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Southern Housing (202500448)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202500448

Southern Housing

11 September 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:
    1. The resident’s reports concerning repairs to the external communal lighting.
    2. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord under an agreement dated 21 October 1991. The property is a 2-bedroom maisonette in a purpose-built block. The landlord is a housing association.
  2. The landlord’s repair records state that the resident contacted the landlord on 14 August 2024 as she was upset that the external lights were not working. The landlord’s contractor’s notes stated that it had explained to the landlord that the location of the defective lights was unclear. Its contractor requested the landlord to rebook the work with someone on site to explain and show them where the fault was.
  3. The resident raised a formal complaint on 10 December 2024. In this she said that the repairs to the communal lighting had taken months. She said this followed repeated calls from her and other residents. She felt this was a personal safety issue and the estate had been in darkness for over a year despite the landlord being aware.
  4. The landlord issued a stage 1 complaint response on 21 January 2025. In this it apologised for the delay in fixing the external lighting. It said it had raised a works order for this on 10 September 2024. It said that it had duplicated several jobs due to different communal addresses. This led to it cancelling jobs and not rescheduling them. It advised it had fixed lighting to the bollards. It said it had raised a works order for its contractor to fix the remaining lamp posts. It upheld the complaint due to the length of time it had taken to resolve the communal lighting issues.
  5. The resident was dissatisfied with the landlord’s stage 1 complaint response. She requested that the landlord escalate her complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s internal complaints process on 27 January 2025. The resident advised that the lighting was still defective with 1 tall light working and only 2 bollard lights working. She said she had first reported this in July 2024.
  6. The landlord issued its final complaint response on 18 March 2025. It said:
    1. Its contractor had attended the estate on 3 February 2025 to replace the lamp heads, reset the time clocks and left the lights working. It had responded to a further 2 reports of the lighting being defective including an emergency repair where its contractor found that the MCB breaker had tripped.
    2.  After thinking that the issue could have been caused maliciously, it could not confirm this and felt that it could be a timing issue. It had raised a job to do a full test of the circuits. It would update the resident by 25 March 2025.
    3. It offered £100 in compensation comprising £75 to recognise the impact, inconvenience, time, and trouble caused to the resident in continuously having to report the issue and in navigating the estate in the dark. It awarded £15 for the resident having to chase up for updates and £10 regarding a 5 working day delay in responding at stage 2 of its complaints process.
  7. The resident remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s final complaint response. She referred her case to us on 3 April 2025. As a remedy the resident has said she wants her landlord to review its policies and procedures. She requested that the landlord to call or visit her and to complete the outstanding repairs.

Assessment and findings

The scope of the Ombudsman’s investigation

  1. The resident referred to the impact of the landlord’s actions regarding the lack of lighting on her health. The Ombudsman is unable to draw conclusions on specifically how the resident’s health may have been affected by any errors made by the landlord. Claims of personal injury are better suited for courts or liability insurers to decide. The Ombudsman can however consider the overall detriment, inconvenience and time and trouble experienced by the resident due to a landlord’s failings as well as the landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about her health.
  2. After the end of the landlord’s internal complaints process, the resident requested some information from the landlord on the costs of the work due to her concern about the impact on her service charge. She said that the landlord had not provided her the information she had requested. The resident may wish to raise a separate complaint about this. This will provide an opportunity for the landlord to investigate the issue and if she remains dissatisfied at the end of the internal complaints process, she may wish to refer the complaint to us.
  3. The landlord’s records evidence that other residents had reported that the external lighting was not working properly from at least 9 January 2024. This evidences that the external lighting issues had been ongoing for some time before the resident’s initial report to the landlord. This investigation focusses on the period from the date of the resident’s initial report of the defective lighting in July 2024 to the date of the landlord’s final complaint response of 18 March 2025.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports concerning repairs to the external communal lighting

  1. It is not clear from the landlord’s records when the resident initially reported that the external communal lights were not working. She stated in her complaint escalation request that this was in July 2024. The landlord’s internal email of 17 July 2024 confirms 2 residents had approached it on the estate so this correlates with the resident’s report. The landlord’s repair records evidence that the resident contacted the landlord a month later on 14 August 2024 as the lighting was still defective.
