Southern Housing Group Limited (202103252)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202103252

Southern Housing Group Limited

01 March 2023


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:
    1. Response to the resident’s reports of outstanding repairs at the property.
    2. Complaint handling.

Background

  1. The property is a first floor, two bedroomed flat which the resident leases under a shared ownership agreement with the landlord. In turn, the landlord leases the property from the freeholder under the terms of a head lease and the obligations contained in that lease are supervised by a management company. The resident does not occupy the flat but lets it to a tenant.
  2. In mid-February 2021 the resident’s tenant reported to her that food and cigarette smells had started to permeate the flat. The resident, in turn, reported this to the landlord. In response, it arranged to send, firstly a plumber, following by an electrical engineer and finally an air conditioning engineer to investigate. The resident had concluded that the problem lay with the ventilation to the property and the final operative reported the filters were blocked, cleaned them, and declared the repair complete.
  3. The resident complained to the landlord about the way the report was handled, specifically due to delays in organising repairs and about a lack of communication along the way. During the complaints process, she also reported that the electrical engineer had questioned whether there was a systematic electrics problem with the building itself as he had noted an issue with the electrics to the toilet fan too. Further, the resident reported that her fire alarms/carbon monoxide monitor had failed not long after taking on her lease and raised the prospect that all the problems were linked and related to the infrastructure of the building. The resident pointed out there was no opening vent to the window in the “second room” – she had been denied permission for one to be inserted previously – and expressed concern that this was a health and safety issue given the problem and the fact her tenant was asthmatic. Finally, the resident was concerned that more harmful fumes may enter the property, such as if there was a gas leak.
  4. In its final complaint response, the landlord accepted that there had been a delay in sorting out the repair and that the level of its communication with the resident had been unacceptable. Further, it accepted that its stage one complaint response had not been sufficiently thorough. It apologised and offered compensation of £100 for the resident’s time and trouble in pursuing the matter. The landlord confirmed it considered the issue resolved. It advised its decision that there was no way to alter the structure of the building by including an opening vent in the second room (and referred the resident to the management company if she wanted to pursue this further). The landlord sought to reassure the resident that there was no link between the fire alarms and the ventilation as they were on separate electrical circuits.
  5. The resident responded by asserting that the problem continued and had not been resolved and there had been a delay in the outcome of the stage two review being advised to her. The complaint response had not addressed these points. The landlord agreed to send a surveyor to the property to investigate. Whilst this was done, the resident heard nothing further and has referred the matter to this Service as a result. By way of resolution the resident wants the landlord to resolve any underlying electrical issues affecting the fire alarms/carbon monoxide monitor and carry out an investigation behind the filtered smells.

Assessment and findings

Scope of the Investigation

  1. The Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme) says that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure or which were not brought to the attention of the member as a formal complaint within a reasonable period which would normally be within six months of the matters arising.
  2. The resident has referred to the fact that in around 2018 the fire alarms/carbon monoxide monitor at the property failed. She has replaced these with some battery powered ones. Initially the resident raised this issue with the landlord to demonstrate her suspicion of an overall failure in the electrical systems at the property but has referred the point to this Service for consideration. There is no evidence that the resident complained about this at the time (although she states it was reported) and even if she did, it is now historic given the time that has elapsed and the provisions set out above. The Ombudsman will not examine how the landlord handled any reports of this fault but it will be referred to, to provide context to this complaint.
  3. Since referring this complaint to this Service, the resident has reported additional problems at the property with the boiler/immersion heater and the radiators. These issues were not included in the complaint under investigation and have not completed the landlord’s internal complaints procedure. As set out above, the Ombudsman will not therefore consider these points further. The resident is at liberty to report these faults to the landlord and complain in the event that their handling of them falls below the expected standard.
  4. The resident reports a past decision being made about the window opening. There is no evidence that she lodged a complaint about the outcome at the time. Even if she had, it is reasonable to conclude the decision is historic given the time limits set out above and the circumstances of this complaint. The resident asked that this issue be revisited by the landlord. Whilst it did so and reported its up to date decision as part of the complaints process, any dissatisfaction with that decision has not been examined through that internal procedure. As set out above, this Service will not consider the landlord’s handling of that request and its subsequent decision whilst this has not been done.
  5. This report will therefore focus on the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of outstanding repairs at the property and its complaint handling.
  6. In the head lease, the landlord agreed with the freeholder to keep the property in good repair but not the building it is situated in – which remained the freeholder’s responsibility.  
  7. In the shared ownership lease (the lease) the resident agreed to keep the property in good repair and confirmed she would not alter the exterior to the premises without permission. The lease states that the landlord “shall use all reasonable endeavours to procure that (the management company) and/or the head landlord comply with their covenants and obligations relating to the maintenance repair and upkeep of the building set out in the head lease.”

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of outstanding repairs at the property

