Notting Hill Genesis (NHG) (202215893)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202215893

Notting Hill Genesis

19 June 2023

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

The complaint concerns the level of compensation offered to the resident following a delay issuing a deed of assignment.

Background

The resident holds an assured tenancy with the landlord, which is a housing association. The resident moved into the property on 28 March 2022 via a mutual exchange.
Prior to the resident moving into the property, the landlord confirmed that all the necessary paperwork required for the exchange to go ahead had been received. When the resident contacted the landlord on 28 March 2022 to ask about the deed of assignment, the landlord informed him that an electrical inspection needed to be completed first before it could complete the tenancy assignment.
The resident contacted the landlord on multiple occasions between April and May 2022 for an update regarding the deed of assignment. On 13 May 2022, the landlord informed the resident that it would ensure the documents were ready by 16 May 2022.
The resident did not receive the deed of assignment and contacted the landlord a further five times between June and July 2022 for an update. The deed of assignment was completed on 4 July 2022.
On 10 August 2022 the resident raised a formal complaint as he was unhappy with the way his mutual exchange had been processed. The resident explained that it took 98 days for the deed of assignment to be completed, there was a lack of communication from the landlord and that he was unable to pay his rent until 13 July 2022 when his rent account was set up. The landlord provided a stage one response on 23 August 2022, where it acknowledged that its internal policies were not followed and apologised for the lack of communication. It also offered the resident £450 compensation.
The resident escalated his complaint to stage two on 1 September 2022 as he felt that the landlord had not fully investigated his complaint, nor had it taken into consideration the level of stress and anxiety caused by living in a property without a tenancy. The resident wanted the landlord to provide him with an increased offer of compensation in line with amounts assigned to personal injury claims.
The landlord provided its final response on 23 October 2022, where it said that:
1. It recognised that there was service failure regarding the way in which it handled the deed of assignment and recognised this had left the resident in a vulnerable position with no security of tenure.
2. It agreed that communication should have been better.
3. It apologised for the delay and issues with communications, and confirmed that learning had been identified.
4. It also increased the compensation offer to £550, in recognition of the failures identified.
The resident contacted this Service on 1 November 2022 as he was dissatisfied with the landlord’s response. The resident said that he felt that the landlord had not addressed his personal injury claim or the lack of communication during the mutual exchange process.

