Tandridge District Council (202310711)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202310711

Tandridge District Council

31 January 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 the resident’s request for permission to remove a bathroom cupboard in his property.
2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

3. The resident lives in a 2-bedroom property and has a secure tenancy. The landlord told the Ombudsman that the resident moved into the property under a mutual exchange arrangement. Therefore, the landlord has stated there is no signed tenancy agreement from the resident. The original tenancy is dated 23 January 2008 and was transferred to the resident from the previous tenant from 11 June 2012. The resident has no noted vulnerabilities, but he has told the Ombudsman he is a foster carer.
4. The resident wanted to remove a bathroom cupboard at his expense to gain more space and because he felt it was prone to damp and mould. The resident wanted this removed in anticipation of a separate bathroom refurbishment the landlord agreed to do as planned work. He sought permission from the landlord for this alteration between February 2023 to May 2023. The landlord refused to give the resident permission for this on 16 May 2023.
5. The resident complained to the landlord on 22 May 2023 about the time the landlord took to reach its decision and about the reasonableness of the landlord’s refusal. The landlord responded at stage 1 on 5 June 2023 and said:
   1. it received the resident’s request on 16 March 2023 and after reviewing the photographs the resident sent it decided it did not wish to change the services within the cupboard too much and wanted to retain the cupboard as storage space.
   2. it accepted that the resident preferred a larger bathroom with the cupboard removed but it had to consider the needs of future tenants.
   3. it confirmed when it visited on 5 May 2023 that it did not wish to lose the cupboard, and it agreed to deal with any damp and mould in the cupboard as part of the planned refurbishment works.
   4. it apologised for any confusion it caused the resident.
6. The resident escalated his complaint on 8 June 2023 and the landlord provided its stage 2 response on 23 June 2023 and said:
   1. it apologised for the confusion over the reasons it gave for it withholding permission.
   2. its decision was based on the assessed need to keep services within the cupboard and the need to consider the future needs of tenants.
   3. it had reviewed and confirmed its decision.
7. The resident told the Ombudsman that between August 2023 to October 2023 he engaged with the landlord to see if it would agree to the removal of the cupboard. On 16 May 2024 the landlord gave the resident permission to remove the cupboard. The resident has told the Ombudsman that the landlord has since agreed to remove the cupboard at its own expense in March 2025. Although the resident finds this satisfactory, he has complained that the landlords’ delay caused him distress and inconvenience which he has said the landlord did not compensate for.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s permission request

