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Paragon Asra Housing Limited (202325350)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202325350

Paragon Asra Housing Limited

13 August 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 reports of a wet room leak.

Background

  1. The resident’s assured tenancy began in 2022. The property is a 3 bedroom house where she lives with her children.
  2. On 11 September 2023 the resident complained to the landlord about a leak from her first floor wet room that she said she had reported “months ago”. She said that it had attended for her electrics but that she had not heard from it since. She highlighted that this was the third occurrence of the leak since the previous year, which she had previously complained about. She expressed her further unhappiness, one week later, that the operative who had attended that day had been unqualified to repair the leak.
  3. The landlord sent the resident its stage 1 complaint response on 25 September 2023. It apologised that there had been “multiple errors in the handling of the repair”. It said that a “specialist plumber” would attend the same day.
  4. During the remainder of September and October 2023, the landlord raised repairs and corresponded with the resident about its intended works. She stated her concerns that those works would not resolve the leak. She expressed her frustration that the landlord had not escalated her complaint which, on 11 October 2023, it apologised for and did.
  5. The landlord sent the resident its stage 2 complaint response on 26 October 2023. It said that it had identified that the issue was with the flooring, rather than with the shower. It acknowledged that she was “not confident that the repair will fix the issue”. It said that it would attend on 13 November 2023 to complete the flooring works, which it did. It apologised for the delays and failures in its repairs handling and stated that it had provided feedback “to ensure that this does not happen again”. It offered £300 compensation.
  6. The resident told the landlord that the leak had reoccurred on 19 November 2023. The landlord told us that the repair of that leak, and all associated works, was completed by July 2024.
  7. The resident asked the Ombudsman to investigate the matters above. She said that the leak she had reported on 19 November 2023 was eventually “rectified after a long back and forth”. She highlighted that the landlord was “still taking just as long with other repairs”. She later told us that the leak had reoccurred in April 2025.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident’s previous complaint about the first occurrences of the leak was closed by the landlord at stage 1 in February 2023. The leak that she reported on 19 November 2023 occurred the month after the conclusion of her complaint and the week after the landlord’s associated works. The reoccurrence that she told us about in April 2025 occurred 18 months after the conclusion of her complaint.
  2. These matters have not been considered in this investigation. In the interest of fairness, the scope of this investigation is limited to the issues that have completed the landlord’s formal complaints procedure. This is because the landlord needs to be given a fair opportunity to investigate and respond to any reported dissatisfaction with its actions prior to our involvement.
  3. The resident has more recently made a further complaint. It is unknown whether the complaint has yet completed the landlord’s process, nor whether it includes its handling of the wet room works in 2024 or the further leak in April 2025.
  4. The resident can ask the Ombudsman to investigate her more recent complaint once she has received the landlord’s stage 1 and stage 2 complaint responses. If that complaint does not include the landlord’s handling of her wet room repairs from 19 November 2023 to July 2024, or the further leak in April 2025, she could consider making a new complaint about this to the landlord. She could then return to the Ombudsman and ask us to consider her new complaint. A recommendation has been made to the landlord to this regard.

The landlord’s handling of the wet room repairs

  1. The resident reported her wet room leak in June 2023. The evidence shows that the landlord’s electrician attended but that it then failed to raise any follow on works for the leak itself until she made her complaint in September 2023. It accepted and apologised for this and other failings in its stage 1 complaint response later that month.
  2. The landlord’s stage 2 complaint response, on 26 October 2023, further apologised for its handling of the resident’s repairs and “the unacceptable amount of time taken”. Its £300 compensation was in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for its failings up to that time.
  3. The resident’s escalation had expressed her doubts that the landlord’s proposed works would address the root cause of the leak. While it was appropriate for the landlord to acknowledge this, and offer assurance, the events following the completion of those works suggest that her concerns may have been well founded. Nonetheless, the landlord was entitled to base its works on the assessment of its qualified staff, and it completed them in line with the commitment in its stage 2 complaint response.
  4. Overall, the landlord readily accepted and apologised for the delays and failings in its handling of the resident’s repairs. While they subsequently appear to have been unsuccessful, its works were based on the assessment of its qualified staff and completed in line with its promise. Its compensation was in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for its failings up to that time.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the complaint.

Recommendations

  1. The landlord should:
    1. Pay the resident any part of its £300 award that it had not already done so.
    2. Consider proactively contacting the resident to obtain details of her complaint about its handling of her wet room repairs from 19 November 2023 to July 2024, and/or April 2025, if these matters are not already the subject of a formal complaint.