Vivid Housing Limited (202342140)

Background

What the complaint is about

1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
   1. Damp and mould.
   2. The resident’s reports of a lack of hot water.
   3. The resident’s request for reimbursement of a utility bill.
2. We will also investigate the landlord’s complaint handling.

Our decision (determination)

3. We have found that:
   1. the resident’s complaint about the landlord’s handling of damp and mould is outside our jurisdiction
   2. there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of a lack of hot water
   3. there was reasonable redress in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for reimbursement of a utility bill
   4. 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

Damp and mould

4. The resident has raised complaint issues which have not exhausted the landlord’s complaint procedure. We are unable to investigate complaints which the landlord has not had the chance to put right first. There is no evidence the resident escalated his original complaint about damp and mould or raised it as part of the more recent complaint. Therefore, we are unable to investigate this issue.

Lack of hot water

5. The landlord failed to consider the impact of an additional period without hot water after its stage 1 response. It did not acknowledge this failing or take steps to put things right for the resident.

Reimbursement of a utility bill

6. The landlord offered appropriate compensation for its failing and credited this to the resident’s rent account at his request.

Complaint handling

7. There was a slight delay at both stages in the landlord responding to the complaint, and it did not contact the resident to acknowledge and discuss the complaint at stage 1, contrary to its policy. It also did not clarify with the resident during this process whether he wanted a new complaint raised about damp and mould.

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.

8. The resident raised a complaint about damp and mould in October 2023, which the landlord responded to at stage 1 on 22 December 2023. The landlord offered compensation and subsequently carried out a damp and mould inspection, where it found some condensation on windows and advised the resident to ventilate the property. We have not seen any evidence that the resident asked to escalate this complaint to stage 2.
9. The resident did not raise damp and mould as an issue when raising his complaint on 26 March 2024, or in any other communication with the landlord that we have seen before it sent its stage 1 response on 11 April 2024. In this response it said he had recently mentioned damp and mould but said that he had not raised this as part of this complaint. It made it clear that this issue had not been investigated as part of the complaint.
10. The resident continued to communicate with the landlord throughout April 2024 about the issue with the hot water, and he did not mention damp or mould in any of the communications that we have seen. He also did not raise damp and mould as part of his escalation request.
11. The landlord did not investigate the damp and mould at stage 2. However, it did acknowledge that he had mentioned damp and mould in other communications and used the response as an opportunity to inform him it would carry out a damp and mould inspection.
12. The landlord wrote to the resident on 8 November 2024 as it had reopened his case to enable it to provide us with evidence. This had prompted an automatic notification to the resident, and it let him know that it was not reinvestigating his complaint. This email said the complaint was about loss of hot water, a utility payment, and damp and mould. It is clear that this was an administration error, sent 5 months after its final response, and does not evidence that the landlord investigated damp and mould.
13. As the landlord made it clear at both stages that it had not investigated damp and mould, and we have seen no evidence the resident raised it as a complaint, the landlord has not had the opportunity to respond to this issue. Therefore, it has not exhausted its internal complaints process, and we are unable to investigate this.

What we have not considered

14. The resident raised a previous complaint in October 2023, which included him not having had hot water since moving into the property in September 2023. The landlord responded to this complaint on 22 December 2023, in which it acknowledged that it failed to repair the hot water within an acceptable timeframe. It offered rent-based compensation of £417.84 for this issue. The landlord said it fixed the hot water on 13 December 2023, and the resident did not ask it to escalate the complaint.
15. As the landlord took steps to resolve matters, and the resident did not ask for this complaint to be escalated, it appears he considered the matter resolved. We have therefore not considered the issues with the hot water prior to 22 December 2023. We have only investigated issues with the hot water raised by the resident after that date.

