Notting Hill Genesis (202113375)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202113375

Notting Hill Genesis

14 April 2022


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:
    1. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of no heating and no hot water.
    2. The compensation offered by the landlord for its handling of a repair to the resident’s skylight.
    3. The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of staff conduct.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the property which is owned by the landlord.
  2. From January to April 2020, the resident chased the landlord for further repairs of the skylight in the property, as a previous repair had not resolved the issue. It advised her, in April 2020, that it was only carrying out emergency repairs currently due to the impact of the corona virus pandemic. She continued to chase it for the repairs and for responses to her contacts with it in May 2020. It requested photographs of the damage to the paintwork which she had reported and stated that its contractor had reported issues with gaining access to the property.
  3. The landlord completed the skylight repair on 18 September 2020 and the resident contacted it on 27 January 2021 to request compensation for the delay in repairing the skylight and the inconvenience caused by this. She contended, on 21 March 2021, that the landlord’s staff member had been discriminatory in their treatment of her. The landlord acknowledged, on 23 March 2021 that compensation was due and asked for more information on the grounds on which the resident felt discriminated against.
  4. Being dissatisfied with the landlord’s offer of compensation, the resident asked, on 31 March 2021, for the landlord to raise a formal complaint. The staff member, whose conduct was complained about provided a written apology to her on 14 April 2020. In its final decision the landlord stated that it had found no evidence of discrimination against the resident, however, it acknowledged that she had received poor service and offered £100 compensation for this. In respect of the delayed skylight repair, the landlord offered £300 for the delay and the distress and inconvenience caused by this. It also offered to make good the damage to paintwork caused by the leak from it.

Assessment and findings

Jurisdiction

  1. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 39(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme), the complaint about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of no heating and no hot water.
  3. Paragraph 39(a) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which are made prior to having exhausted a member landlord’s complaints procedure. The resident’s complaint about the landlord’s handling of her reports of no heating and no hot water was handled under a different complaint, which it confirmed on 7 April 2021 was resolved directly with its heating and hot water team and was not considered in its stage one and final responses to this complaint. Thus, it has not been further investigated in this report.

Policies and procedures

  1. The landlord’s tenancy agreement with the resident confirms that it is responsible for the repair and maintenance of the structure of the property, which includes the windows.
  2. The landlord’s repairs policy defines emergency repairs as those which pose an immediate danger to a person’s safety or may cause major damage to the property. This policy also confirms that non-emergency repairs are to be completed within 20 working days of it receiving the report.

The compensation offered by the landlord for its handling of a repair to the resident’s skylight

