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Stonewater Limited (202445844)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202445844

Stonewater Limited

26 August 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:
    1. The resident’s concerns regarding the level of support provided by the landlord and the service charges for this support.
    2. The landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about the conduct of its staff.
    3. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests for information about rent arrears.
    4. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests for a refund of the communal cleaning service charge.
    5. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaints.

Background

  1. The property is a bedsit flat in a low-rise block and the landlord is a housing association. The resident shares a living room and kitchen with another resident. The landlord is commissioned by the local authority to provide support to the resident in the form of “intensive housing management services”. The resident was granted a licence to occupy the property in November 2022 and she then moved to a different property in the same building in September 2024. The landlord has advised us that the resident experiences mental illness.
  2. During the complaints process, the resident was represented by her uncle. For the purposes of brevity, both the resident and her uncle are referred to in the remainder of this report as ‘the resident’.
  3. During January and February 2023, the landlord sent warning letters to the resident regarding arrears on her rent account. In June 2023, the landlord assisted the resident to make an application to the local authority to be rehoused and reminded her to make payments to clear the rent arrears. During March 2024, the landlord continued to assist the resident with her rehousing application by submitting documents to the local authority on her behalf.
  4. The resident made a stage 1 complaint on 26 April 2024 in which she stated:
    1. The landlord had not provided the required level of support to her as a vulnerable person and she had not received the level of care she was entitled to while in supported living accommodation.
    2. The landlord had allowed her to get into rent arrears.
    3. The landlord had not contacted her, even though she was told someone would call her within 2 days.
    4. She had arranged to meet with 2 of the landlord’s staff (her coach and a manager) on 23 March 2024, however, the manager had not attended.
  5. The resident sent further information on 3 and 8 May 2024 to support her complaint in which she added that she was unhappy with the conduct of the landlord’s staff. She said they had not dealt with her rehousing application appropriately and had not communicated adequately with her. She asked for the rent arrears to be written off, for a freeze on the rent charges and for the service charges to be looked at as she said she had not received estate management or supported living services.
  6. The landlord sent its stage 1 response on 31 May 2024 in which it stated the following:
    1. The resident had complained in 2023 regarding rent arrears that had accrued while she was living in the landlord’s Foyer accommodation.
    2. Her current rent had increased because of increased energy costs.
    3. The landlord’s staff had supported her with her rehousing application. However, the local authority had been communicating directly with her and therefore its staff were limited in the level of support they could provide.
    4. The landlord said it was unable to freeze the rent charges.
    5. The landlord offered compensation of £125, which was comprised of £50 for inconvenience and £75 for the delay in responding to the stage 1 complaint.
  7. The resident contacted the landlord on 7 June 2024 to say she was unhappy with the stage 1 response as the response had not addressed several of the points she had raised. The landlord sent its stage 2 response on 19 July 2024 in which it stated the following:
    1. It accepted that the resident had experienced serious failures and apologised for this. It had now assigned 2 of its staff to work with her and to meet with her fortnightly.
    2. It had found several examples where its failure to act had resulted in service failure for the resident. These included not providing rent arrears information, poor communication, not explaining rent and service charge increases and not supplying information to support the resident’s rehousing application.
    3. The landlord said that one of the challenges its staff had faced was that the local authority had sent rehousing information directly to the resident. The landlord said it would speak to the local authority to see whether they would include the landlord in future communications.
    4. In terms of the complaints about staff conduct, the resident had agreed to provide further information. The landlord said it would then consider the matter in line with its human resources (HR) procedures.
    5. The landlord offered the following compensation:
      1. £1,000 for inconvenience, distress and poor communications.
      2. £3,776.16 to cover all outstanding rent arrears due to its previous failures to provide information about the arrears.
      3. £341.76 to refund the supported housing staff costs between April and July 2024.
      4. £682.89 in relation to the quality of the communal cleaning service.
      5. £75 to acknowledge the inconvenience involved in reporting the cleaning issues.
      6. £350 for complaint handling issues.
    6. The overall offer of compensation was £6,225.81.
  8. The landlord’s records show that in August 2024 the resident accepted the landlord’s offer of £6,225.81.
  9. In August 2024, the resident advised the landlord that she was pregnant. In March 2025, following the birth of her baby, the resident was placed into hotel accommodation by the local authority pending permanent rehousing. The landlord’s records show that the resident’s licence agreement for the property ended in April 2025.
  10. The resident contacted us on 7 May 2025 and said she wanted us to investigate her complaint because:
    1. There had been a lack of support and communication issues.
    2. She was unhappy about the conduct of some of the landlord’s staff.
    3. She was unhappy with the landlord’s handling of her management transfer application.
    4. She was dissatisfied with the landlord’s management of the rent arrears and for charging her for services that it had not provided.

