Together Housing Association Limited (202343166)

Background

1. The resident is an assured tenant and lives in a 2-bedroom house with his child. He asked the landlord to be relocate his bathroom extractor fan. He raised concerns about its existing location, namely that it resulted in moisture dripping back into the bathroom. The landlord declined his request to have the fan moved and he remains unhappy with its decision.

What the complaint is about

2. The complaint is about the landlord’s decision not to relocate the bathroom extractor fan.
3. We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

4. We have found there was:
   1. No maladministration in the landlord’s decision not to relocate the extractor fan.
   2. There was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

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

Summary of reasons

The request for the extractor fan to be re-located

5. There was no obligation on the landlord to relocate the fan, and it relied on appropriate advice when making its decision not to.

The complaint handling

6. The landlord acted unreasonably in declining the resident’s complaint.

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.

Our investigation

The complaint procedure

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.

7. The resident asked for the bathroom extractor fan to be relocated to a wall facing the exterior of the property. The fan was located on the ceiling and he was concerned about moisture extracting through the roof. We appreciate why the resident made this request, and his concerns about where the fan is located. However, there was no obligation on the landlord to move the fan at his request.
8. The landlord’s obligation under the tenancy agreement is to repair and maintain. In reaching its decision, the landlord appropriately consulted its electrical repairs team, who advised the fan was previously repaired as needed and in working order. The records show it considered the request to move the fan to be a cosmetic change. The landlord was entitled to rely on the opinion of the electrical team, and we are satisfied that it considered the request fairly when reaching its decision.

9. The landlord’s complaints policy says all complaints will be accepted unless there is a valid reason not to do so. It also says if it decides not to accept a complaint, it will provide a detailed written explanation to the resident.
10. Our Complaint Handling Code 2022 (the Code) applied when the resident made his complaint. In relation to declining to consider complaints, it says:
    1. A landlord must accept a complaint unless there is a valid reason not to do so.
    2. A complaints policy must clearly set out the circumstances in which a matter will not be considered, and these circumstances should be fair and reasonable to residents.
11. The landlord’s stage 1 response said the nature of the complaint was not something it would consider taking through its formal complaints process. While this is noted, it is unclear why. The landlord missed the opportunity to explain its reasoning to the resident and to help him understand the decision that had been reached. It therefore failed to act in the spirit of the Code.
12. The landlord could reasonably have explained the steps it had taken when concluding that the fan did not need to be relocated. It could have also explained its obligations under the tenancy agreement – and that relocating the fan was not something it was obliged to do. As the landlord declined to treat the resident’s dissatisfaction as a complaint, it missed an opportunity to explain its position in further detail, and he referred the matter to us accordingly. As a result, the resident was caused inconvenience which could reasonably have been avoided. We have therefore made a series of orders aimed at putting things right, in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles, and to ensure the landlord learns from the complaint.