  2. In the landlord’s email to its contractor of 18 July 2024, it said that it would check whether the issue related to a particular block or the whole estate and get back to its contractor. However, there is no record that the landlord got back to its contractor to confirm which was inappropriate and indicated record keeping issues. The landlord’s contractor attended again on 23 July 2024 out of hours. The landlord did not follow up on this out of hours visit until 30 September 2024 to ask if the contractor had investigated the fault. Its contractor then told the landlord that it would need a new works order. The landlord provided this on 1 October 2024. It would have been worthwhile for the landlord to conduct a joint visit with its contractor due to the ongoing reports of lighting defects. No record has been seen that the landlord did a joint visit until 19 May 2025 which was inappropriate. The lack of follow up was evident throughout this investigation.
  3. The landlord’s internal email of 14 August 2024 said that residents were frightened of criminal activity taking place due to the defective lighting. The landlord said it raised a works order for its contractor to attend on 20 August 2024. This was 34 days after the landlord’s internal email of 17 July 2024 when it said that residents had reported the defective external lighting.
  4. The landlord’s repairing responsibilities are set out within the written tenancy agreement and the implied terms in Section 11(1)(c) of the Landlord and Tenant Act.
  5. What is a reasonable time will depend on all the circumstances of a case. The landlord’s repairs policy states that it will attend emergency repairs and make safe within 6 hours of a report. It will complete communal repairs “as quickly as possible”. As there is no time limit given in the policy, which is inappropriate, we have used 28 days as a reasonable period to complete routine repairs. This also corresponds to the landlord’s repairs logs that indicate that it should complete routine repairs within 28 days. The landlord’s repair was therefore outside of this period. We have recommended that the landlord updates its policy to provide timescales for completing repairs.
  6. The landlord’s contractor provided the landlord with a quote on 27 August 2024 to replace the bollard lights which the landlord approved on 2 September 2024. The landlord supplied its contractor’s photographs to us which show damaged bollard lights, new bollard lights, some taller lights and wall lights not working and then the same lights working during daylight hours.
  7. It is not clear from the landlord’s records when its contractor completed the work, again evidencing issues with the landlord’s record keeping. It was also notable that some of the associated photos relating to the works orders showed lights that were fixed and working but during daylight so that would not give much assurance that the lights would continue to work when it got dark. The landlord’s repair records were incomplete with some showing jobs that were “waiting to start”, but with no completion dates and some that were cancelled as per the landlord’s stage 1 complaint response of 21 January 2025.
  8. The landlord also recognised inappropriate record keeping in its stage 1 complaint response where it said that it had duplicated several jobs relating to different communal areas. It also said that where it had cancelled an order it had not rescheduled where necessary.
  9. As set out in our Spotlight report on Knowledge and Information Management (May 2023) and follow up report (January 2025), without good knowledge and information management, a landlord cannot adequately understand its own housing stock and proactively monitor the completion of repairs. The landlord should review its self-assessment of its knowledge and information management if it has not already done so to improve its record keeping practices.
  10. The landlord’s contractor attended again on 26 September 2024 due to another resident’s report of no lighting on the estate on 25 September 2024. The landlord appropriately treated this as an urgent repair due to security concerns. However, it is unclear from the landlord’s records whether any work was completed. The landlord said in its internal email of 10 October 2024 that its contractor was unable to access the intake to complete the repair as it needed a special key. It would be expected that the landlord would provide details of any special requirements such as keys without which the contractor would be unable to complete work. This evidenced a lack of communication along with the record keeping issues as above. The landlord said in the same email that it had chased this up and it would send a job sheet to its contractor.
  11. Our recent Spotlight report on repairs and maintenance – repairing trust (May 2025) highlighted communication issues as a common theme. This gives recommendations to strengthen relationships between landlords, contractors and residents that will help to improve communication. We have recommended that the landlord reviews this report and self-assesses against the recommendations to improve its follow up and communication.
  12. There was again no evidence of appropriate follow up and when the resident chased the landlord again on 14 November 2024 the landlord’s response was to ask if its contractor had provided an update. There are no records that it communicated with the resident to update her on what was happening until its stage 1 complaint response of 21 January 2024, over 2 months later. This lack of communication with the resident was inappropriate. It will have meant that the resident would have likely felt ignored by the landlord. It will have caused unnecessary inconvenience in her chasing up the landlord for updates as recognised in the landlord’s stage 2 complaint response of 18 March 2025.
