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Orbit South Housing Association Limited (202005350)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202005350

Orbit South Housing Association Limited

22 December 2020


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 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 responses to the resident’s request to install a gas supply and gas central heating into her home.
  2. The landlord’s record keeping.

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is a semi-detached house.
  2. At some point prior to 14 July 2020 the resident contacted the landlord to raise a complaint about its decision not to allow her to have gas central heating installed into the property. She said the landlord had previously given her permission if she was able to source a government scheme that would cover the costs. The landlord has not been able to provide correspondence relating to its exchanges with the resident prior to this time.
  3. The landlord sent a stage one complaint response to the resident on 14 July 2020. It informed her that it would not permit any changes to be made to the property’s energy supply. It quoted from section 10 of its property management plan which stated that “No customer will be given permission to install any fixed heating equipment ie boilers. Any appliances found to be installed without permission must be removed”. The landlord said it appreciated the benefits having gas heating would bring to the resident, but “there are too many factors beyond our control which would bring the property (and our residents safety, from our perspective) into disrepute”.
  4. The resident wrote to the landlord on 22 July 2020 and disputed its response. The landlord has not provided a copy of this correspondence.
  5. The landlord sent a stage two complaint response to the resident on 23 July 2020. It summarised its understanding of the complaint as “regarding the installation and authorisation of having gas central heating installed in the property. You were previously advised in 2017 that this could be done, however now you have been informed this is not something [the landlord] will authorise.” The landlord accepted that the resident was given “informal consent” to install gas central heating in 2017. However, it explained that its policy had changed since the consent was given, and it requoted the relevant section from its property management plan from its stage one response.
  6. The landlord explained it had discussed the matter with the staff member who she spoke to in 2017, and confirmed that, while he did not remember the whole conversation, he said that “the whole road does not have a gas supply and so these works would be a huge job to complete and this is possibly the reason the work was refused”.
  7. The landlord concluded the response by informing the resident that if she remained dissatisfied, she could either request an escalation of the complaint to its review stage or bring her case to this Service.

Assessment and findings

  1. Section 3(6) of the resident’s tenancy agreement considers improvements and states as follows:

(i) You are not to make improvements, alterations, additions or erect any aerials and/or satellite dishes to the property without obtaining our prior written permission and all other necessary approvals such as planning permission or building regulation consent.

You must also comply with any reasonable conditions we make in relation to any such consent.

(ii) If you carry out improvements or additions without our prior written permission, we reserve the right to restore the property to its previous condition, to charge you the full cost of making good and we may take possession proceedings in appropriate circumstances.

  1. Section 3.9 of the landlord’s property improvement policy (which was last updated in June 2019) describes the circumstances where it will not give residents permission for improvement work. This states in part:

[The landlord] will not give permission for rented customers for the following but will consider these as Qualifying Improvements for shared owners, leaseholder, equity loan customers and Freeholders:

  1. Work involving gas pipe work and heating systems
  2. Open flue appliances, wood burner stoves and opening up chimneys
  3. Work which involves the structure of the home
  1. Accordingly, in declining the resident’s request to install gas central heating into the property, the landlord correctly followed the applicable polices and clauses of the tenancy agreement.
  2. The resident’s disappointment and frustration with the changed decision is wholly understandable. However, it is also understandable that the circumstances around the approval given in 2017 may have changed in the subsequent years before the resident sought approval again in 2019/2020. Discretion for the decision on whether to agree to the significant improvements requested by the resident lay with the landlord. In this case, it clearly explained the reasons for its decision, which were supported by its policies and the tenancy agreement.

Record keeping

  1. As part of this investigation the landlord was asked twice to provide documents, correspondence, and any other evidence relevant to the resident’s complaint. Only limited information was received, which did not include significant items such as the resident’s original complaint to the landlord, or her request to escalate her complaint. In this particular case the investigation has been able to reach a determination based on the information to hand. However, the omissions indicate poor record keeping by the landlord in that it was not able to provide the relevant information when asked.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its responses to the resident’s request to install a gas supply and gas central heating into her home.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s record keeping.

Orders

  1. In light of the service failure found in this investigation, the landlord is ordered to pay £150 to the resident.
  2. This payment must be made within four weeks of the date of this report. The landlord should update this Service when payment has been made,