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Notting Hill Genesis (202320998)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202320998

Notting Hill Genesis (NHG)

30 July 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 concerns about parking on the estate and access to her allocated parking space.
  2. We are also considering the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident has occupied the property, a 1 bedroom ground floor flat with a designated parking space, since August 2015. It is a shared ownership property and the resident is a leaseholder and the landlord is a housing association.
  2. In January 2023 the landlord informed the resident it intended to implement a parking control system as of the 20 February 2023 having had reports of issues with people parking outside of allocated parking bays.
  3. During March 2023 the resident chased the landlord on progress and was told on 19 April 2023 that it would soon be addressing the parking issue. The resident continued to follow this up and was told in January 2024 that it was going to issue a survey to all residents about implementing parking control measures. Having been chased by the resident again on 14 March 2024 as no action had been taken, the landlord again said it intended to send a survey out.
  4. The resident complained to the landlord about the situation on 27 March 2024.
  5. A stage 1 response was sent on 23 April 2024. It also issued the parking survey to all residents the same day and informed the resident she would be sent the results. The resident chased the landlord for the results on 14 June 2024 and it is not clear if or when she was sent a copy.
  6. The resident was then advised on 7 October 2024 that the majority of residents did not want estate wide car parking provision. The landlord suggested it could have her parking space monitored or she could install a metal retractable parking post at her cost.
  7. The landlord’s stage 2 response was issued on 18 October 2024 and it apologised for closing 2 other complaints in error. It offered her £100 compensation its poor complaint handling. It acknowledged the resident had issues accessing her parking spot occasionally and offered her a further £100 compensation for the way it had dealt with this issue. It also offered an additional £100 compensation for an unrelated issue, meaning total compensation of £300.
  8. The resident says there are still ongoing issues with people parking where they should not be and it is significantly affecting her access to her allocated parking space.
  9. On 14 July 2025 the landlord offered the resident additional compensation. As well as the £300 offered at stage 2, it said it would pay her another £400 for failing to respond appropriately to the car parking concerns and a further £150 for complaint handling errors. This means it has now offered £500 for its handling of the parking issue, £250 for its complaint handling and £100 for the unrelated issue not considered here, which adds up to £850 in total.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. In the interests of the Ombudsman investigating issues that are still ‘live’, it is our practice to limit the scope of our investigations to a reasonable period prior to the formal complaint being made. In this case, the resident has referred to having parking issues since moving in, but it is apparent that matters escalated in 2024 when the complaint was made. While information dating back prior to 2024 is useful to provide important context to the current complaint, this investigation is focused on events from 2023 onwards, which led to the complaint.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about parking on the estate and access to her allocated parking space

