The Guinness Partnership Limited (202207104)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202207104

The Guinness Partnership Limited

10 February 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:
   1. the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of damp and mould within her property and subsequent offer of compensation, and;
   2. the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord, residing in a two-bedroom house. The resident began her tenancy on 14 April 2022, and subsequently advised the landlord that a piece of skirting had fallen off the wall, and that she had noticed signs of damp and mould in her property.
3. The resident reports that when the landlord’s contractor attended to address this on 21 April 2022, they told her that the property had an infestation of termites which had caused the skirting boards to rot, and that the property was not safe to inhabit. The contractor also allegedly advised her that the property was suffering from rising damp, and outlined significant repairs needed to resolve these issues. The landlord subsequently contacted the resident to book in these works for the end of May 2022.
4. In light of this the resident believed her property to be unsafe and uninhabitable as she had a young child, and so she extended her previous tenancy and moved back to her old home until the repairs were completed.
5. The landlord subsequently attended the property on 27 April 2022 and carried out a further assessment. It advised the resident that the contractor’s previous advice had been incorrect as her property had no infestation, and that damp walls could have caused the skirting boards to fall, although it ultimately found no underlying damp issue. A mould treatment was completed on 3 May 2022, and the resident moved back into her property on 14 May 2022.
6. The resident made a formal complaint to the landlord on 26 April 2022. Her overall complaint was about the condition of her property, which she believed made it unsafe and uninhabitable, and the landlord’s handling of her concerns. She wanted it to waive the rent on the property until the works had been completed and the property became habitable, and wanted it to pay the utility bills for the property for the same period.
7. The landlord’s overall response to the resident’s complaint was that its initial advice to her had been inaccurate, which had led to her temporary move back to her previous home. It also acknowledged its poor communication and complaint handling, and upheld the complaint. It awarded the resident compensation and agreed to waive the rent for the period during which she had moved from the property.
8. The resident then contacted this Service about the landlord’s overall handling of her complaint, which she said had led to her having a mental health breakdown and had impacted her finances. She was also unhappy with its compensation offer and wanted it to change its complaints policy.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

9. The resident has advised this Service that the landlord’s handling of the repairs and complaint has had a detrimental impact on her mental health, which in turn led to a loss of income and career progression, and debt. While very sorry to learn of this, these matters are outside the scope of this investigation to determine. This is because this Service is unable to determine matters of causation and liability in terms of how a landlord’s actions might have impacted upon a resident’s health and well-being. Such issues would be better dealt with as a personal injury claim through the courts, or via an insurance claim, where appropriate professional medical evidence can be properly reviewed. This is in line with paragraph 42(g) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, which states that the Ombudsman may not investigate matters where it considers it quicker, fairer, more reasonable or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts, other tribunal or procedure.
10. Further, the resident has raised concerns about the general condition of the property when she moved in (for example decoration and flooring), but as this did not form part of the formal complaint made to the landlord, they will not be consider here. This is in line with paragraph 42(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, which states that the Ombudsman may not investigate complaints that are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure, unless there is evidence of a complaint-handling failure and the Ombudsman is satisfied that the member has not taken action within a reasonable timescale.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of damp and mould within her property and subsequent offer of compensation