Assessment and findings

The Housing Ombudsman assesses complaints on the basis of documentary evidence. In this case, the resident alleges the landlord’s handling of the deed of assignment has affected his mental health. Often, when there is a dispute over whether someone has been injured or health condition has been made worse, the courts rely on expert evidence in the form of a medico-legal report. This will give an expert opinion of the cause of any injury. Without that evidence, the Ombudsman is not able to draw any conclusions on whether the handling of the deed of assignment has caused the injuries alleged by the resident. This question may be better for the courts to decide. This investigation has focussed on whether the landlord followed a fair and proper procedure and has considered the distress and inconvenience to the resident.
The Ombudsman’s role is to determine complaints by reference to what is fair in all the circumstances and decide if the landlord is responsible for maladministration or service failure. When investigating a complaint, the Ombudsman applies its dispute resolution principles. These are high level good practice guidance developed from the Ombudsman’s experience of resolving disputes, for use by everyone involved in the complaints process. There are only three principles driving effective dispute resolution:
1. Be fair – treat people fairly and follow fair processes.
2. put things right, and.
3. learn from outcomes.
The landlord’s mutual exchange policy states that the deed of assignment is an agreement between the outgoing resident and the incoming resident (assignee). The deed says that the resident assigns their tenancy to the incoming resident and that the incoming resident confirms to pay the rent and observe the terms of the tenancy agreement. If it is not feasible for both households to sign the deed of assignments with both the landlord and the external resident’s landlord, they can be signed separately but must be no more than two days apart.
It is clear from the information provided that the resident took proactive steps before the agreed move date to seek clarification from the landlord as to whether it had all the relevant paperwork. The landlord confirmed it did on 23 March 2022 and that the only outstanding document was proof of ID and address.
This Service would expect to see information from the landlord which confirms that the deed of assignment was ready for the residents to sign prior to the mutual exchange going ahead. No evidence has been provided to show why the mutual exchange was able to proceed, when the deed of assignment had not been signed by either the incoming or outgoing resident. This left the resident with no security of tenure and in a vulnerable position, it also meant that the resident did not hold a valid tenancy for the property he was living in. The resident was aware of the importance of the deed of assignment, as he was unable to pay his rent and continued to chase the landlord for an update.
Although the information provided does show that the landlord responded to the resident’s emails within a reasonable timeframe, it continually failed to provide the deed of assignment. This prompted the resident to continue to chase the landlord and it was not until 4 July 2022 that the deed of assignment was completed.
There is evidence which shows that the landlord was actively taking steps to produce the deed of assignment, including seeking legal advice due to the time elapsed, but it did not keep the resident updated. This caused the resident increased distress at a time when he was already aware that he did not have a valid tenancy for the property he was living in. He also experienced added inconvenience as he had to keep contacting the landlord for an update.
When assessing an appropriate level of compensation, the Ombudsman takes into account a range of factors including any distress and inconvenience caused by the issues, the amount of time and effort expended on pursuing the matter with the landlord, and the level of detriment caused by the landlord’s acts and/or omissions. It considers whether any redress is proportionate to the severity of the failing by the landlord and the impact on the resident. The Ombudsman also takes into account the evidence that has been provided.
Ultimately the Ombudsman considers what would be fair and proportionate. The aim of compensation is not to be punitive, but to provide redress for the impact of any failings by the landlord on the resident. In the case of compensation for distress and inconvenience, this Service is not able to quantify a definitive loss and the intention of such an award is to recognise the overall distress and inconvenience suffered by the resident.
The landlord’s compensation and goodwill policy, dated February 2022, states that it will consider financial compensation where it has failed to follow its published policies or there have been unreasonable delays against its service standards. It also states that inconvenience or distress discretionary payments can be made where the resident has suffered inconvenience or distress above what a reasonable person would be expected to tolerate, and are at categorised as:
1. Low impact up to £50.
2. Medium impact – £125.
3. High impact – £250.
4. Exceptional – over £250.
On assessing the information provided to this Service, it is accepted by both the landlord and resident that the landlord did not follow its mutual exchange policy. The landlord has accepted that this was a failing on its part. As such, it was appropriate that the landlord made an offer of compensation in recognition of this, and to ‘put things right’ for the resident.
In line with the Ombudsman’s remedy guidance where there has been a failure which adversely affected a resident but has had no permanent impact, a payment of between £100 and £600 is recommended. Overall, there was a delay of four months for the landlord to provide the resident with the deed of assignment. The resident informed the landlord the he was concerned that he was without a valid tenancy and that he was unable to pay his rent, which he knew he had an obligation to do. This caused him inconvenience and anxiety.
The landlord took steps to put things right for the resident and offered £550 compensation. It also identified the need to provide staff with further training regarding the mutual exchange process. These steps are in line with the Ombudsman’s dispute resolution principles and are actions that this Service welcomes.
The compensation offered by the landlord was in line with its own policy, and by awarding an amount within its exceptional impact category, appropriately acknowledged the detriment caused to the resident.
In summary, it is clear that the landlord failed to issue the resident with a deed of assignment within a reasonable timeframe, which adversely affected the resident. This amounted to maladministration in the circumstances. In recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident, the landlord offered £550 compensation, which in the Ombudsman’s opinion, amounted to reasonable redress in the circumstances.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, and in the Ombudsman’s opinion, there was reasonable redress offered by the landlord following the delay issuing the deed of assignment.

Recommendations

The finding of reasonable redress is made on the basis of the compensation offered by the landlord. If it has not done so already, the landlord should pay the amount offered in is final response within 28 days of the date of this determination.