Thrive Homes Limited (202122651)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202122651

Thrive Homes Limited

27 May 2022

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 response to the resident’s reports that a bank of land in front of her property was not being maintained regularly by the landlord.

Background

2. The resident is a leaseholder of the landlord. The property is a three bedroomed house. In front of the resident’s house there is a steep bank of land which is owned by the landlord.
3. In an email to the landlord on 15 November 2019 the resident said that the bank of land in front of her house was overgrown and that she had reported this to the landlord a number of times previously but nothing had been done. Following advice from this Service the resident contacted the landlord on 5 December 2019 to say she was still awaiting a response from it. The landlord registered it as a formal complaint on 10 December 2019 and in its response on 12 December 2019 it apologised that it had not kept in communication with her following correspondence in 2017 when it had agreed to meet with its contractor with the intention of cutting back the trees on the bank but this had not happened. It said its current grounds maintenance contract did not include the bank but that it would speak to 2-3 contractors to look at options for the bank and obtain quotes.
4. In its stage two complaint response on 23 January 2020 the landlord apologised for the time taken to acknowledge and respond to the resident and for allowing the bank to become overgrown.  It said it had now instructed a contractor to proceed with the work, and that in view of the length of time it had taken to address the matter it would cover the cost of the works.
5. The landlord has not provided records of what work was undertaken following its complaint response in January 2020, however on 4 September 2020 when the landlord contacted the resident to confirm the date that one of the trees on the bank would be cut down, the resident asked when the rest of the bank would be completed, as it had been cleared in February but then work had stopped due to lockdown. She said bark chippings had not been put down. The landlord said it would speak to the contractor, but that it could not give a timeframe for the work to be completed as the bank area was not included in the original specification ( though it was looking to add it to the contract in the future). The resident asked for another complaint to be raised and the landlord agreed.
6. The landlord has not provided its complaint response for the complaint that was raised in September 2020 however it has provided call records which show that it contacted the resident in November to confirm that it would be clearing the bank in January 2021. On 6 January 2021 the call records show that it confirmed that the bank had been cleared and that it had agreed to lay bark chippings as soon as possible. It emailed the resident in January and February 2021 to say it was trying to obtain a second quote for bark chippings as the first had been too high. In an email on 31 March 2021 it said it was struggling to obtain a second quote but that a new ground maintenance contractor would be starting in a couple of weeks and that it would visit the site and provide a quote for bark chippings.
7. On 14 June 2021 the resident emailed the landlord as the grounds maintenance team were on the estate but not working on the bank. The landlord explained that the team responsible for maintenance of the bank would be visiting the estate the following week. During July 2021 the resident emailed the landlord as the bank was still not being maintained. On 15 July 2021 the landlord raised a formal complaint and its acknowledgment email said the resident would receive an action plan within five working days and a full response within ten working days. The resident emailed the landlord on 26 July 2021 as she had not received an action plan. The landlord called the resident that day, and in a letter issued the following day it confirmed that it would meet the resident and the grounds maintenance contractor on site on 13 August 2021 to inspect the bank and would issue a stage one complaint response following that visit.
8. The landlord issued its stage one complaint response on 26 August 2021 and emailed the resident to explain that it had been waiting to speak to the contractor’s contracts manager (who was on annual leave) before responding. In its response the landlord acknowledged that the maintenance of the bank had caused “a lot of problems over the years” due to confusion about the ownership and the difficulties in accessing it safely. It said there was no doubt that it owned the land and that it had a responsibility maintain it but also had a responsibility to keep its contractors safe. It said it had agreed that the grounds maintenance contractor would maintain the bank to a height of approximately 6ft from ground level by using a long reach hedge cutter and would use a subcontractor with specialist equipment to cut back the top half of the bank on a six-monthly basis. It apologised for the delay in resolving the “long standing complaint” and offered £100 compensation in recognition of the time and effort the resident had invested in the issue.
9. In its stage two complaint response on 13 September 2021, the landlord agreed that the bank should have been added to the grounds maintenance contract when the resident raised the issue in 2017, and that it would now be adding it. It explained that whilst some further delays in 2020 were due to Covid regulations it had failed to keep the resident informed and apologised that it had not kept its promises (to complete the work), had missed an appointment and had not always responded to the resident when it should have. It also acknowledged that the overgrown trees had impacted on the residents’ quality of life over an extended period of time and that all of these things had resulted in the resident losing trust in the landlord. It increased its compensation offer to £320 (£200 for time dedicated to resolving the matter £20 for a failed appointment and £100 for failure to meet its service offer). It invited the resident to meet with itself and the contractor on 16 September 2021 and said it would inspect the contractors work and ask the resident for her feedback after the first cut. It said it would be running training sessions across the business with a focus on customer experience and that new mandatory training would be delivered to all customer facing teams before the end of March 2022
10. The resident contacted this Service on 13 January 2022 as she did not feel that the landlord had fully acknowledged the time and resources she had put into the complaint and that the outcome she sought was either for the landlord to extend her lease by enough years to enable her to sell the property or for all of her service charges to be refunded.

