Sanctuary Housing Association (202336319)

Where we find service failure, maladministration or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.

Orders

Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

What we found and why

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

10. The resident’s tenancy agreement does not give the resident a dedicated parking space or bay. The road outside the property is privately owned. The landlord’s aids and adaptations policy sets out it will give residents information and guidance about how aids and adaptations can be accessed.
11. It is not disputed the landlord delayed in progressing the request for a dropped kerb. The request was made by the resident on 8 November 2023 and the landlord took around 3 months to raise the order on 8 November 2023. The landlord did not give reasons for its delay. Given the resident and his partner’s vulnerabilities, this was not reasonable. The landlord’s records should show its response to repair requests it received and the actions taken.
12. The resident said the housing officer failed to communicate with him about the progress of the dropped kerb. This is not disputed by the landlord and acknowledged in its stage 2 complaint response. We expect landlords to keep residents informed and to manage expectations as this helps to improve the landlord and resident relationship. The landlord’s records do not show it explained to the resident the process for obtaining a dropped kerb until after the complaint process ended. This was not reasonable. Had it done so earlier, the delay experienced by the resident would have been minimised. The resident has confirmed the dropped kerb has since been installed.
13. The resident requested a disabled bay as he was experiencing difficulty finding a suitable place to park his car which would give sufficient access for his partner to enter and leave the car. The landlord in its complaint review acknowledged the resident had made his request for a disabled parking bay in July 2023. It acknowledged the resident had experienced an unreasonable delay as it did not progress his request until 6 February 2024. The landlord did not provide any further information to the resident to explain its delay. Further, the landlord has not demonstrated it acted in line with its aids and adaptations policy by assisting the resident to obtain a solution to his parking concerns.
14. The landlord in its complaints review awarded £400 for the time and trouble experienced by the resident for its delay in raising the order for the dropped kerb and the marking of the disabled bay. Our remedies guidance states that payments between £100 to £600 can be paid when the landlord’s actions adversely affect a resident. The landlord’s compensation award of £400 reflects the inconvenience experienced by the resident and is sufficient and proportionate. The landlord has acknowledged and apologised for its shortcomings, made a proportionate compensation award, installed the dropped kerb, and disabled parking bay. For those reasons we have made a finding of reasonable redress.

15. It is not disputed that the landlord is not responsible for the maintenance of the road. When the resident raised his complaint in October 2023, he asked who owned it. The landlord did not include a response to this information in its stage 1 response. At stage 2 it confirmed the owner of the road. The evidence suggests it had established the owner of the road by the end of February 2024. There is no evidence the landlord passed that information to the resident until its stage 2 complaint response some 5 weeks later. The landlord therefore missed an opportunity to give the resident the owner’s contact details promptly.
16. We consider an apology is proportionate redress here. This is on the basis that, had the landlord provided that information sooner, we cannot say with any certainty that the road owner would have taken action sooner.

17. The tenancy agreement confirms that the landlord will keep the structure and exterior of the property in repair. This includes the windows to the property.
18. In its complaint responses the landlord acknowledged it had failed to give appropriate notice to the resident about the scaffolding and recognised the inconvenience caused to the resident. The landlord apologised for that oversight.
19. The resident said he believed the landlord had discriminated against him by its decision not to replace his windows while it had decided to replace other windows in the building. We cannot find a landlord has breached the Equality Act 2010. However, we can decide whether a landlord failed to take account of its duties under the Equality Act 2010 and followed its own related policies and procedures. In its complaint responses the landlord explained it managed different tenancies with different programmes of work to replace the windows to the property. While this may be the case, the landlord could have given the resident a more detailed explanation setting out why his windows did not meet the criteria to be replaced and how it decided which windows required repair.
20. The landlord attended the property on 27 September 2024 to overhaul the bedroom window to seal the gaps. The resident made a further report on 29 November 2023 and the landlord made an appointment made for 14 December 2023. While the operative attended within its routine repair timescale of 45 days, the operative did not record the action taken. This is a record keeping failure as it means there is no audit trail for the landlord to reassure itself of the action taken to resolve matters. It was reasonable for the landlord to repair the windows in line with its repairing obligations and to rely on the surveyor’s expert opinion that it did not need to replace the windows.
21. The landlord replaced the windows in July 2024, which is the outcome the resident was seeking. The landlord offered compensation of £75 made up of £25 for its poor communication regarding the erection of the scaffolding and £50 for its overall communication failures. In line with our remedies guidance the landlord’s offer of compensation is sufficient and proportionate for the inconvenience experienced by the resident.

