Phoenix Community Housing Association (Bellingham and Downham) Limited (202004846)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202004846

Phoenix Community Housing Association (Bellingham and Downham) Limited

2 November 2021

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 is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of overcrowding and difficulties experienced with the bidding process.

Background and summary of events

Policies and procedures

The landlord’s lettings and allocations policy is aligned with the Council’s allocation scheme. This states:

‘We will allocate homes to applicants based on the number of bedrooms the household requires. A separate bedroom will be allocated to each:

married or cohabiting couple
adult aged 21 years or more
pair of adolescents aged 10-20 of the same sex
pair of children aged under 10 regardless of sex

Where a local authority’s housing medical advisor recommends that a household requires an extra bedroom on medical grounds, we will take this into account when allocating homes.’

Background

The resident’s tenancy began in December 2007. At that time the resident had one child and her second child was born in July 2008. The property has two bedrooms.
In 2014 the resident submitted a rehousing application to the Council which she managed without the assistance of the landlord. The resident’s application currently has a band 3 priority which is classed as being overcrowded in her current circumstances and in need of an additional bedroom.

Summary of events

The landlord’s customer relationship database that records all contacts with tenants went live in September 2019. There is a record of two contacts with the resident in September 2019 to discuss rehousing.
On 9 October 2019 the landlord rang the tenant to discuss the rehousing policy further and has a note that the resident ‘now has a better understanding of the process’.
The resident’s MP wrote to the landlord on 29 October 2019 asking if it would consider the resident and her family for rehousing due to overcrowding. The landlord replied to the MP on 8 November 2019. It said that it had made various attempts to contact the resident but had been unsuccessful. However, it confirmed that the resident had a currently active housing application and was bidding for alternative accommodation on a regular basis. The resident had submitted a medical form that was awaiting assessment by the Council’s medical adviser to determine whether her housing priority should be increased. The landlord said that the resident’s housing officer had been tasked with contacting the resident to offer advice on rehousing options and to offer ongoing support and advice.
The Council completed the assessment of the medical form in January 2020. The outcome was that there was no increase in the resident’s housing priority. The family was overcrowded by one bedroom and was in band 3.
On 13 March 2020 the landlord has a record that it called the resident to discuss rehousing issues.
On 13 August 2020 the resident rang the landlord asking to be contacted as she had been bidding for eleven years without success and that she had an adult and child sharing a bedroom. On 21 August 2020 the landlord tried to call the resident back on two occasions but was unsuccessful. At the same time, it checked her housing application to ensure that there were no issues that were impacting the bidding process; none were found.
On 21 September 2020 the resident rang the landlord to express concern about the length of time she had been bidding without success and said that the landlord was not doing enough to help her. The housing officer attempted to call her back on 22 September 2020, but the resident did not answer.
On 23 September 2020 the resident spoke to the landlord and requested that it send her a letter detailing the conversation. The landlord accepts that it did not send the requested letter, although its records show that the housing officer did attempt to call the resident about the letter request but was unable to reach her.
On 8 October 2020 the landlord marked the case as closed as it had been unable to contact the resident. However, on 9 October 2020 the landlord received a complaint from the resident via this Service. It tried to call the resident on 9 October 2020 but again there was no answer.
On 24 November 2020 the landlord did speak to the resident. The resident advised that she had been bidding for twelve years and had not been offered an alternative property. She said that she had a 19 year old daughter and a 12 year old son and that it was against the law for a boy and a girl to share a room.
On 30 November 2020 the landlord made numerous calls to the resident to discuss her rehousing options, but it was unable to get through or leave a voicemail.
The landlord drafted a letter on 30 November 2020 in response to the resident’s complaint (which was apparently sent on 2 December 2020). The letter said that the landlord had been trying to call the resident without success. It said it understood that the resident had been bidding on the Council’s bidding system consistently and that her medical application was not approved by the Council’s medical adviser. The housing officer had spoken to the resident to discuss other housing options however the resident felt that these had been tried and not proved successful. The landlord said that it was unable to uphold the resident’s complaint but that it had asked the housing officer to have further discussions with the resident and to provide the necessary support and assistance.
On 9 December 2020 the resident made a request that her complaint be escalated to stage 2 of the landlord’s complaints policy. She said that her children should not be sharing a bedroom and that she had not received any help from the landlord. She said that whenever she rang to speak to someone, they were always busy and never returned her calls. The resident said she had looked into every other option for moving and was still not getting anywhere and that her children were very depressed to be living in this way.
On 6 January 2021, the landlord rang the resident to discuss her complaint but there was no answer. However, the resident returned the call and said that her desired resolution was that she be rehoused.
On 12 January 2021 the landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response. It agreed that, in accordance with its allocations policy, the resident’s home was overcrowded and that it would not have been allocated to her in her current circumstances. However, the landlord’s housing allocations were managed through the Council’s bidding system and that the Council’s allocations policy stated that ‘applicants in band 3 can expect to wait a long time to be rehoused’ due to a severe shortage of social housing in the borough. The landlord apologised for past difficulties in contacting the housing officer and said that it did want to support the resident towards her efforts to be rehoused. It then set out the various options available to the resident such as mutual exchanges and moving between boroughs or other housing associations. The landlord said that the housing manager was going to contact the resident to go through these options in more detail. The landlord also said that it had raised with the resident over the phone the possibility of it bidding via the Council’s bidding process on her behalf and asked the resident to get in touch if she might be interested in that option in the future. The landlord confirmed that it was unable to deal with the resident’s complaint about the bidding process itself as that was managed by the Council and not the landlord. The letter concluded by saying that the landlord had not found any evidence that the resident’s case had been handled inappropriately and therefore the complaint was not upheld.
On 18 January 2021 the resident returned a call from the housing manager, and they had a conversation about the available rehousing options.
On 26 January 2021 the resident requested a copy of her tenancy agreement and asked a question about when the landlord had changed the law for sharing a bedroom. The landlord hand–delivered a copy of the tenancy agreement on 12 February 2021 and also wrote a response to the resident on that date, apologising for the delay in responding. It said that the Council was responsible for considering all applications for rehousing by the landlord’s tenants who are registered on the housing list and to allocate available properties in accordance with their allocations and lettings policy. It said that the Council’s policy is reviewed from time to time and any changes are made by the Council and not the landlord and that it tried to keep its tenants up to date with any changes through its website and when discussing rehousing options. The landlord said that many applicants in difficult circumstances face a very long wait to be rehoused. It said that the housing officer would ensure that the resident’s housing application included up to date information.

