Town and Country Housing (202105861)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202105861

Town and Country Housing

26 June 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

The complaint is about:
1. the landlord’s decision to dispose of the resident’s personal belongings;
2. the level of compensation offered by the landlord’s insurers.

Jurisdiction

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case, as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 41(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the following aspect of the complaint is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction:
1. The level of compensation offered by the landlord’s insurers.
The resident is dissatisfied with the level of compensation offered by the landlord’s insurers in respect of the disposed items. Paragraph 41(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme) provides that the Ombudsman cannot consider complaints which “concern matters which do not relate to the actions or omissions of a member of the Scheme.” As the landlord’s insurer is not a member of the scheme, any dispute about the insurers’ processes and decisions would be for the resident to raise directly with them or via a legal claim. The resident should therefore seek legal advice should he wish to pursue this aspect of his complaint further.
The complaint about the landlord’s decision to dispose of the resident’s personal belongings is within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and has been considered below.

Background

The resident was an assured tenant of the landlord and lived in the property between 1992 and 2020. The property was a two-bedroom house. The landlord is a housing association. The resident is elderly, and the landlord has recorded that he has health issues and is vulnerable. Due to the resident’s age and vulnerability, his children act as his representatives. For the purposes of this report, unless it is otherwise necessary to distinguish between them, all communications from the resident and the representatives will be referred to as coming from the resident.

Policies and procedures

The landlord’s complaints policy says that it will respond to stage one and stage two complaints within 10 working days. Where this is not possible, the landlord will tell the resident and give them an honest and realistic timescale for the response to be provided.
The landlord’s compensation policy says that any discretionary compensation amount awarded will depend on the circumstances of the case. It will not pay compensation where the matter is being considered or an award has been made through its insurers.

Summary of events

On 10 February 2020, the resident reported that the property had been flooded (from a nearby reservoir) and was under one foot of water with an overflow of sewage. The landlord offered him a temporary move to an older person’s accommodation while it carried out the necessary repairs to the property. The resident accepted this and moved the following day.
On 24 February 2020, the landlord sent the resident a disclaimer to sign and return. Due to resident’s representative being unwell, there was a delay in the disclaimer and a set of keys for the property being returned, until 5 June 2020. The disclaimer advised that the resident should remove any items of value from the property and gave the landlord permission to access the property in the resident’s absence, take possession of a set of keys, and move goods and items of furniture as required to carry out the necessary works.
In June 2020, management of the repairs to the resident’s property was handed over from one member of staff to another due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A handover email between staff confirmed that the resident had items in the property that he wanted to keep.
On 16 June 2020, 9 July 2020, and 29 July 2020, the landlord left messages for the resident. After the second attempt, it sent a follow up email advising that it needed to take up carpet in the property, but there were still some of the resident’s belongings on the ground floor that needed to be removed. It said it would lift the flooring on 13 July 2020, and asked him to confirm whether these belongings could be removed so the works could start. It advised him to collect anything else from the property before the date given.
In August 2020, the resident expressed an interest in moving to the older person’s accommodation permanently, and the landlord agreed to this; however, this was not finalised until November 2020.
In the same month (August 2020), the landlord cleared the resident’s property and shed and disposed of all of his possessions.
On 30 October 2020, and again on 2 November 2020, the resident contacted the landlord to find out why the property had been cleared and whether the items were retrievable. The landlord acknowledged how upsetting this would be and agreed to take the matter forward.
On 3 November 2020, the landlord referred this matter to its insurers. The insurers assessed the claim, accepted that the landlord was liable, independently considered the valuation, and made a final settlement offer in early 2021.
In July 2021, the resident contacted this Service and stated he was dissatisfied with the landlord’s offer of redress in relation to the disposal of his belongings, including some rare, valuable letters. He said that his health had been affected by this. This Service wrote to the landlord on 10 September 2021, and requested action be taken via its complaint procedure.
On 27 September 2021, the landlord provided its stage one complaint response, which said:
1. Following the flood, his family cleared possessions from the ground floor of the property but left items upstairs. A disclaimer had been signed stating that all items of value had been removed from the property. The landlord had tried to arrange for his family to visit and collect the remaining items. It had phoned one of his representatives three times and e-mailed them to say that items needed to be collected urgently but received no response.
2. The property had been badly damaged by water and sewage, so it needed to start the clean-up process quickly to repair the property and be able to re-let it. Because of this, items left in the property had been removed and disposed of.
3. His family then made contact, as they were unhappy that items had been removed and requested compensation, so the landlord referred this matter to its insurers. Following the settlement offer, it advised his family how to dispute it as they were unhappy with the offer made.
4. It had made all reasonable attempts to arrange for his family to remove the personal belongings left in the property and was satisfied it had acted reasonably and appropriately in referring the matter to its insurers.
5. It recognised this was an upsetting incident and apologised for any distress caused.
On 4 October 2021, the resident responded, indicating that he was dissatisfied with the stage one complaint response. He made further contact on 16 December 2021, and requested the landlord escalate the complaint to stage two. The landlord responded a week later, advising that there would be a slightly longer response time than the ten working days due to Christmas and needing to speak with people involved. It provided an updated timeframe for the response to be issued as of the week commencing 10 January 2022.
On 18 January 2022, the landlord provided its stage two complaint response, which said:
1. The focus of its stage two response was a review of its actions that led to the referral to its insurers, as it could not consider anything in respect of the dispute surrounding the settlement of the insurance claim.
2. COVID-19 impacted its services as lockdown started on 26 March 2020. This impacted the timeline for completing repairs to the property and resulted in a change of staff managing the repairs at the property.
3. It accepted that the wording of the disclaimer was not explicit enough for it to be used to dispose of his belongings.
4. Within its e-mail contact of 9 July 2020, it should have been more explicit about its intentions to clear the whole property rather than just referring to items on the ground floor. It also accepted that it should have sought positive confirmation that he had removed the items he wanted.
5. In addition to accepting liability via its insurers, there were some aspects of the events that led up to this that could have been improved (wording of the disclaimer and email dated 9 July 2020). It had made recommendations for reviews of its decant processes and disclaimer forms as a result of the learning from this matter.
6. It apologised for the handling of these matters and offered £200 in compensation for the distress caused. It said this offer was related to its actions that led up to the insurance claim and was not related to the settlement amount offered by its insurers.
On 24 January 2022, the resident responded that the compensation offer of £200 was “an absolute insult” and that this matter had put a strain on his health.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