8. Residents who are secure tenants must obtain the written permission from their landlord to any improvements including alterations. This is under Housing Act 1985, s. 97. The landlord’s procedure for considering whether to grant permission for alterations requires residents to send it a completed alterations application form. While the resident asked for permission to remove the cupboard on 22 February 2023, he did not send the landlord the alterations form until 16 March 2023. It is unclear when the landlord told the resident that it needed him to complete this form. Therefore, based on the available evidence the Ombudsman cannot be satisfied that the landlord communicated this requirement within a reasonable time.
9. The resident provided the landlord with photographs of the cupboard and space on 21 March 2023. It took the landlord until 16 May 2023 to refuse permission. This was 39 working days after the resident sent the landlord its application. The Ombudsman has not seen any rule, law or policy that required the landlord to consider and decide whether to grant consent to the alteration within a specified time. Therefore, the Ombudsman cannot fault the landlord for the time it took to deal with the resident’s request based on the available evidence.
10. The landlord cannot withhold consent unreasonably and had to give “good” reasons for doing so, this was under Housing Act 1985, s. 97(3) and the tenant’s guide to repairs, maintenance, and improvements. The landlord told the resident on 16 May 2023 that it refused consent to the cupboard removal as it was not possible to do this before or at the same time as the bathroom refurbishment work. While the resident felt that this explanation was “neither fair nor reasonable” this letter met with the legal requirements. This is because it was a written statement with reasons for its refusal which was in line with Housing Act 1985, s.98(4) (a).
11. The landlord then went on to provide different reasons for refusing consent in its complaint responses when it stated that it wanted to retain the services in the cupboard and storage.  It also told the resident that it explained this to him on 5 May 2023, but it has been unable to provide evidence to the Ombudsman to verify this. Due to the inconsistencies the Ombudsman considers, in the interests of transparency and fairness that it was important for the landlord to explain why it:
    1. had not raised the need to retain services in the cupboard and storage in its written refusal of 16 May 2023 despite its account that it told the resident this on 5 May 2023.
    2. had decided that the removal of the cupboard would affect the services within the cupboard area or storage capacity within the property.
12. The Ombudsman considers that the landlord needed to do more than provide its reasons for refusal because the legislation required it to “show” that it was reasonable to withhold consent where a dispute arose. In the Ombudsman’s opinion this would have involved the landlord providing details to support their reasons so the resident could understand these. The landlord’s failure to do this meant that it lost an opportunity to manage the resident’s expectations and show transparent decision making. Therefore, the landlord did not treat the resident fairly in line with the expectations contained in the Housing Act 1985 and this amounted to maladministration. The landlord accepted after complaint closure that its reasons were not reasonable. It decided to give the resident permission to remove the cupboard on 16 May 2024. While it was appropriate to acknowledge this and take corrective action it took the landlord 11 months to do so from when it finalised the complaint.
13. In the absence of an explanation for this delay the Ombudsman cannot conclude that the landlord acted reasonably. The resident told the landlord on 22 May 2023 that the state of his bathroom was unsightly and risked water damage. The delays in dealing with the resident’s request transparently meant the landlord caused him distress and inconvenience on account of the delayed work. The landlord also involved him in avoidable time and trouble in pursuing the complaint. Therefore, the Ombudsman has made an order of compensation to address this in line with our Remedies Guidance. In considering what would be an appropriate level of compensation the Ombudsman has taken into account the landlord’s subsequent agreement to remove the cupboard at its expense when there is no legal obligation to.

The landlord’s complaint handling

14. The landlord’s complaint policy had a two staged process. The landlord had to respond to complaints at stage 1 and to complaints at stage 2 within 10 working days. The resident complained on 22 May 2023 and the landlord provided its stage 1 response on 5 June 2023. As it took the landlord 9 working days to respond this was in line with its complaint policy. The resident escalated its complaint on 8 June 2023 with the landlord responding at stage 2 on 23 June 2023. This was 11 working days after the resident’s escalation which was only 1 working day outside the landlord’s policy timeframe with no evidence of any detriment caused.
15. The Ombudsman notes that the landlord’s stage 2 response incorrectly referred the resident to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman although there is no evidence this caused a detriment to the resident. Therefore, the Ombudsman considers there was no failure in the landlord’s complaint response on account of this, but we have made a recommendation to address this.
16. The quality of the landlord’s final response lacked detail and transparency and just confirmed the landlord’s decision to refuse permission. The response failed to consider the resident’s suggestion for the landlord’s contractors to “visit and assess the viability of having the cupboard removed”. For these reasons the Ombudsman has found service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling. Therefore, the Ombudsman has made an award of compensation, in line with our Remedies Guidance, to acknowledge this.

Determination

17. In accordance with paragraph 52. of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for permission to remove the bathroom cupboard.
18. In accordance with paragraph 52. of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

19. Within 28 days of the date of this determination the landlord must:
    1. write to the resident to apologise for the delays and failures identified in this report.
    2. pay the resident directly £200 made up of:
       1. £150 for the distress and inconvenience it has caused the resident by its handling of his request for permission, including the time and trouble in pursuing the complaint.
       2. £50 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its complaint handling failures.
20. The landlord must provide the Ombudsman with evidence of compliance with the above orders within 28 days of the date of this determination.

Recommendations

21. The Ombudsman recommends that within 28 days of the date of this determination the landlord should:
    1. review its stage 2 response template to ensure it signposts residents to the correct Ombudsman service, in addition to offering complaint staff training on this where appropriate.
    2. consider introducing a policy for dealing with requests for improvements (alterations or additions), including where disputes arise.
22. The landlord should notify the Ombudsman of its intentions regarding these recommendations within 28 days of the date of this determination.