  13. The resident described to the landlord in her complaint escalation request of 27 January 2025 that she worked shifts which would mean she was understandably concerned for her own safety in walking to and from her car in the dark. Despite this, there was a lack of urgency in the landlord’s response and in its actions. In its email to the resident of 3 February 2025, the landlord recognised it was “now a health and safety risk” and it needed to quickly resolve this. This was inappropriate given that the landlord had recognised the security concerns from at least August 2024 as it noted then that residents were frightened of criminal activity. It also noted in a repair record of 1 November 2024 that children and elderly people were returning home when it would be dark and unsafe.
  14. The resident suggested in her reply also on 3 February 2025 that the landlord should visit the estate to see how bad it is in the dark. The resident told us that the landlord did not phone or visit her despite her requesting this which was inappropriate which was again a sign of poor communication. This was after the landlord’s contractor had marked a works order of 24 January 2025 complete stating that the external lights were left in good working order. She said that the landlord’s proposed completion date of 24 February 2025 to fix the external lighting was unreasonable considering the length of time the issue had remained unresolved. It was by this point over 7 months from the resident’s original report in July 2024 which was an unreasonable delay. It was also outside of the landlord’s repairing obligations and its policy to complete communal repairs as quickly as possible.
  15. In the resident’s email of 6 February 2025, she said that she had spoken to the contractor who thought that other people were turning off the electric as it could be accessed by anyone. The resident made a sensible suggestion to the landlord that it should secure the electric controls so that there would be no unauthorised access. She reiterated this in her further email of 11 February 2025. She also suggested that the landlord could check the CCTV which would show what lights were on and off. Whilst the landlord told the resident on the same date that it would refer her queries to a senior colleague, there is no evidence that the landlord provided an outcome to the resident which was inappropriate.
  16. There is no evidence that the landlord checked the CCTV and after suggesting in its internal email of 3 March 2025 that it may consider a lock change or relocating the controller, there was again a lack of follow up to consider this suggestion to ensure no unauthorised access.
  17. The landlord’s evidence also suggested that there could have been other faults causing the lights to be defective, not just malicious damage. In its repair records of 28 February 2025, it said 2 lamp posts may be causing the issue due to rain water getting into the fittings. In its internal email of 11 March 2025, it said that it could be an issue with the circuit or timer. The resident’s email of 11 March 2025 also referenced the lights being on at the wrong times – for example, being on during the day and off at night that would indicate a timing issue.
  18. The resident continued to report the lights being defective 6 times until the landlord’s final complaint response of 18 March 2025. The landlord said in its final response that it would provide an update to the resident by 25 March 2025. The resident’s email of 26 March 2025 evidenced that an update was provided which was reasonable. However, considering that there could have been multiple issues causing the lights to not work, a joint visit with a suitably qualified surveyor would have been appropriate. As mentioned, this did not happen until 19 May 2025, and the resident told us that the landlord did not provide any report to her with the outcome as she had requested.
  19. The resident continued to report faults with the lights after the end of the landlord’s internal complaints process. She has advised us that the lights continue to not work properly and that the estate remains in darkness. The landlord’s contractor also mentioned that the lighting had been vandalised and suggested the landlord consider installing lights that could not be tampered with. Clearly vandalism is not the landlord’s fault, but the landlord could consider the suggested resolution. As the issue is unresolved at the date of this determination, it has taken the landlord so far 14 months to find the underlying causes of the external lighting defects and to find a lasting remedy. This is considerably outside of the landlord’s repairing obligations and its policy and is therefore unreasonable.
  20. Whilst the evidence shows that the landlord completed some repairs, the issue was not resolved and there was significant delay. The landlord’s communication and record keeping was also insufficient. The Ombudsman considers that these issues combined amount to maladministration for which orders have been made. Having carefully considered our guidance on remedies, £400 compensation has been ordered in respect of the landlord’s failings. This comprises £250 in respect of the unreasonable delay in the landlord fixing the external lighting issues. A further £150 is ordered (inclusive of the £90 previously offered) to recognise the distress and inconvenience, time and trouble caused to the resident by the landlord’s failings.
  21. In order to put things right, we have ordered the landlord to complete an inspection to identify any work that is needed to fix the external lighting. It should supply a copy of its report to the resident and to us with the anticipated completion dates of any work identified.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The resident’s issued her complaint on 10 December 2024. The landlord did not acknowledge the resident’s complaint until 30 December 2024. This was outside of the landlord’s complaints’ policy timescale for an acknowledgement to be sent. It was also outside of the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code). According to the landlord’s policy and the Code, the landlord should have acknowledged the complaint within 5 working days.