Assessment and findings

Jurisdiction

  1. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint, or part of a complaint, will not be investigated.
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, the following complaint falls outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction:
    1. The resident’s concerns regarding the level of support provided by the landlord and the service charges for this support.
  3. Paragraph 42.j. of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion “fall properly within the jurisdiction of another Ombudsman, regulator or complaint-handling body”. In this case, the landlord is commissioned by the local authority to provide young homeless people with short-term accommodation and person-centred support services. As such, the arrangements between the landlord and the local authority are monitored and managed through contractual agreements and therefore this element of the resident’s complaint may be more suited for investigation by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

Scope of investigation

  1. We have received information showing events that occurred after the landlord sent its final complaint response on 19 July 2024. A key part of our role is to assess the landlord’s response to a complaint and therefore it is important that the landlord has had an opportunity to consider all the information being investigated by us as part of its complaint response. It is therefore considered fair and reasonable to only investigate matters that were raised by the resident during the complaint process and addressed by the landlord in its final response. This means that we have not investigated matters such as the following:
    1. The reports that cleaners accessed the resident’s room without authorisation.
    2. The introduction of the new overnight visitors policy.
    3. The reported delays in the landlord updating the local authority that the resident was pregnant.
    4. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s management transfer.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s concerns about the conduct of its staff

  1. The resident expressed dissatisfaction in relation to the conduct of 2 members of the landlord’s staff. We will not form a view on whether the staff members’ actions themselves were appropriate. Instead, our role is to decide whether the landlord adequately investigated and responded to the complaint, and took proportionate action based on the information available to it. For complaints about staff conduct, landlords should carry out an appropriate investigation. This would generally include conducting interviews and gathering evidence from all parties and making an informed decision based on its findings.
  2. The resident wrote to the landlord on 3 and 8 May 2024 and explained that she was unhappy with the service provided by 2 of the landlord’s staff. The resident gave various examples of meetings and conversations with the staff that she had found unsatisfactory. She said the attitude of one of the staff had been “very flippant, uncaring and very unprofessional”. She added that the communications from both of the staff had been poor.
  3. In its stage 1 response dated 31 May 2024, the landlord said it had looked into the resident’s concerns about the 2 members of staff and it outlined its findings in relation to their handling of the resident’s rehousing application. The landlord said that as part of its investigations it had spoken to the staff in question and had looked at its contact logs.
  4. Our view is that the landlord’s response did not adequately deal with the resident’s concerns about the conduct of staff at this stage. By focussing on the handling of the resident’s rehousing application, the landlord did not acknowledge the resident’s wider concerns about the attitude and conduct of the staff in question. Furthermore, although the stage 1 reply stated that the investigating officer had interviewed the staff in question, we have seen no evidence that the landlord interviewed the resident to obtain further details about her concerns. As previously stated, investigations into the conduct of staff should involve interviewing both parties. The landlord’s initial handling of the resident’s concerns about staff conduct was therefore unreasonable.
  5. The resident wrote to the landlord on 7 June 2024 and said she was unhappy with the stage 1 response as she said it did not address several of her concerns. In response, the landlord met with the resident on 2 and 16 July 2024 to discuss her concerns and agreed that it would use its HR processes to investigate the resident’s concerns about staff conduct. It was reasonable that the landlord met with the resident to obtain further details about her concerns regarding staff conduct. It was also reasonable that it advised the resident it would use its HR processes to look into her concerns. This provided the resident with reassurance that the landlord would specifically investigate the conduct of its staff as well as the delivery of services by the organisation as a whole.
  6. The landlord confirmed in its stage 2 reply that it would contact the resident again to obtain details which she had offered to share regarding the conduct of staff. However, it said it may not be able to share the outcomes of its investigations due to privacy considerations. It was reasonable that the landlord had agreed to contact the resident regarding additional information relating to staff conduct. This would help the landlord to make informed decisions following its investigations. It is usual practice for the outcome of staff conduct investigations not to be shared with members of the public. Therefore, it was reasonable for the landlord to advise the resident of this constraint to manage her expectations.
  7. In its stage 2 response, the landlord accepted that its stage 1 reply had not addressed some of the resident’s concerns. It apologised for this and said it had put steps in place to improve the quality of its future responses. The steps included improving the quality assurance processes and introducing a Customer Complaints Learning Panel to enable residents to provide feedback on how the landlord can improve its responses. The landlord offered compensation of £1,000 for “the inconvenience caused by multiple service failures”.
  8. The landlord did not provide a breakdown of its £1,000 compensation offer and therefore we are unable to attribute a specific amount to the landlord’s handling of the complaint about staff conduct. However, we consider the landlord took reasonable steps to put things right because:
    1. It acknowledged its failings, apologised and put steps in place to learn from the outcome of the complaint.
    2. It reassured the resident that it would investigate the concerns by meeting with her twice and by confirming it would investigate the matter in line with its HR processes.
    3. Based on our Remedies Guidance, the landlord’s offer of £1,000 was of a sufficient level to include the distress and inconvenience caused by the landlord’s initial failure to investigate the complaint about staff conduct.
  9. We have therefore made a finding of reasonable redress in relation to the resident’s complaint about the conduct of the landlord’s staff.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests for information about rent arrears