  1. The resident has explained that her car is often blocked in or she cannot access her parking space due to the way others have parked. She wants the landlord to impose parking restrictions at its own cost, to try and stop this from happening. In particular, she wants it to implement parking restrictions by having yellow lines, and yellow boxes where appropriate, and a sign to say it is private property residents parking only. She also wants regular controls to manage the rights of each resident to their parking space and individuals to be fined who violate the rights of others.
  2. The landlord has said that while photographs have been provided by the resident showing how people have parked, it cannot say who the cars belong to as they are not parked illegally, nor are they abandoned. It also said the photographs show there is room to pass by the resident’s car, and allow for turning, albeit not easily. The area has also been measured and there is a sufficient turning circle to allow cars to drive in to and out of the area by the resident’s parking space. It said it had not received any complaints from any other residents complaining about not being able to drive past parked cars or access the area by the resident’s car. However, it sent reminders by email to state that residents should only park in designated parking spaces.
  3. Overall, the landlord’s position is there are insufficient grounds to instruct parking control and incur costs for line and/or bollard hatching, so no action has been taken. It goes on to say there was a change of property manager but the new one reviewed all the information, visited the site and spoke to parking control contractors. Having done so, they concluded it was not appropriate to implement a contract and incur costs against the service charge.
  4. While the landlord’s explanation for not taking action has been noted, the resident was told by the property manager on 24 January 2023, “I have decided that I’m going to go ahead and implement a parking control as of the 20/02/23 to try and eliminate the abuse of the resident bays and to have some sort of control”. This contradicts what it has said and clearly gave the resident an expectation action was going to be taken. The evidence shows she followed up with the landlord on this on 6 March 2023, 15 March 2023 and 25 March 2023 and again was told on 19 April 2023 that action would be taken soon. However, having heard nothing more, she chased again on 13 June 2023 but there is no evidence of her receiving a reply.
  5. The landlord failed to implement a parking control system and its recent comments indicate it had a change of heart because of feedback it received and the costs involved. However, no evidence has been provided to show it took any steps to investigate the matter further, so it is not clear what prompted it to change its opinion. It also did not tell the resident about the change of plan. She was under the impression the landlord was working on implementing the parking control system it had promised. Therefore, the resident’s expectations were entirely mismanaged.
  6. The landlord did write to all residents in November 2023 about cars that were possibly abandoned and it told the resident on 8 January 2024 that it would be arranging to remove these. However, this was not the issue raised by the resident. It also said it would be issuing a survey to all residents about the parking issue. However, this was not done until April 2024 and only after the resident chased for an update again on 14 March 2024.
  7. The landlord has a parking management procedure. It says where there are ongoing problems with parking, “officers should introduce a controlled parking scheme to manage this. Officers at their discretion can opt to have an external company manage the parking on their scheme, providing that, they have consulted the residents and the majority have agreed to have parking control”.
  8. Over a period of 15 months, no action was taken by the landlord to implement a parking control system and its communication with the resident was poor. In response to the complaint the landlord referred to a survey of residents possibly being carried out in May 2023, but it accepted it had no record of that. It put this down to staff changes but it certainly suggests there has been an issue with its record keeping if it cannot find the results of a survey it did. As the landlord had no record of a survey being carried out earlier, it was therefore appropriate for it to arrange another in April 2024.
  9. Having done the survey, the landlord said it would share the results with the resident, but it is evident this did not happen straight away. She had to chase for this information in June 2024. For the resident to have to chase the landlord again, after having done so many times before, is unacceptable. It certainly could have been avoided if someone had taken ownership of managing the survey as well as updating the resident. The failure again to communicate, understandably added to the resident’s frustration.
  10. It is not clear when the resident was provided with the survey results, but it was not until the complaint was addressed at stage 2 in October 2024, that the landlord explained its position. It said the April 2024 survey found that of the 20 respondents only 8 were in favour of the implementation of parking control measures. Only 2 out of the 20 were in favour of incurring costs relating to line and hatch painting to identify where parking should be restricted or prevented. Therefore, it had insufficient support to implement the suggested parking controls, as per its policy.
  11. The landlord did therefore adhere to the terms of its parking management procedure. However, it did not share that it did not have sufficient resident support until 21 months after when it had said it would be putting a system in place. This delay, along with its poor communication with the resident over that period, is unacceptable.
  12. At this point, the landlord’s position becomes confusing. Having explained the majority of residents that responded to the survey were not in favour of implementing parking measures, it then put forward a number of options to address the parking issue. One of which was to “implement parking control options”. It said it could:
    1. Remind residents that they could only park as many vehicles as they have allocated/dedicated car parking spaces as set out in the terms of their lease.
    2. Suggest to those that have additional vehicles to park off the estate elsewhere and/or obtain street parking permits from the local council if the borough allowed.
    3. Implement parking control options.
    4. Set up a contract with a parking management company which would be free of charge to the residents.
  13. The landlord then went on to say that it would install signage explaining that vehicles would be ticketed if not parked correctly and yellow lines and hatching would be painted on problem areas. It confirmed a quote was being obtained for that and it would review the survey data and take advice at management level. It would then update the resident by 31 October 2024 at the latest.
  14. Therefore, although the landlord did not have the majority of residents support for parking controls, it told the resident it was going to consider a number of options anyway. This again, gave the resident hope of action being take. It also raises a question as to why, if this was something it could do at this point, it could not have done the same thing a lot earlier in 2023.
  15. No evidence has been provided to show the resident was updated by 31 October 2024 as promised. Despite the landlord putting forward proposals to address the parking issue in its stage 2 response, the resident has said nothing has been done. As the landlord has told us there are insufficient grounds to instruct parking control and incur costs, it seems a decision was later made to do nothing more. However, since January 2023, the landlord has twice indicated it may take action, but then made no progress.
  16. While it was right that the landlord followed its parking management procedure, and consulted with other residents, it could have also thought about the impact the parking nuisance was having on the resident personally and provided advice and support to the resident. It did recommend a solution to the resident, but this shows it did not fully understand the issue she was having. It suggested she protect her parking space, with a retractable parking post, thinking people were parking in her space. However, she had always made it clear that the issue lay with people parking in such a way that it was causing issues for her accessing her parking space. Not that others were parking in her space. Therefore, this suggestion made the resident feel she was not being listened to.
  17. The landlord has sent in evidence of it having issued emails to residents about the parking situation but these date back to 2016 and 2018 which pre-date this complaint. However, they are useful to demonstrate how long this issue had gone on for. It also sent in evidence which shows the resident named a particular person that was causing a parking issue, and saying where they lived. It also provided emails from at least 2 other residents that complained about the parking situation since 2020, where the same perpetrator was named.
  18. Paragraph 17 of Schedule 2 of the resident’s Lease says, “Not to leave any vehicle……… on any of the Common Parts so as to cause a nuisance annoyance or inconvenience to the owners and occupiers of the Building”. The Leasehold Customer Guide also says residents should not cause a nuisance to others. The landlord’s ASB policy also has provision for how to deal with that and sets out a number of steps the landlord could take. Just because the resident wanted it to take specific steps regarding parking enforcement does not mean that was the only option for the landlord to consider. It could have explained to the resident why it was not going to implement parking controls but then advised her how to record and report any issues. It could have then monitored the situation for a period of time, as per its ASB policy.
  19. The resident kept records and supplied photographs which often show the same vehicle(s) causing an obstruction, and therefore a nuisance. However, aside from writing to all residents about abandoned cars in November 2023, no recent evidence has been provided to show the landlord approached the resident(s) who were routinely causing parking issues.
  20. While it is clear the resident wants the landlord to take very specific action in terms of parking control, it did not have the appetite from other residents to implement changes. The resident may be disappointed with the outcome, but the landlord was not obliged to take action under its parking management procedure without the required support. However, from January 2023, the landlord’s approach has been inconsistent and its communication with the resident has been poor. There has been a lack of action by the landlord and it failed to adequately manage her expectations or consider the problem as a nuisance. Therefore, consideration could have been given to dealing with the issue in line with its ASB policy and the terms of the Lease.
  21. Taking all this in to account, a finding of maladministration has been made. At stage 2, the landlord offered the resident £100 compensation. This was due to the delays incurred in dealing with this issue. However, due to the length of time this has gone on for, and the number of times the resident had to chase the landlord or re-raise her concerns, it was reasonable for the landlord to not only apologise to the resident, but to pay her compensation of £500. This amount is line with our remedies policy and reflects there was a failure that adversely affected the resident which the landlord failed to sufficiently acknowledge. In addition, the landlord should review the resident’s reports of parking issues and offer the necessary support, in line with its ASB policy.
  22. The landlord has recently increased its offer of compensation made to the amount we have ordered, however, it did not recognise all that went wrong when it dealt with the complaint at stage 1 and 2. We are not ordering anything further, as the £500 now offered is sufficient but as the additional offer was only made after our involvement, a finding of maladministration is made as opposed to one of reasonable redress.