  2. The landlord extended the timescale to issue a response at stage 1 of its complaints process by writing to the resident on 14 January 2025. It said it needed to extend the timescale until 21 January 2025 as it was gathering essential information from its contractors. It was reasonable for the landlord to write to the resident to extend the time allowed to provide a response when it realised that it was unable to reach the deadline. The landlord’s policy and the Code allows for an extension of time where a landlord deems this to be necessary. The Code requires landlords to provide referral rights to us when it requires an extension of time. The landlord did provide referral rights as per the Code which was appropriate.
  3. The landlord in its stage 1 complaint response upheld the resident’s complaint but it offered no learning from the outcome as we would expect. It also did not consider compensating the resident for the delays in its complaint handling or in relation to the substantive issue. The landlord could have considered a discretionary payment of up to £50 in respect of service failure in its complaint handling and failed to do so which was inappropriate.
  4. The resident requested that the landlord escalate her complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s complaints process on 27 January 2025. The landlord’s acknowledgement of 11 February 2025 was again unnecessarily delayed. It took the landlord 11 working days to acknowledge the resident’s escalation request which is contrary to the landlord’s policy and the Code. This was again unreasonable given that the timescale for the landlord to respond to the resident was already unnecessarily delayed.
  5. Once again, the landlord wrote to the resident on 11 March 2025 to extend the deadline to provide a response as it wanted to provide a more substantial resolution. It provided its stage 2 complaint response on 18 March 2025. It appropriately apologised for the delay in issuing its stage 2 complaint response and awarded £10 compensation for this delay which was in line with its compensation policy. It upheld the resident’s complaint.
  6. The landlord said it had given feedback to its contractor and its repairs team of the resident’s experience and the improvements in service. However, it did not say what the recommended improvements were. The landlord could have provided further detail in its response so that the resident could see that the landlord had learned lessons from the complaint in line with our Code.
  7. The Ombudsman considers that there was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling due to the delays in acknowledging the resident’s complaint at both stages of its internal complaints process. This was not in accordance with its policy or the Code. The Ombudsman considers that the landlord’s £10 offer of compensation does not adequately reflect the identified service failings.
  8. Having carefully considered our guidance on remedies, £100 compensation has been ordered for the complaint handling failings (inclusive of the £10 previously offered). This appropriately recognises the distress and inconvenience, time and trouble caused to the resident through the landlord’s failure to acknowledge the resident’s complaint at both stages causing unnecessary delay. It also recognises the landlord’s failure to consider an appropriate remedy at stage 1 when it had identified service failings.
  9. We have also ordered the landlord to undertake a senior management review of this case so that it can learn from the outcome to improve its services including its record keeping and communication.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in respect of the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports concerning repairs to the external communal lighting.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was service failure in respect of the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to issue a written apology to the resident from a senior leader. It should send a copy of this to us.
  2. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £500 in compensation (inclusive of the £100 previously offered). This comprises:
    1. £250 in respect of the delays in fixing the external lighting issues and £150 (inclusive of the £90 previously offered) to recognise the distress, inconvenience, time and trouble caused to the resident by the landlord’s failings to fix the external lights in a timely manner.
    2. £100 (inclusive of the £10 previously offered) in respect of the landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.
  3. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to conduct an inspection of the estate external lighting by a suitably qualified surveyor. It must provide a copy of its inspection report detailing any faults that are causing the lights to fail to the resident. This must contain details of any works to be completed, along with completion timescales. It must provide the report to the resident and to us within the 4-week period specified.
  4. Within 6 weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to complete a senior management review of this case to identify lessons learned to prevent the same failings from happening again. It should pay particular attention to its communication and record keeping issues. It must provide a copy of its report to the resident and to us within the 6-week period.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord review our Spotlight report on repairs and maintenance – repairing trust (May 2025) and complete a self-assessment based upon the recommendations. It should pay particular attention to the recommendations to strengthen relationships.
  2. It is recommended that the landlord review its self-assessment of its knowledge and information management based upon the recommendations set out in our Spotlight report on Knowledge and Information Management (May 2023) and follow up report (January 2025) to improve its record keeping practices.
  3. It is recommended that the landlord updates its policy to provide timescales for completing repairs.