Sovereign Network Group (202323648)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202323648

Sovereign Network Homes

25 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 repairs and compensation in relation to the residents:
   1. Patio doors.
   2. Gate and intercom and water outages.
   3. The landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

2. The resident holds an assured tenancy. The property is a 1-bedroom ground floor flat.
3. On 23 September 2023, the resident reported to the landlord that her patio doors would not shut, and the property was insecure. The landlord arranged for contractors to attend the property as an emergency repair.
4. The resident complained to the landlord on 25 September 2023about its handling of the repair. She also raised issues about water outages and repairs to a gate and intercom. She wanted compensation for the inconvenience, distress and safety risks the landlord had caused.
5. The landlord responded in October 2023. It acknowledged that the patio door repair was completed outside the expected time frame. It acknowledged there had been disruption to the resident’s water supply and explained the actions being taken to repair the gate and intercom. The landlord apologised to the resident for the service failures and offered her £80 compensation for the delay and inconvenience.
6. The resident escalated her complaint in October 2023. She was unhappy with the amount of compensation and said the problems with the intercom had not been resolved.
7. The landlord responded in November 2023. It said the original compensation offer was proportionate to the level of service failure identified, but apologised for some errors in its response. It said that repairs to the gate and intercom were complete. It offered the resident a further £144 in compensation for the repair delays and complaint handling failures.
8. The resident escalated her complaint to the Ombudsman. She remained unhappy with the way the repairs were handled and disagreed with the amount of compensation offered by the landlord. She asked for clarification around why she had not been compensated for previous water outages.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

9. The resident has asked for clarification around why compensation for previous water outages was not provided by the landlord.
10. These were not part of the resident’s original complaint to the landlord. The resident will need to raise these with them before we can potentially investigate her concerns. If, after making a formal complaint about the matter, the resident remains dissatisfied with the landlord’s actions, she has the option to ask us to start a new investigation.

Patio doors

11. The landlord’s repairs policy says that it aims to respond to emergency repairs within 4 hours and make safe. It defines emergency repairs as situations where there is a risk to health and safety, a home is not secure, or there is damage that is rapidly getting worse.
12. In her complaint, the resident said she was dissatisfied with the delay in her patio door being repaired. She said the emergency repair should have been completed in 4 hours, but the contractor arrived 7 hours after the issue was first reported. She said a second contractor attended later on and that she had to abandon her other commitments for the day. She said the landlord’s actions caused her inconvenience and distress.
13. The landlord responded. It said the works order was raised on its systems at 2.19pm. The contractor attended to fix the patio door at 6.45pm on the day it was reported. It said another specialist contractor attended at 8.34pm to complete the repair so the door would close and lock. It apologised for the repair being completed outside of the specified emergency timeframe of 4 hours and offered the resident £30 compensation.
14. The resident escalated her complaint. She remained dissatisfied with the complaint response and the amount of compensation offered. She wanted the landlord to explain how the delay to the patio door repair occurred. She said the delay was considerably greater than a “slight delay”. She said the compensation offer did not reflect the distress, inconvenience and safety risk she endured. She asked for £300 compensation.
15. The landlord responded. It detailed a response from the out of hours contractor, who explained that the patio door repair delay occurred due to the number of other incoming calls received that day. The landlord apologised to the resident but disagreed with her request for further compensation. It said the matter fell under the classification of a missed appointment and that the request for £300 compensation was disproportionate to the nature of the situation.
16. The landlord said that the resident’s complaints were acknowledged outside of the specified service level agreements. It offered the resident a further £40 compensation for this.
17. The landlord offered the resident a total of £214. The resident queried this as the calculation appeared incorrect. The landlord has clarified that the amount was incorrectly calculated in the response and that an award for low impact distress to the resident was also to be added. The final amount of compensation offered by the landlord was £294.
18. The evidence provided by the landlord shows that it acted proactively in attending the repair to the patio doors. It treated the matter as an emergency, which was reasonable, given the potential security implications. It attended approximately 50 minutes outside its timescale of 4 hours. It explained why the delay occurred. There is no evidence of an actual risk to health and safety from the issue, and no evidence that the landlord’s actions had contributed to the door fault. Nothing in the information seen in this investigation suggests the landlord missed clear opportunities to attend or resolve the matter earlier than it did.
19. The landlord apologised to the resident for the delay and the compensation it offered was in line with its policy for a failing of this nature and scale.
20. The resident has complained to the Ombudsman that she incurred costs of £210 because she missed an appointment while waiting for the patio door repair. This detail was not raised with the landlord. Nonetheless, in the absence of evidence of the landlord being responsible for the fault, or of missing opportunities to complete the repair earlier, nothing in the landlord’s policies indicates it should consider reimbursing the resident in addition to the compensation it already offered.
21. Overall, the landlord’s response to the complaint was fair and reasonable in the circumstances. The level of compensation offered aligns with its compensation policy, and, along with its other remedies, was proportionate and appropriate in the context of its repair delays.

