Southern Housing (202411939)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202411939

Southern Housing

28 July 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 lift repairs.
  2. We have considered the landlord’s complaint handling in this case.

Background

  1. The resident lives in a 1-bedroom 3rd floor flat owned by the landlord. This is an assured tenancy that began in 2007. The building has 1 communal passenger lift and 9 flights of stairs. The resident was pregnant during the time the lift was out of service, as noted below.
  2. The landlord’s lift repair records show 4 lift call outs from April 2023 to October 2023.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord on 20 October 2023 to express her concerns that the lift had been intermittently out of service for months. She was struggling to access her home using the stairs. The landlord’s notes requested it made contact with the resident about possible decant options. The landlord contacted the resident in November 2023, noted her concerns, and passed information to its lift team. There are no records of this team’s response.
  4. The resident raised a complaint with the landlord on 15 November 2023. The resident said she had been calling the landlord every week for updates without success. She said there had been recurring lift issues that had resulted in outages for over 6 months. The resident requested the landlord refund her the service charge. She explained she struggled to use the stairs due to being pregnant and having to carry a suitcase each day for work. The resident said the situation was causing her “grave distress and discomfort”.
  5. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 5 December 2023 and responded to the resident on 6 December 2023. It said the lift was reported out of service on 10 October 2023. The following day it had inspected the lift, a part was ordered, and the part was fitted on 13 November 2023. The lift was left in working order. It apologised to the resident for the period the lift was out of service and offered her £100 compensation.
  6. The landlord’s records show there were a further 3 lift repair call outs during November 2023 and December 2023.
  7. On 2 January 2024, the resident contacted the landlord. She remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s response. The landlord acknowledged this as a stage 2 complaint and provided its response to the resident on 12 February 2024. It was unable to tell her the length of time the lift had been out of service and apologised for the ongoing issues. The landlord offered the resident an additional £50 compensation and therefore its total offer of compensation was £150.
  8. The landlord’s records show a further 6 lift repair call outs occurred between January 2024 to July 2024.
  9. The resident contacted us on 21 June 2024. She explained that she had no access to a working lift for a large part of her pregnancy which had made it difficult and caused her significant distress and inconvenience. Her baby was born on 26 June 2024, and she had undergone an emergency operation which had severely restricted her mobility. She said the lift being out of service had caused her significant distress.
  10. In July 2024, the landlord offered the resident temporary accommodation in a hotel for 3 months. There was uncertainty with the approved length of stay. The hotel accommodation was unsuitable, and she had to return to the property to wash and prepare meals. The resident was offered another temporary home which was also unsuitable to her needs.
  11. On 14 November 2024, the resident made a further complaint to the landlord about her overall concerns with the lift outage. The resident wanted the landlord to recognise the inconvenience and distress the situation had caused her. She did not feel it was fair to continue to charge her rent for her main home when she did not have access to full facilities. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 22 November 2024 and aimed to provide its full response by 5 December 2024.
  12. The landlord sent the resident its stage 1 complaint response on 4 December 2024. It said the lift had been out of service since 3 July 2024. It acknowledged the numerous visits from July 2024 to November 2024 to try and resolve the issues. In November 2024 it estimated it would take 12 to 14 weeks to restore the lift. It was trying to improve its service by using alternative supply chains for parts. It apologised and offered the resident an additional £100 compensation giving a total of £250.
  13. The landlord provided the resident with alternative accommodation on 2 October 2024 which she confirmed was suitable to her needs. The landlord approved a management move on 6 February 2025 and in June 2025 the resident was rehoused on a permanent basis.
  14. The resident raised another complaint with the landlord about the same issues on 12 March 2025. The landlord contacted the resident on a number of occasions to extend its timeframe for response. When the landlord responded on 27 June 2025 as a further stage 1 complaint, it apologised for its delay in responding and offered the resident £805 compensation.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The lift issues continued after the landlord’s final complaint response of February 2024. This resulted in the resident making further complaints to the landlord in which it responded at stage 1 of its complaints procedure on 4 December 2024 and 27 June 2025.
  2. Given events of the same nature occurred after the landlord’s final complaint response of February 2024, our investigation will focus on the whole timeframe up until June 2025.