Assessment and findings

11. Under Paragraph 39(e) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, we will not consider complaints that were not brought to the attention of the landlord as a formal complaint within a reasonable period, which would normally be within six months of the matters arising. However, on this occasion the complaint is about an ongoing issue and the landlord has acknowledged, and provided some records that show that the resident has repeatedly raised the same issue since at least 2017. Therefore, the time period that will be assessed in this report will be from 2017 till the end of the landlord’s internal complaints process on 13 September 2021. Any references to events before 2017 are there purely to add context or background to the complaint.
12. It Is not disputed that the landlord owns the bank of land in front of the resident’s property and is therefore responsible for its upkeep. As a leaseholder the resident pays service charges to the landlord that includes an amount for grounds maintenance.
13. When the resident reported in 2017 that there was an issue with overgrown trees on the bank of land in front of her property, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to have arranged for its ground maintenance contractor to address the issue and for the bank to have been added to the grounds maintenance contract, as the landlord owned the land and was responsible for its upkeep. It would also have been appropriate for the landlord to have kept the resident updated and provided a timeframe for the work to be completed. Although the landlord has not provided the correspondence from 2017, in its later complaint response on 12 December 2019 it confirmed that the landlord had failed to meet with its contractor to arrange for the trees to be cut back as planned, and failed to communicate with the resident. This was service failure by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s reports that a bank of land in front of her property was not being maintained regularly by the landlord.
14. When the resident contacted the landlord again on 15 November 2019 to report that that the bank was still overgrown and that she had reported this a number of times it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have responded to her promptly and investigated her concerns. However, the resident had to contact the landlord again on 5 December to request a reply as the landlord had failed to respond to her concerns. The landlord then acted appropriately by raising a complaint as requested by the resident. Its complaint responses were appropriate as it apologised for not resolving the issue or communicating with the resident following her previous report in 2017. It also acted appropriately by agreeing to pay for the work and arranging for a contractor to carry out the work. Again, it would also have been reasonable for the landlord to have added the bank to the maintenance contract as it owned the land, was responsible for its upkeep and it should have already been added in 2017. However, the landlord failed to add the bank to the grounds maintenance contract. This was further service failure by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s reports that a bank of land in front of her property was not being maintained regularly by the landlord.
15. We have not been provided with the records of what work was completed to the bank by the grounds maintenance contractors in early 2020, however both parties have referred to the work not being completed due to the lockdown in 2020 and staffing problems due to employees being furloughed. As the Covid pandemic and associated regulations were unprecedented and unexpected, it is not unreasonable for work to have been delayed due to those reasons. However, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have kept the resident updated about when the work would resume. The landlord failed to do so and the resident had to contact the landlord again in September 2020 to explain that bark chippings had not been laid down as agreed, to ask when the work would be completed and to raise another complaint about its failure to maintain the bank of land. The failure to keep the resident updated was further service failure by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s reports that a bank of land in front of her property was not being maintained regularly by the landlord.
