of the contract.
In its response, the landlord provided a list of dates when its grounds maintenance contractor attended site, noting that this was ‘as confirmed by contractor’. The landlord said that the number of visits carried out, and the works completed, ‘were as expected’.
In the 3 months between 25 January 2023, the date of the landlord’s final response to the resident’s previous complaint, and 28 April 2023, the date of the complaint considered in this report, the landlord confirmed that its grounds maintenance contractor attended on 2 February and 6 March 2023.
In the 3 months between 28 April 2023 and the landlord’s final response on 14 July 2023, the grounds maintenance contractor attended site on 6 May, 1 June and 25 June 2023.
It is noted that there was no visit recorded in April 2023, however, overall, the attendance by the contractor was in line with the ground maintenance schedule for a monthly visit. However, no evidence has been provided by the landlord as to what was done by its contractor during any of these visits or how it concluded that the works completed ‘were as expected’. As a result, it has not been possible to say with any certainty whether the landlord’s position that the works were ‘as expected’ was either fair or accurate.
The landlord also advised that it had carried out a formal inspection on 27 June 2023, but again has not provided this Service with any evidence of that inspection nor what the outcome was.
It is good practice for a landlord to maintain accurate, contemporaneous records. This will enable it to effectively manage any issues raised by its residents as well as fulfilling its obligations as a landlord. It cannot properly investigate and respond to complaints without accurate and comprehensive records, and this could result in unfairness to the resident. As a member of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord also has an obligation to provide this Service with adequate information to enable us to fully investigate matters referred to us, which it did not do.
The landlord has advised this Service that it is currently tendering for a new grounds maintenance contract. Given the failures identified with regards to its oversight of its current contractors and its record keeping, in addition to compensation being paid to the resident, the landlord has also been ordered to review the findings in this case and to confirm to this Service what actions it intends to take to ensure that it had a robust system in place for the oversight of its contractors, including its record keeping, under its new grounds maintenance contract.
When landlord’s identify that services have not been completed in accordance with its contracts, in this case the grounds maintenance contract at the resident’s block, it would be expected to bring the site back up to standard and at no additional cost to the resident, which the landlord did.
There was a delay in the landlord’s contractor completing the agreed works. This was due to the landlord not requesting the quote from its contractor until 20 June 2023 and the contractor not then providing that quote until 10 July 2023. There were also changes in the date the works would be completed.
Whilst the delay in the works being completed were not significant, given the resident’s vulnerabilities it is understandable that the delay, and the changes to the date the works would take place, would have been unsettling and distressing for him.
Given that was the case, the Ombudsman would expect the landlord to have kept the resident informed and to have ensured that it complied with the reasonable adjustment it had in place to call the resident, rather than write to him, which it evidently did throughout the process. Whilst no record has been seen of the landlord calling the resident about the delay in the works and the change of appointment to 10 August 2023, it is evident that the resident was aware of this as he called the landlord on 15 August 2023 to say that this had not happened.
The landlord also acted appropriately and sensitively in agreeing to escalate the complaint on 15 June 2023. In accordance with this Service’s Complaint Handling code, the purpose of a stage 2 complaint is to provide the resident with the opportunity to challenge any decision by correcting errors or sharing concerns via an appeal process. In this case the resident was not challenging the landlord’s decision, nor seeking to correct errors, but rather had expressed concerns about the complaint being closed at stage 1 when the works agreed to in that response were not due for completion until the end of July 2023.
It is noted that the written version of the landlord’s stage 1 response makes no reference to the complaint being closed at that point and advises the resident of his right to escalate the complaint if he was not satisfied with the outcome. However, it is recognised that there may have been some misunderstanding or miscommunication during the landlord’s telephone conversation with the resident on the day the stage 1 response was issued that may have led him to believe that was the end of the process.
Overall, whilst the actions of the landlord with regards to the works required to bring the grounds maintenance up to an acceptable standard were reasonable, it failed to evidence that it learnt from the failures it identified in the resident’s previous complaint or that it has a robust system in place for the oversight, or accurate and comprehensive records, of the grounds maintenance contractor at the resident’s block.
These failures represent maladministration by the landlord for which it has been ordered to apologise and pay compensation to the resident. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, available to view online, provides for awards of £100 to £600 for instances of failure which had an adverse effect on the resident, which the landlord did not fully address or put right, but which did not have a permanent effect on the resident.
In this case, the landlord has been ordered to pay £450 compensation to the resident. This is made up of £150 for the failures identified with regards to its supervision of the grounds maintenance contract and its record keeping, and £150 for the inconvenience to the resident of the time and effort he experienced in pursuing the matter with the landlord. The landlord has also been ordered to pay the resident a further £150 in recognition of the additional distress this matter would have understandably caused him, given his vulnerabilities.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s concerns about the standard of the grounds maintenance service at his block.

Orders

That within 28 calendar days of this report the landlord is ordered to:
1. Call the resident to apologise for the failures identified in this report.
2. Pay the resident a total of £450 compensation for the failures identified in this report. It is the Ombudsman’s position that compensation awarded by this Service should be treated separately from any existing financial arrangements between the landlord and resident and should not be offset against arrears.
3. Review the findings in this case and to confirm to this Service what actions it intends to take to ensure that it has a robust system in place for the oversight of its contractors, including its record keeping, under its new grounds maintenance contract.
4. Confirm to this Service that it has complied with the above orders.