The landlord’s handling of lift repairs

  1. The landlord is responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the lift. Its responsive repairs policy states it will deal with a passenger lift breakdown as an emergency repair, attend and make safe within 6 hours of reporting the repair. If other repairs are required, it will arrange this for as soon as possible.
  2. The lift was reported out of service on 10 October 2023, and the landlord inspected it the following day. It therefore did not comply with its 6-hour timeframe for attending to the lift.
  3. It could not restore the lift to working order as parts were required. Additionally, at the end of October 2023, the resident made the landlord aware that she was struggling to access her home because the lift was out of order in the building. The landlord contacted the resident in November 2023; however, it has not provided us with the record of its action.
  4. If a lift is out of service, landlords should assess the situation and offer alternatives like rehousing if repairs cannot be done quickly. There is no evidence the landlord risk assessed the situation taking into account the resident’s individual needs or offered her alternative accommodation at this point. The landlord’s inactions were therefore inappropriate causing significant difficulties for the resident in accessing her home.
  5. We understand that it is not always possible to repair items of a complex nature such as lifts. We do however expect landlord’s to provide a prompt response to individual resident requirements to understand difficulties and reduce risks.
  6. The landlord’s records show it reinstated the lift to working order on 13 November 2023. However, shortly afterwards, the resident raised concerns again about difficulties accessing her home. In total, she said there had been recurring lift issues for 6 months. This was having a significant impact on the resident who was pregnant at the time.
  7. In its stage 2 complaint response in mid-February 2024, the landlord was unable to tell the resident the duration the lift was out of service. The landlord’s lack of record keeping is of concern. Without good information management, a landlord cannot proactively manage risks and hazards or evidence effective decision making. The landlord should refer to our Spotlight report on: Knowledge and Information Management (May 2023) for best practice.
  8. The landlord offered the resident temporary accommodation in July 2024 for 3 months. The accommodation was unsuitable to her needs as it was a hotel room with no washing or meal preparation facilities. Given the resident had a newborn baby, it was essential that she had facilities to wash, sterilise and prepare bottles. While the Ombudsman understands that a suitable property will not always be available when urgent move into temporary accommodation is required, the lack of facilities and uncertainty of the duration of stay caused the resident significant distress and inconvenience. There was also further upheaval of another unsuitable temporary accommodation and returns to her property to use facilities. It was appropriate, therefore, that in early October 2024, the landlord offered the resident alternative accommodation which was suitable to her needs.
  9. It is not evident whether or not the lift issues were ever resolved. Nevertheless, given the ongoing issues, the resident applied to move on a permanent basis. The landlord appropriately recognised the ongoing impact on the resident and approved a management move in early February 2025 and in June 2025, the resident was rehoused permanently. This was an appropriate resolution to the ongoing issues for the resident.
  10. In conclusion, there were several landlord failures in managing lift repairs relating to:
    1. Significant intermittent lift outage and prolonged delays in repairing the lift.
    2. Failure to risk assess the resident’s individual needs from October 2023.
    3. Lack of record keeping.
    4. Delay in arranging suitable temporary accommodation.
  11. These failures caused significant distress and inconvenience to the resident in accessing her home over an intermittent prolonged period of around 9 months. This was at a time when the resident was pregnant, and the issues continued when her baby was born.
  12. In each of its complaint responses, the landlord recognised that the delays to resolving the lift had caused distress and inconvenience to the resident. It increased its offer of compensation in each response, totalling £805 in its final response. This included £250 in recognition of the inconvenience caused to the resident.
  13. Where the landlord has attempted to put things right for the resident, we consider our Dispute Resolution Principles of:
    1. Be fair.
    2. Put things right.
    3. Learn from outcomes.
  14. While the landlord recognised some of its failures, its compensation offers fall short of what we expect the landlord to pay for failures over an intermittent prolonged period that significantly impacted the resident.
  15. For these reasons, we have found maladministration with the landlord’s handling of lift repairs. The landlord is therefore ordered to pay £1,345 compensation to put things right for the resident. This includes £745 for loss of amenity (being half of the rent) for the 3 months where the resident did not have full facilities during the period of unsuitable temporary accommodation as well as a distress and inconvenience payment of £600. This amount of compensation is aligned to our remedies guidance. This order replaces the landlord’s offer of £805.

Complaint handling

  1. The resident complained to the landlord on 15 November 2023. The landlord acknowledged her complaint on 5 December 2023 and provided its full stage 1 complaint response on 6 December 2023.
  2. Our Complaint Handling Code (the Code – March 2022) states that when a complaint is made, it must be acknowledged and logged at stage 1 of the complaints procedure within 5 working days. A full response must be provided to the resident within 10 working days.
  3. The landlord acknowledged the complaint 14 working days later and provided its response 15 working days later. The landlord therefore did not comply with our Code and this was inappropriate.
  4. The resident escalated the complaint to the landlord on 2 January 2024. The landlord acknowledged this as a stage 2 complaint and provided its response on 12 February 2024.
  5. The Code states that landlords must provide its stage 2 complaint response within 20 working days. Exceptionally, landlords may provide an explanation to the resident containing a clear timeframe for when the response will be received which should be no more than 10 extra days without good reason.
  6. The landlord responded 29 working days later without agreeing an extension with the resident. The landlord once again did not comply with the Code and this was inappropriate.
  7. Due to ongoing issues with the lift, the resident had to raise another complaint to the landlord on 14 November 2024. The landlord sent the resident its stage 1 complaint response on 4 December 2024. The resident escalated the complaint on 12 March 2025. It wrote to the resident to extend its response time on a number of occasions. However, instead of sending a stage 2 response, it sent a further stage 1 complaint response on 27 June 2025.
  8. The landlord’s complaint handling is confusing. We accept that issues escalated during the timeline for which the landlord needed to investigate additional complaints. However, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to escalate this to stage 2 of its complaints process.
  9. In conclusion, the landlord did not comply with the Code when it managed the resident’s complaint at stage 1 and stage 2 of the complaint process. It delayed in its responses to the initial complaint. Further, there was confusion caused by providing a further 2 stage 1 responses, along with additional delays to its latest complaint response of June 2025. We have therefore found maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling for which it should compensate the resident £150 in recognition of the distress and inconvenience caused to her. This amount of compensation is aligned to our remedies guidance.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was maladministration with the landlord’s handling of lift repairs.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was maladministration with the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of this report, the landlord should write to the resident and apologise for the failures identified within this report.
  2. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident compensation of £1,495, made up of:
    1. £1,345 for the landlord’s handling of lift repairs.
    2. £150 for the landlord’s complaint handling.
  3. This replaces the landlord’s previous offer of £805. The ordered amount (less any amount already paid by the landlord as part of its previous offer) must be paid within 4 weeks of the date of this determination.
  4. Within 6 weeks of this report the landlord should provide us with its learning and action plan from this complaint in relation to:
    1. How it will improve its future handling of lift repairs. In particular, it should focus on its risk assessment process and actions relating to individual resident needs.
    2. How it will improve its record keeping in relation to its repair and maintenance service.
  5. The landlord should reply to our Service with evidence of compliance with these orders within the timescales set out above.