Gate and intercom and water outages

22. The resident said the repairs to the front gate and intercom had not been completed and that this allowed non-residents access to her patio area. She said she had experienced water supply outages which she believed were related to a persistent issue with a faulty water pump. She wanted compensation for the inconvenience, severe distress and safety risks which she had experienced.
23. The landlord said that the water outages happened because of planned rectification works and a power failure in the area. It said that compensation for loss of water supply can be offered if the loss is for more than 24 hours. It apologised for the disruption and offered the resident a discretionary payment of £50. The landlord gave the resident information about the planned repairs to the gate and intercom. It said it was awaiting an inspection report from the contractor who had recently attended the property.
24. The resident escalated her complaint. She said the delays to the gate and intercom repairs should be assessed as “high impact” and that a compensation offer of £720 would be appropriate. She said the information provided by the landlord showed that she had previously incorrectly been denied compensation following a similar complaint. She requested £200 compensation from the landlord. The resident said that the complaint responses had been overdue and requested a further £50 compensation for the poor complaint handling.
25. The landlord said that incorrect information had been given in the previous complaint response about compensation for water outages. It detailed a previous complaint outcome where a discretionary payment was made to the resident for similar matters. It said it would not revisit the outages again, as they had been part of planned works and residents had been notified. It offered the resident an additional £20 for the incorrect information provided within the first complaint response.
26. The landlord said the repairs were completed in respect of the gate and intercom between September and October 2023. It acknowledged and apologised for the inconvenience experienced by the resident. It offered her a discretionary payment of £84 for the personal impact the outages caused.
27. In respect of the repairs to the gate and intercom, the landlord informed the resident of the works which were to be completed. The evidence confirms these works were done and the repairs resolved. The resident has told us that the problems have reoccurred or continued. She needs to report these to the landlord, and make a new complaint to it if she remains dissatisfied. Following that she has the option of asking the Ombudsman to investigate these further repair problems.
28. In response to the water outages complaint, the landlord explained the outages had been planned and scheduled as part of repair works, and that residents had been previously informed. The resident did not dispute its explanation, and nothing in the evidence contradicts it. The landlord then used its discretion to offer compensation despite there being no service failure, to recognise the inconvenience the resident experienced. Its responses to the complaint were therefore reasonable.
29. Overall, the landlord’s response to the complaint was fair and reasonable in the circumstances. The level of compensation offered aligns with its compensation policy, and, along with its other remedies, was proportionate and appropriate in the context of its repair delays.

Complaint handling

30. The landlord operates a 2 stage complaints process. Its complaint policy says it will acknowledge complaints within 5 days. It should respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days. It should respond to stage 2 complaints within 20 working days of receipt.
31. It said that elements of the complaint handling acknowledgement and responses fell outside of its stated service level agreements. The landlord apologised for these failings and offered the resident £60 compensation.
32. This aligns with the landlord’s compensation policy and was a reasonable remedy for the failings.

Determination

33. In accordance with paragraph 53.b of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to investigation, which in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the resident’s complaints about repairs and compensation for:
34. The landlord’s handling of repairs and compensation in relation to the residents:
    1. Patio doors.
    2. Gate and intercom and water outages.
    3. The landlord’s complaint handling.

Recommendations

35. If it has not done so already, the landlord should now pay the resident the £294 compensation offered during its complaint process. The finding of reasonable redress is based on the understanding that this compensation will be paid.