The Guinness Partnership Limited (202519986)

Decision
Case ID	202519986
Decision type	Investigation
Landlord	The Guinness Partnership Limited
Landlord type	Housing Association
Occupancy	Assured Tenancy
Date	31 March 2026

Background

In 2024 the resident made a report about antisocial behaviour from her neighbours. The landlord responded but the resident complained about its response and was also unhappy with visits from operatives and her housing officer to the property that she said were unannounced and upsetting. The landlord responded addressing her concerns but she remained unsatisfied and took her complaint to the Ombudsman. The landlord was aware the resident had anxiety and mental health concerns.

What the complaint is about

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
1. The resident’s ASB report and request for support.
2. Her housing officer’s conduct.
3. Unannounced repairs appointments.
4. The complaint.
The resident has also asked us to look at systemic failings in healthcare and safeguarding and how she says they have compounded her housing issues.

Our decision (determination)

We have found:
1. Service failure with the landlord’s handling of the resident’s ASB report and request for support.
2. No maladministration with the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports about her housing officer’s conduct.
3. Service failure with the landlord’s handling of repair appointments.
4. No maladministration with the landlord’s complaint handling.
5. The resident’s request to look at systemic failings in healthcare and safeguarding is not within our jurisdiction to investigate.

We have made orders for the landlord to put things right.

Summary of reasons

ASB report and support

The landlord responded to the resident’s ASB report but missed opportunities to provide focussed support at an earlier stage.

Housing officer’s conduct

The landlord appropriately investigated the resident’s claims and could find no evidence of inappropriate conduct.

Repair appointments

The landlord acknowledged that on 2 occasions it had failed to provide the resident with notice of an appointment, However, it also failed to acknowledge another occasion where it did not have records of contacting the resident prior to an appointment.

The complaint

The landlord responded to stage 1 and stage 2 within its policy timeframes.

Healthcare and safeguarding

This element of the resident’s complaint is outside our jurisdiction.

Putting things right

Where we find service failure, maladministration or severe maladministration we can make orders for the landlord to put things right. We have the discretion to make recommendations in all other cases within our jurisdiction.

Orders

Landlords must comply with our orders in the manner and timescales we specify. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of compliance with our orders by the due date set.

Order	What the landlord must do	Due date
1	Compensation order The landlord must pay the resident £250 made up as follows: £100 to acknowledge its failure to demonstrate it responded appropriately to the resident’s earlier requests for support. £150 to acknowledge its failure to clearly communicate repair appointments on a number of occasions. (This includes the £50 already offered at stage 2 of its complaint’s process). This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date. The landlord may deduct from the total figure any payments it has already paid.	No later than 28 April 2026

Order

What the landlord must do

Due date

Compensation order

The landlord must pay the resident £250 made up as follows:

£100 to acknowledge its failure to demonstrate it responded appropriately to the resident’s earlier requests for support.
£150 to acknowledge its failure to clearly communicate repair appointments on a number of occasions. (This includes the £50 already offered at stage 2 of its complaint’s process).

This must be paid directly to the resident by the due date. The landlord must provide documentary evidence of payment by the due date.

The landlord may deduct from the total figure any payments it has already paid.

No later than 28 April 2026

Recommendations

Our recommendations are not binding, and a landlord may decide not to follow them.

Our recommendatios
Within 4 weeks of the date of this report the landlord is recommended to pay the resident the £50 it offered at stage 1 of its complaint’s process if it hasn’t already done so.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