Assessment and findings

Following a detailed review of the evidence submitted by both parties, the Ombudsman’s investigation considers the action taken by the landlord in response to the resident’s reports of overcrowding and difficulties experienced with the bidding process and whether it followed its own policies and procedures, kept to the law and acted reasonably and proportionately in the circumstances.
As the resident has already been advised, this Service can look at the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for support with rehousing. However, the subsequent assessment of her housing needs and the bidding process itself is managed by the Council and is therefore not something that this Service can consider. The resident has confirmed that she has been in contact with the appropriate ombudsman scheme about this issue.
The resident says there was poor communication on the part of the landlord and that her calls were ignored and not returned. There was one occasion when the resident rang on 13 August 2020 and the landlord’s records show that it did not try to call her back until 21 August 2020. There was also one occasion in September 2020 that the resident requested that the contents of a phone conversation be put in writing to her, which was not done and for which the landlord has apologised. Other than that, the available evidence shows that the landlord did always respond to the resident’s calls in a timely fashion. The resident frequently did not answer the phone when the landlord returned calls. There is also evidence that the resident often did not answer the phone when the landlord was calling her on other occasions. Although the landlord did not identify a specific failing in relation to communication, it nevertheless apologised in its stage 2 response if the resident sometimes had difficulty in contacting the housing officer.
The resident is of the view that because she has not been rehoused, that shows that the landlord has failed to listen to her. However, the available evidence suggests that the landlord has taken the resident’s concerns seriously. It has checked that the resident’s housing application contains all of the up-to-date information and that there are no issues with it that would adversely affect the resident’s chances of bidding for an alternative property. It has also checked that she is in the correct banding for her situation. However, the reality is that the resident is in a low priority category and the Council’s own information tells applicants in band 3 that they can expect a very long wait to be rehoused due to a general shortage of available properties.
The landlord has committed to providing the resident with any necessary support and assistance with regard to rehousing. The Ombudsman is satisfied that the landlord has done so in terms of setting out other rehousing options available to the resident and by offering to bid for properties on her behalf. The Ombudsman appreciates that the resident is frustrated as she does not see this as meaningful support. However, in practice there is little more that the landlord can do that would result in the resident being rehoused more quickly.
The landlord has sympathy with the resident’s situation, as the Ombudsman does. However, ultimately it is not the landlord’s fault that the resident has so far not been able to bid successfully for an alternative property.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration with respect to the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of overcrowding and difficulties experienced with the bidding process.

Reasons

The landlord has ensured that the resident’s housing application is fit for purpose with regards to the bidding process. It has provided her with information about alternative rehousing options and offered to bid for properties on her behalf. This is the most it can do as it is not within the landlord’s gift to allocate a larger property to the resident.