The resident has told this service that this matter has had a negative effect on his health. The Ombudsman does not doubt this; however, it is beyond the remit of the Ombudsman to make a determination on whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and the resident’s health. The resident may wish to seek independent advice on making a personal injury claim if he considers that his health has been affected by any action or failure by the landlord. While the Ombudsman cannot consider the effect on health, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience that the resident experienced as a result of the landlord’ actions.

Decision to dispose of the resident’s personal belongings

The landlord has told this Service that arranging for the resident’s belongings to be disposed of was a mistake. It is not clear from the evidence provided why this decision was made, but the landlord suggested that the changeover of staff managing the repairs may have led to this. While this is possible, the landlord also confirmed that a handover email between staff clearly stated that the resident wanted items left in the property. The landlord told this Service that it incorrectly believed that the signed disclaimer gave it authority to dispose of the resident’s belongings, and so it is possible that this also contributed to the mistake made. Based on the evidence provided, it is not possible for the Ombudsman to determine the exact reason that this mistake happened, which will be frustrating for the resident and his family.
The landlord accepted that its attempts to contact the resident’s representatives, before disposing of his belongings were insufficient, which was a reasonable assessment. The landlord made three attempted calls and one written contact to one of the resident’s representatives; however, the evidence provided confirms that it had contact details for at least one other representative. When it did not receive a response, it should have made attempts to contact the other representative, or the resident himself, before disposing of the belongings. The landlord accepted that its written contact was not explicit enough and that it should have sought positive confirmation that it could dispose of the belongings.
After the resident made the landlord aware of its mistake, it quickly identified that it should refer this matter to its insurers. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, this was appropriate, considering there were a significant number of items disposed of and a more thorough assessment of their value would be required. When the resident challenged the insurer’s final settlement offer, it advised him of his options and made it clear that this was not something it had any influence over. While this would have been frustrating for the resident and his family, this was a reasonable and appropriate response.
The landlord has admitted its mistakes, apologised, and sought to learn lessons from this issue by reviewing and updating its processes; all of which are positive. In addition to referring the matter to its insurers, it considered the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident and made an additional, unrelated offer of £200 in compensation. In the Ombudsman’s opinion the amount offered is insufficient when considering the circumstances of the case. The resident said that he had rare, valuable letters that were disposed of. It is not for this Service to determine whether he did or did not have such items; however, it is reasonable to assume that he had accumulated various items throughout his life that held important memories or were of significant sentimental value to him.
The upheaval of the flood and being temporarily moved would have been distressing for the resident, and the loss of all of his belongings on top of this would have had a significantly detrimental impact on him. It is reasonable that anyone in this position would have been extremely upset and this was likely to have been heightened considering his age and vulnerabilities. The resident told the landlord this put a strain on his health, which would be an understandable consequence for anyone in this situation; however, considering the resident’s age and vulnerabilities, this is likely to have been more significant.
Overall, the landlord took steps to put things right, but it did not go far enough to consider or recognise the detriment that its actions caused the resident and therefore, its actions amount to maladministration. Had the landlord not taken the positive steps mentioned above to put things right, the Ombudsman would have made a finding of severe maladministration. An order has been made below for the landlord to pay the resident £1,000 compensation in addition to the £200 already offered. This compensation is for the distress and inconvenience caused and is not related to the settlement amount offered by the landlord’s insurers. Further orders have been made for a senior member of landlord staff to apologise to the resident and for the landlord to finalise its process reviews and provide staff training on these updated processes. In addition to this a recommendation has been made for the landlord to implement a ‘disposal of goods procedure’ for staff to provide specific guidance on this topic, with the intention of avoiding this type of situation happening in the future.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its decision to dispose of the resident’s belongings.
In accordance with paragraph 41(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the complaint relating to the level of compensation offered by the landlord’s insurers is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Reasons

The landlord acknowledged that it made a mistake in its decision to dispose of the resident’s belongings and that it failed to make reasonable attempts at contacting him before disposing of his items. While it accepted responsibility, apologised and learned lessons from this matter, it failed to recognise the significant level of detriment caused to the resident by its actions.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

Within four weeks of this determination:
1. A senior member of landlord staff is to apologise to the resident in person, ensuring at least one of his representatives is present.
2. The landlord is to pay the resident a total of £1,200 compensation, which is inclusive of the £200 already offered, for the distress and inconvenience caused by its decision to dispose of his belongings.
3. The landlord is to complete its review of decant processes and disclaimer forms and update the relevant documents with proposed changes.
Evidence of compliance with the above orders must be provided to this Service within four weeks of the date of this determination.
Within six weeks of this determination the landlord is to provide staff training on the updated decant processes and disclaimer forms.
Evidence of compliance with the above order must be provided to this Service within six weeks of the date of this determination.

Recommendations

The landlord to implement a ‘disposal of goods’ procedure for staff, with specific guidance on this topic. As part of the implementation, staff training to be provided on the new procedure.
The landlord to notify this Service of its intentions regarding the above recommendation within four weeks of the date of this determination.