Date	What happened
29 May 2025	The resident complained about: antisocial behaviour she said had been ongoing for a year and a half her housing officer’s conduct (an alleged unannounced visit) She also asked the landlord to acknowledge her previous complaints and legal cases and ensure the matter was dealt with promptly and in line with policy.
5 June 2025	The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint.
13 June 2025	The resident added to her complaint, saying that repair operatives had attended multiple times, unannounced.
18 June 2025	The landlord provided its stage 1 response. It acknowledged the resident’s previous complaints and set out its understanding of how she expected operatives to act on visits to the property and that they should not attend unannounced. It said: despite being asked to, following a sole report in May 2024, the resident had not submitted any evidence of ASB the housing officer she named had never visited her It did not accept there were any service failings. However, it apologised and offered £50 compensation for its poor response to 2 other issues. The resident did not escalate these through the complaints process and the landlord says she has not accepted the offer of payment yet.
18 June 2025	The resident asked to escalate aspects of her complaint. She said: the landlord continued to book repair appointments without her consent she continued to experience disrespect, lack of empathy and blame-shifting from her housing officer the landlord had repeatedly dismissed concerns about her mental health and failed to provide support she had been unable to report ASB because of how distressing and unpredictable it had been. She felt the landlord had failed to support her
19 and 26 June 2025	The landlord acknowledged the resident’s request to escalate her complaint. It asked her to provide: details about the incidents with her housing officer details of any reasonable adjustments she wanted so that it could offer her the support she needed
15 July 2025	The resident chased a response to her complaint escalation.
23 July 2025	The landlord provided its stage 2 response. It said: out of 15 reported repairs attended, it apologised for not making her aware of 2 there was no evidence to support her complaint about her housing officer it could not find any incidences where it had failed to provide support it was unable to act on ASB reports without evidence It offered a further £25 for poor communication around repair appointments and £25 for poor record keeping.
Referral to the Ombudsman	The resident brought her complaint to the Ombudsman. She said she wanted the landlord to acknowledge its failings, make reasonable adjustments for her, including contacting her before repairs appointments and offer compensation for the distress, inconvenience and deterioration she said its approach had caused.

What we found and why

The circumstances of this complaint are well known by the parties involved, so it is not necessary to detail everything that’s happened or comment on all the information we’ve reviewed. We’ve only included the key information that forms the basis of our decision of whether the landlord is responsible for maladministration.

Complaint	ASB and requests for support.
Finding	Service failure

What we did not investigate

The resident has continued to express dissatisfaction with the landlord’s approach to issues which have occurred since the complaint exhausted its complaint procedure. We have no power to investigate complaints which the landlord has not had the chance to put right first. Therefore, our investigation focuses on events up to the landlord’s final complaint response in July 2025.
The resident has also said that the landlord’s alleged failure to provide support caused a deterioration in her health. If she believes the landlord’s actions or inaction have affected her health it would be fairer, more reasonable, and more effective to make a personal injury claim for any injury caused. It is best for the courts to deal with this type of dispute as they will have the benefit of independent medical advice. We have therefore not investigated this further.

What we did investigate

The landlord’s stage 1 response of 18 June 2025 described the steps it took after the resident reported noise‑related ASB in May 2024. This was the only record of ASB it could find. Alongside that report, she explained that she felt unable to leave her home. She also said that because she had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and social anxiety, she had been unable to speak to anyone about it.
The records show that the landlord contacted her on the same day and sent her a noise pack for submitting evidence. It also made a referral to its customer support team because the resident said she wanted support. These actions were in line with its ASB policy. The resident did not provide further ASB evidence, and after 2 attempts to chase this, the landlord closed the case. These actions were consistent with its ASB policy.
The resident responded to the stage 1 response on the same day, saying that she had not been able to provide evidence of further ASB because of how distressing she found this. She said that instead of being supported, she was told the case was closed.
The landlord wrote to the resident twice in July 2024. It asked why she had not provided any evidence and asked if she had any vulnerabilities it should be aware of. It said it could help her through the process. We have not seen evidence to show that the resident responded.
In response to the resident’s allegation that the landlord had failed to support her, in its July 2025 stage 2 response, it noted that it had referred her to its customer support team.
However, its customer support team had decided the resident’s request for support was related to another ongoing complaint (a complaint separate from this ASB report) and therefore asked the complaints team to provide support. There are no records of what actual support was, if at all, provided. Without these records, we cannot determine whether the landlord’s response at that time adequately met her support needs.
In its stage 2 response, the landlord cited other instances where it believed it had supported the resident. These included helping find funding for a carpet in January 2024 and signposting her to the police in December 2024 when she thought mail had been stolen. These are examples of where it provided practical help and gave appropriate advice.
However, the resident had also said in December 2024 that she felt isolated and bullied by her neighbours. The landlord has not explained how it responded to this report or whether it assessed any potential risks to her wellbeing.
After the resident escalated her complaint in June 2025, she explained in more detail how unsupported she felt and how the situation affected her mental health. The landlord then took further action. Its safeguarding team contacted her the next day to offer support. It also provided diary sheets when she said she did not think a noise app would capture the type of ASB she reported.
On 3 July 2025, the landlord contacted the resident again to ask whether she needed support. On 8 July 2025, it followed up because she had not returned the diary sheets. When the resident said she had not checked her post box, the landlord gave her another opportunity to return them. It also arranged for a housing officer to visit the block. The officer did not find evidence to support the ASB the resident reported.
Overall, the landlord took a range of timely steps in response to the ASB report it received in 2024. However, it is not clear how or if the complaints team handled the resident’s 2024 request for support, and no evidence of it responding to her concerns in December 2024 that she felt isolated and bullied. The landlord responded more effectively and with clearer support measures when the resident escalated her complaint in June 2025, but it has not shown that it provided appropriate support at an earlier stage and did not recognise or address that in its complaint responses.