  1. As confirmed by the tenancy agreement above, the landlord had a responsibility to repair and maintain the skylight in the property, as this formed part of the structure of the property. As there was no evidence that the defect with the skylight posed an immediate danger to people or the property, it would have been reasonable for it to treat the repair as a non-emergency repair with a timeframe of 20 working days for completion.
  2. If a repair is likely to exceed the landlord’s published timescales for completion, it would be expected of a landlord to contact the resident to explain the delay and to manage their expectations. 31 working days elapsed between the resident reporting the repair to the landlord and her subsequently needing to chase it for an update on it. The landlord spoke to the resident, on 3 January 2020, about a previous repair to the skylight which had been unsuccessful in stopping it from leaking. The landlord’s surveyor inspected the skylight on 18 January 2020 and the resident chased it for an update on 20 February 2020, to which it replied on 13 March 2020. She chased it again on 30 March 2020, after not receiving an update from it since 13 March 2020, and again on 15 May, 15 June, and 5 July 2020. This was an excessive amount of involvement required of the resident.
  3. In a response to the resident, on 3 April 2020, the landlord advised that it was chasing the matter but cautioned that it was only carrying out emergency repairs currently due to the impact of the corona virus pandemic. The resident emailed the landlord about a different issue on 13 April 2020 to request compensation for the delayed skylight repair and she emailed it again on 7 May 2020 about a different matter. On 15 May 2020 she highlighted that she had no response from it to her previous emails. The landlord responded later that day to apologise for the delayed repair and advise that it could not offer compensation for this as it was making efforts to resolve it. It asked for images of damage caused to the resident’s decoration so that it could consider if it was responsible for carrying out decoration. The landlord relayed information from its contractor which said that there were access issues in carrying out the repair as it could not access the roof from a neighbouring property and the resident was unwillingly to allow access through her property.
  4. On 17 May 2020, the resident disputed the contractor’s statement and questioned why the landlord trusted the contractor’s view over hers and why no compensation would be offered. She expressed dissatisfaction with the landlord’s service and communication in relation to this and other repairs. The resident chased the landlord on 15 June and 5 July 2020 for responses to her emails and updates on the repair.
  5. The skylight was repaired on 18 September 2020, 181 working days after the resident’s initial report. The resident contacted it on 27 January 2021 to request compensation for the delay in repairing the skylight and the inconvenience caused by this.
  6. Although the landlord may have needed to limit its service due to the impact of the pandemic, this was nevertheless an excessive delay, and the inconvenience to the resident which further exacerbated by the lack of communication about the repair as detailed in the preceding paragraphs. The landlord acknowledged this failure in its final complaint response and offered £300 compensation in total for the delayed repair and the distress and inconvenience caused by this.
  7. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, available to view at https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Remedies-Guidance.pdf provides for awards of compensation between £250 and £700 for cases of considerable service which necessitate an unreasonable level of involvement by the resident and where there has been failure over a considerable period of time to act in accordance with policy – for example to address repairs.
  8. Ordinarily, the length of the delays in this case, considered in conjunction with the lack of communication from the landlord, would have resulted in a finding by this Service that its offer of compensation is insufficient. This is because the landlord is expected to ensure that the compensation offer proportionately reflects the time, trouble and inconvenience caused to resident by the issue and the extent to which she had to repeatedly chase the repair. However, it has been considered that the issue occurred during the first national lockdown during which many organisations, including landlords, had difficulties in dealing with their usual functions. Thus, this Service concludes that the amount offered by the landlord is sufficient redress in the circumstances of this case, having considered the nature of the issue reported and its impact on the resident.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of staff conduct

  1. The resident has said that she has felt discriminated against. The Ombudsman does not make findings of discrimination; this may be considered by a court as set out in Section 114 of the Equality Act 2010. This Service will, however, consider whether the landlord’s response to her reports was reasonable and fair in all the circumstances of the case and whether there was a service failure in its response to her.
  2. Discrimination is the less favourable treatment of a person based on a protected characteristic such as age, religion or gender. The landlord has a duty to ensure that its staff operate in accordance with the Equality Act 2010, therefore, it would be expected to carry out a thorough investigation of any claim of discrimination. It must be noted that being discriminated against is distinct from perceiving to receive an unfairly poor service.
  3. The landlord provided an opportunity to the resident on 23 March, 1 April and 14 May 2021 for her to provide further information about why she believed that its staff had exhibited discriminatory behaviour. It explained that while she had experienced poor service, this did not necessarily mean she had been discriminated against. The resident replied on 25 March 2021 that she believed she had been discriminated against due to the staff member being unfair, dismissive of her concerns, taking the word of contractors over hers and persistently ignoring her contact about this and other issues. She did not provide any information on the protected characteristic against she felt discriminated against.
  4. In its final response, the landlord confirmed that it had analysed correspondence between the staff member the resident had complained about and other residents and found no evidence of discrimination. This was a reasonable and fair approach from it to investigate whether any evidence of discrimination existed. It was therefore reasonable for it to relay that there was no evidence of discrimination after its investigation.
  5. Having considered the documents provided to by the parties, this Service has not found evidence of a failure in the landlord’s response to the resident’s report of being discriminated against. The £100 compensation it offered, represented reasonable redress to the resident for its acknowledged failures in communicating with her. 

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 39(a) of the Scheme, the complaint about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of no heating and no hot water is outside the jurisdiction of this Service to consider.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, resolves the complaint about the level of compensation offered by the landlord for its handling of a repair to the resident’s skylight.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, resolves the complaint about its response to the resident’s reports of staff conduct satisfactorily.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should reoffer the resident the total sum of £490 previously offered in compensation for the issues (which includes £90 for missed appointments), as this recognised genuine elements of service failure and the sufficient redress finding is made on that basis.
  2. The landlord should strongly consider reviewing its procedures for the management of repairs to ensure that regular communication is maintained with residents awaiting a repair and to minimise delays in works.