22. The resident complained in September and October 2023 about the location of the neighbour’s bin saying it was a possible fire hazard. The landlord’s fire risk assessment on 7 March 2024 regarding the refuse bin assessed the risk as low and said the refuse bin should be moved to at least 2 metres from the property.
23. The landlord’s records show it considered creating a bin storage area as a possible solution, which was a reasonable approach. However, the evidence suggests this was not possible as there was insufficient room on the land the landlord owned. In its complaint response the landlord said it would write to the neighbour and ask them to move their bin to its original roadside position. While that was a reasonable step to take the evidence suggests it would have been reasonable for the landlord to have done so sooner.
24. After the complaint response ended, in May 2024, the landlord undertook a site visit and assessed installing a bin store would cause difficulties for refuse removal by the council unless the kerb was lowered.
25. The landlord has told us the neighbour has relocated the refuse bins. The resident has not disputed this and said the refuse bins have returned to their original roadside position. We have made a finding of service failure and ordered the landlord to apologise for any inconvenience experienced by the resident by its delay in writing to the neighbour.

26. The resident made an ASB report on 29 November 2023 about the neighbour grandchildren playing in the communal area. The resident made a similar report on 9 December 2023 about the neighbour’s grandchildren and the resident said 3 other neighbours was affected by the noise. In addition, in his complaint, the resident informed the landlord about the neighbour granddaughter was inconsiderate when parking as she frequently blocked his car in.
27. The landlord’s website has information about how it handles reports of ASB. This explains it does not consider parking issues or children playing as ASB. The landlord told us it referred the resident’s report to its housing team for investigation and it had not received any other reports from other residents about the conduct of the neighbour’s grandchildren. This was a reasonable step to take to reach a view on whether or not the issues the resident raised amounted to ASB. However, the landlord has not provided us with evidence of its evidence gathering to support its assessment the reports were not ASB. This is not reasonable as without this we have been unable to see the factors it considered when it made its assessment.
28. The landlord’s website sets out the details of its good neighbour policy which its tenancy team uses to improve relationships between its residents. This includes measures from helping with mediation between neighbours to signposting to other agencies to provide support to residents. The landlord has not provided us with any evidence it acted in line with its policy apart from giving information in its stage 2 complaint response about the noise app. This was not reasonable as it gave the impression it did not take the resident’s report seriously.
29. In its stage 2 response, the landlord did not comment on the parking difficulties expressed by the resident. This was a failing as it missed an opportunity to set out its position which could have included informal action such as speaking to the neighbour about the resident’s concerns.
30. The resident told us the noise from the neighbour’s grandchildren are intermittent as the noise only occurs when they visit. Also, they said they had not made further reports to the landlord about the noise or the parking of the neighbour visitors as they had lost faith in the landlord to act.
31. The landlord has not demonstrated it acted in line with its responsibilities outlined in the tenancy agreement regarding the resident’s reports about parking and noise. It has not evidenced it gathered information or monitored the situation to reach the conclusion that the incidents the resident reported were not ASB. The evidence available to the time of the final response shows the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns to be unreasonable. We have made a finding of service failure. We have ordered additional compensation of £100 to reflect the frustration and inconvenience caused to the resident by the landlord’s failure to investigate his ASB concerns.

32. The resident complained to the landlord on 31 October 2023 about multiple issues such as the disabled parking bay, location of the neighbour’s bins, parking by the neighbour’s daughter and the installation of the dropped kerb. It is not appropriate that the landlord did not follow its complaints procedure by acknowledging the complaint within 5 working days or provide a stage 1 complaint response within 10 working says.
33. The resident made a further complaint on 29 November 2023 about the erection of scaffolding and the installation of windows to other properties. It was reasonable the landlord acknowledged the complaint within 5 working days on 1 December 2023.
34. The landlord’s complaint procedure and our complaint handling code sets out, if a landlord cannot provide a stage 1 complaint response within 10 working days, it can request an extension of a maximum of 20 days. The landlord contacted the resident on 9 December 2023 to request an extension to 23 December 2023. It asked for a further time extensions on 6 February 2024. Overall, the landlord took 68 working days to provide its stage 1 complaint response. This represents a significant delay which likely caused inconvenience and uncertainty to the resident.
35. The landlord’s stage 1 complaint response did not address all of the issues raised by the resident. The resident had raised these issues and so he had a right to expect the landlord to respond to them. By not investigating these concerns at stage 1, the resident experienced a further delay before he received the landlord’s position on the complaint issues he had raised.
36. The resident escalated the complaint on 10 February 2024 and the landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 3 April 2024. The landlord took 37 working days. This was not reasonable as this exceeded its stage 2 complaint handling timescale of 20 working days.
37. In its stage 2 response, the landlord apologised to the resident and offered compensation totalling £250 for frustration and inconvenience caused to the resident by its complaint handling failures. We consider the landlord’s compensation offer is sufficient and proportionate. It is also in line with our remedies guidance. For those reasons we have made a finding of reasonable redress.

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

38. The landlord’s records were poor throughout this case. It hindered the investigation as its repair records did not give information about inspections carried out or notes made by its operative following repairs. It did not provide notes from its tenancy team about its response to the resident’s concerns about noise and parking.

Communication

39. The landlord should review how it can ensure better communication between its housing officers and its residents.