  1. The landlord operates a responsive repairs policy which sets out its response times for repairs to be attended to, depending upon whether the issue is categorised as emergency or routine in nature.
  2. It states, “a repair will be treated as an emergency if there is an immediate risk to safety, security or health.” Examples are given such as “total electrical failure” and “no heating or hot water”. All other repairs are classified as “routine”, the policy stating they will be dealt with “as quickly as possible”.
  3. The initial report was of cigarette and food smells. Whilst in the resident’s opinion the matter was “urgent”, the Ombudsman’s view is that the landlord acted reasonably in not responding to it as an emergency. The resident’s view was formed on the basis that the situation might represent the onset of more noxious fumes entering the property in the future if, for example, there were a gas leak. However, it is reasonable to conclude that the property is not airtight save for the ventilation system and in the unfortunate event of such a leak, permeation could take place irrespective of the state of that apparatus.
  4. By 2 March 2021 the landlord’s contractor had sent a plumber to the property to investigate. It is reasonable to conclude the rationale behind this was the expectation that an unpleasant smell represented a drains issue. This was not the case and the operative reported he could not examine the vents.
  5. Between then and the end of March 2021 little progress was made. The landlord chased the contractor for a report on the visit – but this was after regular prompting from the resident. Eventually she contacted the contractor direct who agreed to organise an electrical engineer to inspect the ventilation system to “decide who is responsible”. This may have been a reference to determining the correct expert for the job. Alternatively, it might have been a reference to the repair/maintenance responsibilities affecting the property. In the Ombudsman’s view, if the issue was with the infrastructure of the building, then the landlord might reasonably have been expected to refer it to the management company. If not, then the landlord and resident would have to discuss their respective obligations for repair of the individual property itself.
  6. However, there is no evidence of the landlord examining these responsibilities at the time and on 6 April 2021 the electrical engineer visited the property, identifying that an engineer specialised in a specific type of ventilation system was required. It reported this back to the landlord the same day. The resident also reported back the feedback she had been given that there may be a systematic electrical problem in the building affecting the ventilation system generally and especially given the fault with her fire alarms/monitor.
  7. Once again, the landlord might reasonably have been expected at this stage to refer the issue to the management company for investigation. The obligation of referring issues with the building itself to the freeholder/management company rested with the landlord – as set out above. The Ombudsman would not expect the resident to be required to do so. This was not done but on 21 April 2021 the landlord appointed the relevant air conditioning/ventilation expert to visit the property – but once again this was only after regular prompting from the resident. It is reasonable to conclude that this would have been the initial outcome had the matter been referred to the management company by the landlord at this point and there was no detriment to the landlord’s failure to do so.
  8. That expert contractor attended the property on 24 June 2021. The landlord concluded in that stage one response that all was resolved but the resident reports she advised the landlord straight away that that was not the case and the permeating smells continued. However, it is noted that the resident’s escalation request did not challenge this assertion (it was made three days later) and the landlord repeated its understanding in its stage two response, the review for which was based on that request.
  9. The landlord accepted that its handling of the repair could have been better, both in terms of the time it took and the level of communication it offered the resident about it. The chronology of events, as set out above, supports these conclusions. The response time committed to in the landlord’s policy of “as quickly as possible” was not met although this is mitigated by the fact the right expert for the job was not immediately apparent. As the landlord has acknowledged, there were service failures. The landlord offered compensation to the resident of £100 for her time and trouble in chasing the matter which is considered reasonable and appropriate given these events took place over a relatively short period of time and some of that period would have been experienced had the repair been handled more efficiently in any event. A finding of reasonable redress has therefore been made.
  10. The complaints procedure was concluded at this point, but the landlord agreed to send a surveyor to the premises when the resident asserted the problem with smells persisted. This took place on 22 September 2021, eight working days after the stage two response was given. However, the landlord did not advise the resident of the outcome and she is not aware of any further action being taken. The resident reports to this Service that that remains the situation as at the date of this report.
  11. The outcome of that inspection is set out in an internal email between the landlord’s staff dated 18 February 2022 and which has been supplied to this Service. The surveyor made the following comments: they could not detect any “odours” and noted the vents were functioning and “could be heard”. They concluded it was appropriate to ask the final ventilation engineer to inspect again and stated, “in my opinion it is possible that there is a breach within the pipes linked to another flat” and “there is uncertainty as to who has ultimate responsibility for the maintenance of the vents as the (management company) is also involved” (evidencing that the landlord had involved them by this point).
  12. Given the complications in this case with pinpointing the issue (or whether one exists) and of where responsibility lies for its resolution, a further recommendation will be made for the landlord to consider liaising with both the resident and the management company to see if the issues are continuing and, if so, whether a jointly commissioned (and proportionately funded) independent expert’s opinion should be obtained.

Complaint handling

  1. The landlord operates a complaints policy which sets out a two stage procedure for complaints handling. Under the first stage the landlord commits to acknowledging the complaint within three working days and providing a response within ten working days. If the resident remains dissatisfied they can request the complaint be escalated to stage two giving their reasons why. The landlord then commits to carrying out a review and providing a response within 20 working days.
  2. The resident made her complaint on 19 May 2021 – however the landlord did not acknowledge it for six working days (three days late) and its stage one response was not given until 25 June 2021 which was after 26 working days (16 days late). With regard to the second stage of the procedure, the resident’s escalation request was made on 28 June 2021 but a review response was not given until 10 September 2021, which was 54 working days later (and 34 days late). It can be seen that the landlord delayed providing responses at both stages of the process which was inappropriate.
  3. The landlord did accept in its final response that its stage one response was inadequate – it merely referred to the fact the repair was now complete having been attended to the day before – but did not analyse whether there had been any service failings. This was, therefore, an appropriate admission to make. However, the landlord failed to recognise the delays in handling the complaint overall and particularly at the review stage. These delays and the failure to acknowledge them represented a failing in the service offered to the resident. An order will be made for the landlord to pay compensation to the resident of £100 to reflect the impact on her of these issues.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme the landlord has offered reasonable redress in respect of its response to the resident’s reports of outstanding repairs at the property.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its complaint handling.

Orders

  1. The landlord should take the following action and provide evidence of compliance with these orders within four weeks of the date of this report:
    1. Pay the resident compensation of £100 for the impact of failings in its complaint handling.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord takes the following action:
    1. Pay the resident the sum of £100 offered for the time and trouble pursuing the repair (if this has not already been paid). The determination of reasonable redress was based on this sum being paid to the resident.
    2. To liaise with both the resident and the management company to see if the issues are continuing and, if so, whether a jointly commissioned (and proportionately funded) independent expert’s opinion should be obtained.