  1. The resident wrote to the landlord on 3 and 8 May 2024 and asked it to write off the rent arrears on her account. The resident said that most of the arrears related to when she was a minor living in the landlord’s Foyer scheme and she requested information to show how the arrears had accrued.
  2. Although the landlord’s stage 1 reply dated 31 May 2024 provided some information about the arrears, in our view it did not provide sufficient detail to explain how the arrears had accrued. It simply stated that the resident had previously complained about a Foyer debt in 2023 and that the rent for the current property had increased due to energy prices. As the resident had requested specific information showing the build up of the arrears, it was unreasonable that the landlord had not provided clear information showing this.
  3. It was also unreasonable that the landlord did not give a direct answer to the resident regarding her request for the arrears to be written off. At the very least, we would have expected the landlord to provide the current balance, a statement of how much of the debt had been carried forward from the Foyer scheme and an explanation of how the remaining debt had accrued. The landlord could have enclosed rent statements to help explain how the arrears had built up.
  4. The landlord accepted in its stage 2 reply that it had failed over several months to provide the resident with information about the rent arrears and whether they could be written off. It also accepted it had provided incorrect information about the arrears. The landlord apologised for these failings and agreed to pay £3,776.16 compensation into the resident’s rent account to cover the cost of outstanding arrears on her current and previous accounts. As stated earlier, the landlord had also offered £1,000 compensation for multiple service failures. The landlord stated that it would be training its staff to so they could engage more effectively with residents in relation to rent arrears and other financial matters
  5. The evidence shows that the lack of information provided to the resident by the landlord regarding the rent arrears had caused her distress and worry, as acknowledged in the landlord’s stage 2 reply. Therefore, in our view it was appropriate for the landlord to recognise the distress caused by its failings and to take steps to put things right. The landlord’s offer of £3,776.16 plus a proportion of the £1,000 for distress and inconvenience was, in our view, fair and reasonable to put things right. The sums cancelled out any rent arrears owed by the resident and compensated her for the distress and inconvenience she had experienced. It was also appropriate that the landlord had learnt from the complaint findings by putting in place additional staff training.
  6. Overall, we have made a finding of reasonable redress. Our finding recognises that although there were failings, the landlord took fair and reasonable steps to put things right and to learn from the outcomes of the complaint.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests for a refund of the communal cleaning service charge