Lack of hot water

16. The landlord’s records show that the resident contacted it on 22 March 2024 to make a new report that he had no hot water. On 26 March 2024 the resident asked the landlord to raise a complaint about this. He said he had been waiting 10 days for a repair. However, we have not seen any evidence that he reported an issue earlier than 22 March 2024.
17. The landlord’s repairs policy says that no hot water between 1 October and 31 March is considered an emergency. Emergency repairs should be completed within 24 hours. The landlord’s records show it raised a job on 22 March 2024 and visited to reset the thermostat on 25 March 2024. This was not in line with its emergency timescale, which was not appropriate.
18. It appears that resetting the thermostat did not resolve the issue as on 26 March 2024 the resident contacted the landlord again to say that he still did not have hot water. It attended the same day, in line with its policy, and reset another part, which was reasonable.
19. On 8 April 2024 the resident reported that he had again been without hot water since 5 April 2024. In its stage 1 response of 11 April 2024, the landlord said it should have diagnosed the root cause of the issue sooner. It offered compensation of £100, which was reasonable and proportionate to its failures at this time.
20. The landlord said it would be attending again on 17 April 2024, which was not in line with its emergency timescale. We have seen no evidence of an appointment going ahead on this date, or any communication to the resident to rearrange this, which was not appropriate. The resident contacted it on 23 April 2024 to chase an update, and it replaced the thermostat on 25 April 2024. This represented and unreasonable delay and it was not appropriate that the resident had to chase it to get this resolved.
21. On 10 May 2024 the landlord raised a job to inspect the hot water tank. It attended on 15 May 2024 and found that the water was warm, but not hot, and it was recommended the hot water tank be upgraded. In its stage 2 response of 6 June 2024, it confirmed that the tank upgrade had been authorised. However, it failed to acknowledge its further delays in resolving the hot water issues since its stage 1 response, which was not appropriate.
22. The landlord’s records show the hot water tank upgrade was fully completed on 10 June 2024, and we have seen no evidence that the resident has reported any further issues with hot water since.
23. The landlord did not offer any additional compensation for the period from April to June 2024 when the resident was without a fully working hot water tank. It has not provided any explanation for why it did not use a rent-based calculation in line with its compensation policy, as it did in its previous complaint response in December 2023.
24. An order has been made for the landlord to pay the resident compensation based on 30% of his rent for the period from 8 April 2024, when he reported the issue had reoccurred, until 10 June 2024 when it was fully resolved. This order is in line with the landlord’s compensation policy and with out own guidance on remedies.

25. It is not clear from the landlord’s records of its communications with the resident when he raised an issue with a utility bill. In its stage 1 response of 11 April 2024 the landlord said that he had told it he had to pay a £15 utility bill addressed to the landlord to be able to get electricity supplied. The landlord said it would investigate this and arrange for the appropriate team to contact him.
26. In its stage 2 response of 6 June 2024 the landlord acknowledged it had failed to contact him about this issue. It agreed to reimburse him the bill and offered compensation of £20. This offer was reasonable and proportionate to its failing.
27. The resident has told us that he never received the £35 payment. However, on 11 June 2024 the landlord asked him for his bank details to make the payment. The resident responded, asking it to credit the money to his rent account, which it confirmed it would do. It was reasonable for the landlord to do this at the resident’s request.

28. As can be seen from above:
    1. the landlord responded at stage 1 within 11 working days (26 March 2024 to 11 April 2024) – slightly outside its complaints policy timescale of 10 working days
    2. it did not contact the resident within one working day to acknowledge and discuss the complaint in line with its complaints policy
    3. it responded at stage 2 within 23 working days (2 May 2024 to 6 June 2024) – slightly outside its complaints policy timescale of 20 working days
29. The landlord did make it clear to the resident that it had not investigated the damp and mould issue, as explained above. However, it did not clarify with him whether he wanted it to raise this as a formal complaint. As it was aware that this remained an issue for him, it would have been appropriate for it to have ask him if he wanted this investigated.
30. An order has been made for the landlord to pay the resident compensation of £50 to recognise the distress and inconvenience caused by its communication failures during the complaints process.

Learning

Communication

31. The landlord’s records do not show that its overall communication was good. It did not keep the resident regularly updated throughout the repairs process, relying instead on the resident to chase it for updates. It should be more proactive in keeping its residents updated while investigations and repairs are ongoing. It also did not communicate effectively with the resident when he raised additional concerns about damp and mould.