The landlord’s complaint handling

  1. The landlord’s complaints procedure says it will acknowledge a complaint within 5 working days and issue its stage 1 response within a further 10 working days. If a complaint is escalated to stage 2, a review should take no longer than 20 working days from escalation.
  2. It is not clear if or when the landlord acknowledged the complaint, but it issued its stage 1 response 17 working days after receiving the complaint. Therefore, even allowing 5 working days for the acknowledgment being sent, it failed to respond within the timescales set out in its complaints procedure. It also missed an opportunity to apologise for the delay when it issued its response.
  3. The landlord has been unable to confirm when the resident escalated her complaint to stage 2, and this suggests an issue with its record keeping. The resident did though, submit a complaint form to the landlord on 30 June 2024 and 31 July 2024. These mentioned she was unhappy correspondence was not responded to. In addition, that her complaint had been escalated to stage 2 on 10 July 2024, but she had not received a response within 20 days.
  4. We have therefore taken 10 July 2024 as when the complaint was escalated. The stage 2 response was not issued until 71 working days later, which amounts to a significant delay and means the landlord did not comply with its obligations under its complaints procedure.
  5. The stage 2 response did say it had closed 2 other complaints in error and that seems to relate to the complaint forms submitted on 30 June 2024 and 31 July 2024. While these were submitted using complaint forms, they seem to relate to the existing complaint and the resident was using the form in order to prompt the landlord to respond, as she had not received an update.
  6. Having been contacted by the resident using the complaint forms twice, this should have alerted the landlord to address her concerns. Rather than just close the complaints down, it would have been reasonable to explain that it was not treating these as 2 new complaints. That is because she was complaining about the lack of action in relation to the original complaint. It should have then prompted the landlord to provide an update on that complaint.
  7. It is of note though, that the landlord did, at stage 2, acknowledge it had not met its obligations, and that it also set out lessons it had learned from the mistake. It is also recognised that the landlord felt compensation should be paid, and while it was appropriate that the landlord accepted failings in its service, it could have gone further and noted it had also delayed issuing its stage 1 response.
  8. While it is good to see the landlord offered the resident some compensation, £100 would be a reasonable remedy if there was just a service failure. In this case there was a delay at stage 1, a significant delay at stage 2 as well as other complaints being closed down in error. This amounts to maladministration, and the resident made it clear how unhappy she was with the way her complaint was handled. Therefore, in accordance with our remedies guidance, although the landlord did attempt to put things right, it did not go far enough during the complaint handling process. So, compensation of £250 would be more appropriate as a remedy.
  9. It is noted the landlord has recently increased its offer of compensation to this amount. However, a finding of maladministration is made rather than one of reasonable redress. That is because the offer was only just put forward and not made as part of its 2 stage complaint procedure.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in relation to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about parking on the estate and access to her allocated parking space.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in relation to the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord is ordered to provide evidence that it has:
    1. Provided a written apology to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
    2. Paid the resident £750 compensation (incorporating the £200 compensation offered at stage 2 in relation to the 2 issues considered in this investigation), made up of:
      1. £500 for the delays, omissions and poor communication relating to her concerns about parking on the estate and access to her allocated parking space
      2. £250 for errors made in its complaint handling.
    3. Reviewed the resident’s reports of parking issues and provided her with advice on how to catalogue and report any further issues she has accessing her parking space, in line with its ASB policy.