  1. The resident paid a weekly licence fee to the landlord, which included an occupation charge and service charges for cleaning, grounds maintenance, communal electricity and supported housing staff costs.
  2. The resident wrote to the landlord on 3 May 2024 and said she wanted the landlord to look into the service charges as she had not received some of the services such as estate management. Although this was part of the resident’s complaint, the landlord did not address this point in its stage 1 response dated 31 May 2024. This was unreasonable as it had been almost a month since the resident had advised the landlord about her dissatisfaction with matters relating to the service charges. As part of her stage 2 complaint, the resident expressed her dissatisfaction that the landlord had not addressed some parts of her initial complaint.
  3. In its stage 2 reply, the landlord said it had reviewed the quality of the communal cleaning and was now confident the service was being managed appropriately. However, it found that between November 2022 and July 2024 this was not the case. It therefore agreed to compensate the resident by crediting £682.89 to her rent account. This sum was equivalent to the service charge for communal cleaning from the start of the resident’s licence to the date of the stage 2 reply. The landlord also offered the resident compensation of £75 for the inconvenience she had experienced in reporting the cleaning issues.
  4. The landlord’s records show that communal cleaning was scheduled to be carried out once a week and during certain weeks it was not carried out, for example during weeks commencing 12 February 2024 and 4 March 2024. The records do not provide any detail about why the cleaning was not undertaken during these weeks. However, based on the resident’s complaint about the standard of cleaning and the landlord’s acknowledgement that the service was not managed correctly from November 2022 to July 2024, we have concluded that the landlord did not provide an appropriate cleaning service during this period. It was therefore reasonable for the landlord to compensate the resident as she had been paying a weekly charge for the service, which the landlord had not delivered satisfactorily.
  5. The landlord’s offer refunded the cleaning charge in its entirety and recognised the additional time and effort spent by the resident in reporting the cleaning issues. In our view, the landlord’s offer was fair and reasonable and had put things right as it meant that the resident had not been charged for any communal cleaning during the period.
  6. The landlord also stated in its stage 2 reply that it was recruiting additional staff to oversee the contractors and to manage the contracts. This showed that the landlord had learnt from the complaint outcome.
  7. In summary, we have made a finding of reasonable redress in relation to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for a refund of the communal cleaning service charge. In our view, the landlord made a fair and proportionate offer to put things right and learnt from the outcomes.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaints

  1. The landlord operates a 2-stage complaints process. At each stage it will acknowledge the complaint within 5 working days of receipt. It will then reply to stage 1 and stage 2 complaints within 10 working days of the complaint being acknowledged. At each stage of the process, the response timescales may be extended where necessary, in which case the landlord will notify the resident of the timeframe for the response. If an extension beyond a further 10 working days is needed at stage 1 or 20 working days at stage 2, the extension deadline will be agreed with the resident.
  2. The resident phoned the landlord on 26 April 2024 and made a stage 1 complaint. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 7 May 2024, which was 6 working days after receiving it. It was a shortcoming on the landlord’s part that it did not acknowledge the complaint within the 5-working day timescale set out in its policy.
  3. The landlord replied to the stage 1 complaint on 31 May 2024, which was 17 working days after it had acknowledged the complaint. However, the landlord had written to the resident on 17 May 2024 to request an extension of time. It advised the resident that it would respond by 31 May 2024. The landlord had therefore advised the resident of the extension and provided a new timeframe for the response, which was in line with its policy. As the landlord had advised the resident about the extension of time and kept to the new deadline, in our view the landlord responded to the complaint within a reasonable timescale.
  4. As was mentioned earlier, there were issues with the quality of the stage 1 response, particularly in relation to it not covering all of the points in the resident’s complaint. Our Complaint Handling Code stipulates that landlords must address all points raised in the complaint definition. Its failure to do so was unreasonable and meant the resident did not receive a comprehensive response to her complaint. She advised the landlord of this as part of her stage 2 complaint.
  5. The resident phoned the landlord on 3 June 2024 to say she was unhappy with the stage 1 reply. The landlord acknowledged the stage 2 complaint on 7 June 2024, which was 4 working days after receiving it. The landlord had therefore acknowledged the complaint within an appropriate timescale.
  6. The landlord sent its stage 2 response on 19 July 2024, which was 30 working days after it had acknowledged the complaint. The time taken to respond was therefore longer than the 10 working days stipulated in the landlord’s policy. However, the landlord had written to the resident on 5 July 2024 to advise that it would need an extension of time and would respond by 2 August 2024. The landlord kept to this timescale and overall responded within the timeframe stipulated in its policy of 30 working days (the initial 10 working day period plus an extension of 20 working days). However, it was inappropriate that the landlord had not sent the letter extending the deadline until 20 working days after the stage 2 complaint was acknowledged.
  7. The landlord offered compensation of £350 to put things right in terms of the delay in responding to the stage 2 complaint and to recognise the issues with the quality of its stage 1 reply. In our view, the landlord’s offer of compensation was fair and reasonable to put things right in relation to the failings with its complaint handling. The amount offered is within the range of sums recommended in our Remedies Guidance where there was a failure which adversely affected the resident. We have therefore made a finding of reasonable redress in relation to the landlord’s complaint handling.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 42.j. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the complaint about the resident’s concerns regarding the level of support provided by the landlord and the service charges for this support is outside the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53.b. of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was reasonable redress offered by the landlord in relation to:
    1. Its response to the resident’s concerns about the conduct of its staff.
    2. Its handling of the resident’s requests for information about rent arrears.
    3. Its handling of the resident’s requests for a refund of the communal cleaning service charge.
    4. Its handling of the associated complaints.