11. The resident has explained that her outstanding concerns about the matter are the overall poor communication from the landlord in relation to the repairs issues at her property, and the amount of compensation offered, which she does not feel reflects the detriment she suffered.
12. The landlord does not dispute that it initially provided the resident with inaccurate advice in response to her reports of damp and mould, nor that this advice was a significant factor in her decision to temporarily move from her property. The landlord also acknowledged, in its final response to the complaint, that the level of customer service it had provided since the start of the resident’s tenancy had been ‘extremely poor’, recognising that she had requested several call-backs to discuss the issues in her home, which it had failed to provide. As such, the landlord was obliged to take appropriate action to ‘put things right’ for the resident in terms of the negative impact these failings had on her, and ‘learn from outcomes’ to prevent such failings from recurring.
13. In terms of ‘learning from outcomes’ the landlord explained that when the resident first reported the issues in the property this should have been sent to its Empty Homes team rather than the Responsive Repairs team to deal with, and explained that had this process been followed, the resident would have been correctly advised and would not have had to extend her stay at her previous property. To address this, the landlord had shared its complaint findings with the relevant senior staff so that its processes could be reviewed. This was appropriate and shows that the landlord was taking the matter seriously and implementing actions to prevent a recurrence of its failings.
14. It also went some way to ‘putting things right’ for the resident, offering sincere apologies for the experience and the distress its failings has caused. It agreed to ‘write off’ the rent for the period in question, as the resident had asked. This was appropriate action by the landlord, as it acknowledged that its advice had led to the resident’s temporary move, and redressed the financial impact this had on her. It rounded up the rent rebate (£368) to £400 to offer a ‘gesture of goodwill’ also.
15. However, this £32 ‘gesture of goodwill’ was insufficient as a remedy to the impact the failings that the landlord had identified had on the resident (namely the time, trouble, and inconvenience of pursuing the matter with the landlord through the communication failings, and extending her stay in her old home). The Ombudsman’s own compensation guidance suggests amounts of £100 and above where there has been a failing which adversely affected a resident, and where the landlord has made some attempt to put things right but failed to fully address the detriment to the resident.
16. Further, the landlord did not respond to the resident’s request for compensation for utility bills at the property while she was living elsewhere, although its own compensation policy does allow compensation for a quantifiable loss. The landlord should considered  the resident’s request for compensation to cover the utility bills in line with this policy.
17. In light of the above, there was a service failure here on the part of the landlord, and an order for compensation is made below to address this. The amount ordered takes into account the inconvenience and distress caused to the resident, and utility costs at the property for the period that the resident was not living there.

The landlord’s complaint handling

18. The resident is dissatisfied with the way in which the landlord handled her complaint. She states that her stage one complaint was closed on the basis that she had refused repairs to be undertaken, which was incorrect. She is also unhappy regarding a lack of communication from the landlord in relation to her stage two complaint. She explains that when she called the landlord a week after the deadline for this had passed, she was informed that the staff member dealing with it was on holiday.
19. It is unclear from the complaint records if/when the stage one complaint was closed incorrectly, and this was not raised as part of the stage two complaint escalation.  It can be seen that the stage one was delayed, with the landlord taking a month to respond. However, it apologised for this and offered £20 in compensation, which was proportionate.
20. In its stage two response, the landlord did acknowledge that, ‘The communication you have received from our Complaints team has also been extremely poor. Your complaint was escalated to Stage Two on 31 May 2022 and you were advised you would receive a response within twenty working days. Not only did you not receive a response within twenty working days, but you did not even receive an acknowledgement call. This is simply not good enough. We have really let you down here and we must improve.’ It was appropriate that the landlord acknowledged these failings, and it also offered apologies for these. It set out the action it had taken to prevent a recurrence of these failings, such as providing feedback to the relevant manager regarding the poor communication and delays, demonstrating that it was taking action to ‘learn from outcomes’.
21. However, it made no offer of a remedy for the impact the identified failings would have had on the resident, who spent additional time and trouble pursuing her complaint. This would have caused her frustration and inconvenience. The landlord did not take adequate action to ‘put things right’ for the resident.
22. Therefore, it is determined that there was service failure by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s complaint. Under the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, amounts of £50 to £100 compensation may be ordered for service failures that may have caused inconvenience but did not significantly affect the overall outcome for the resident.

Determination

23. Under paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its response to the resident’s reports of damp and mould within her property and subsequent offer of compensation.
24. Under paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s complaint.

Order

25. With a month of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident a total of £375 compensation (£275 in relation to the resident’s reports of damp and mould within her property, and £100 in relation to the complaint handing). This is in addition to the £420 previously offered, which should also be provided if it has not been already.

Recommendation

26. It is recommended that the landlord carry out staff training in relation to its compensation policy, specifically related to quantifiable losses, and awarding compensation for its failings.