16. The landlord has not provided us with its response to the complaint that the resident raised in September 2020, however its records show that it acted appropriately by arranging for the bank to be cleared and updating the resident when that had been completed in January. However, it would also have been reasonable for the landlord to have arranged for bark chippings to be laid over the area as soon as possible to help to prevent regrowth. Emails from the landlord to the resident from January to March confirmed that it had still not arranged for bark chippings to be laid due to problems finding a fair price for the job. Although it is reasonable for the landlord to try to obtain the best price for the job in order to manage its budget, the landlord had still not laid the bark chippings when the resident raised her third complaint about the lack of maintenance of the bank in July 2021 and that is not a reasonable length of time to wait by any standards. It would also have been appropriate for the landlord to have added the bank to the grounds maintenance contract at this point, as it had not done so earlier. However, at the time the third complaint was made the landlord had failed to do so. This was further service failure by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s reports that a bank of land in front of her property was not being maintained regularly by the landlord.
17. When the resident raised her complaint on 15 July 2021 it would have been helpful for the landlord to have issued an action plan within five working days as the complaint acknowledgment email had advised, as this would have helped to better manage the resident’s expectations and she would not have had to contact the landlord for an update on 26 July 2021. However, the landlord acted appropriately by calling the resident and arranging a meeting with her and the contractor on 13 August 2021 and advising her that the complaint response would be delayed till after that meeting. Although it would have been helpful for the landlord to have let the resident know that it was waiting to speak to the contractor following the meeting before issuing tis response, the response was issued within two weeks of the meeting which is not an unreasonable time frame, as the landlord had not given an exact date for its response.
18. Overall the landlord’s complaint responses in August and September 2021 were very thorough. It addressed all the points the resident had raised, acknowledged and apologised for its failings including the delay in responding to the complaint, acknowledged that it should have added the bank to its ground maintenance contract back on 2017 and confirmed that it was now adding it to the contract. It also advised the resident of the next steps it would be taking to maintain the bank and asked for her feedback once the first cut had been completed. It also acknowledged that it had missed an appointment and not always contacted the resident when it should have. It also noted that the complaint had had an ongoing impact on the resident’s quality of life.
19. On the whole, the landlord’s complaint responses were reasonable as it showed a willingness to investigate, resolve and learn from the complaint and offered compensation for its failings and the effect of them on the resident. However, it did not fully acknowledge that there were missed opportunities for it ot have resolved the issue in 2017, 2019 and 2020 and its failure to do so in 2017 resulted in an additional four years of stress and inconvenience to the resident. Therefore, although the landlord offered £320 compensation, the Ombudsman does not consider its offer to be reasonable redress for repeated service failures that persisted over a number of years and had a considerable impact on the resident. In light of that, this Service will order that the compensation amount be increased to take into account the prolonged length of time that the service failures persisted and the ongoing impact this had on the resident. It is noted that the landlord has since paid an additional £30 for delays in paying the £320 compensation to the resident. This Service considers the £30 to be a separate payment from the compensation payment agreed in its stage two complaint response and the £30 has not taken that into account when calculating how much the landlord should increase its compensation by.
20. It is noted that the outcome the resident sought was either for her lease to be extended by enough years that she could sell the property or for her service charges to be refunded. However, it is outside the remit of this Service to make orders related to lease agreements. Additionally, this Service does not feel it would be appropriate to order a refund of service charges, as the service charges include charges for other services as well as the ground maintenance charges. Therefore, this Service considers an increased compensation payment to be the fairest remedy in this case.

Determination

21. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s reports that a bank of land in front of her property was not being maintained regularly by the landlord.

Orders

22. The landlord is to pay an additional £300 compensation to the resident within four weeks of the date of this letter. This in line with this Service’s remedies guidance for cases where the Ombudsman has found considerable service failure and the resident has had to repeatedly chase responses and seek correction of mistakes, necessitating unreasonable level of involvement by that resident.