Complaint	Housing officer’s conduct
Finding	No maladministration

In its stage 2 response, the landlord said it had asked the resident for more detail about her concerns that her housing officer had treated her with disrespect. It said the resident told it that she had already provided this information and that the landlord could review her previous complaints, appointment records, and call history to prevent any further distress.
The landlord said it reviewed her contact history and did not find reports alleging disrespect by her housing officer. It also said there were no records of home visits carried out by the housing officer. This is consistent with the evidence we have seen. The landlord therefore investigated this aspect of the complaint appropriately, and its conclusion and explanations were based on the information it had available to consider.

Complaint	Unannounced repairs visits
Finding	Service failure

The landlord was aware the resident was vulnerable. In its 18 June 2025 stage 1 response, it recognised how much she found unannounced visits upsetting and said, appropriately, it had placed an alert on her account.
In her escalation the resident said that operatives continued to attend unannounced.
In its stage 2 response, the landlord listed every occasion an operative attended to complete a repair. It looked at the 15 repair appointments during the relevant period. We have also done the same. Four appointments were for emergencies. It is understandable that sometimes, because of their nature, emergency appointments would not always have the same opportunities for notification.
The landlord’s responsive repairs policy said it will communicate with residents clearly at all times about repair appointments. It said it agreed 3 repairs over the phone, which was reasonable. It said it left voicemails with the resident to confirm another 3 repairs. While this shows it did provide notice, on its own, leaving a voicemail, while sometimes cannot be avoided, is not the most effective way of confirming, which is advisable, that a repair appointment has been made.
The landlord said it had no record of making an appointment a total of 3 times but while it accepted its failure to contact her on 2 occasions, it said that as the resident had not complained about one of the occasions, it did not consider that one to be a failure. The landlord was aware of the requirement and importance of notifying the resident, so its explanation on this was not reasonable.
At stage 2, while the landlord appropriately said it would provide feedback to its repairs team to ensure the resident is now contacted to agree repair appointments, it did not acknowledge that the last time it failed to make contact was after the landlord had said, at stage 1 of its process, that it had placed an alert on her account to avoid that happening.
Given how the resident said unannounced visits affected her and the above examples of poor communication, the landlord’s offer of £25 for the failed visits and £25 for its failure in record-keeping, was not sufficient, when compared against our remedies guidance. We have made a compensation order to reflect its failings in communication and how they impacted this vulnerable resident. We have also suggested making its repair appointment communications with the resident more robust in the learning section below.

Complaint	Complaint handling
Finding	No maladministration

The landlord has a 2-stage complaint process that is line with our Complaint Handling Code (the Code). It aims to acknowledge both stages within 5 working days. It says the resident should then receive a formal response to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days and stage 2 complaints within 20 working days of the complaint acknowledgement.
The landlord acknowledged and responded to both stages of the complaint within its policy timeframes.

Complaint	Failings in healthcare and safeguarding
Finding	Outside jurisdiction

The resident said in her complaint to us that, in addition to the landlord’s actions, she had also been let down by what she referred to as the “healthcare system”. She did not raise this concern during the landlord’s internal complaints process, so we cannot consider it as part of this investigation. In any event, as her concern appears to relate to the actions of local mental health services, this issue would be more appropriately investigated by another Ombudsman, such as the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO).

Learning

Knowledge information management (record keeping)

If the landlord had completed clear records about the support it says it offered in May 2024, this would have been helpful. The landlord should consider the recommendations in the Ombudsman’s spotlight report on Knowledge and Information Management for accurate record keeping.

Communication

As set out above, the landlord sometimes relied on voicemail messages when communicating with the resident. It should consider the Attitudes, Respect and Rights spotlight report for more effective service delivery for vulnerable tenants.