Watford Community Housing Trust (202103445)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202103445

Watford Community Housing Trust

11 October 2021

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 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 handling of the re-turfing of the resident’s garden lawn.

Background and summary of events

Policies and procedures

2. Section 7.2 of the landlord’s responsive repairs policy confirms that it will carry out a post-inspection when the resident considers a repair to be unsatisfactory.
3. As per section 4.6.3 of the landlord’s customer feedback policy and procedure, it will not consider a complaint which has already been considered within its complaints procedure.

Background

4. The resident is a tenant of the landlord.
5. The resident previously raised a complaint to the landlord in July 2020 and this included his concerns regarding his garden lawn, along with other matters which were not referred to this Service. It issued its previous final stage complaint response to him on 16 September 2020, in which it confirmed that the developer of his property had agreed to re-turf the garden lawn there in September 2020. This was because the property was still within the defect liability period. However, there was a delay in the completion of this work due to poor weather conditions and the impact of the corona virus pandemic, of which the resident had been informed.

Summary of events

6. On 12 March 2021, the landlord’s records confirmed that the resident’s garden had been re-turfed on the previous day. He had raised concerns regarding some brown patches on this, both when the garden had been re-turfed and again to the landlord on the following day. It was explained that this was normal due to the grass being rolled-up, and that this would “be fine within about six weeks”. The landlord also informed the resident of his obligations regarding the aftercare of the new lawn, including the watering of the grass and the cutting requirements.
7. On 4 May 2021, the resident emailed the landlord following its inspection of his lawn on 30 April 2021. He was unhappy with the turf, which he believed was of poor quality. The resident also did not believe that the grass would grow back evenly once this had been cut, and he asked for the landlord to cut the grass when it attended his garden on 11 May 2021. He felt that there was a noticeable difference between his and a neighbour’s lawns, who had their lawn re-turfed two weeks after his.
8. On 5 May 2021, the landlord responded to the resident, which is summarised as follows:
   1. He had raised concerns over the different lengths of grass on the lawn, and it had explained that environmental factors and different species of grass contributed to this. However, once the lawn was maintained to a shorter level, this would have a more even appearance.
   2. It had found that “the entire first half of the [lawn] had not been watered enough”, and that this had been “lifted away from the base layer of topsoil that was applied”. The landlord had also found evidence of “bruising” on the blades of grass, which indicated that this had “been cut with a dull blade”.
   3. It had assessed the lawn to have been laid to an acceptable standard. However, as a gesture of goodwill, the landlord offered to cut the area back, apply more topsoil, and reseed the area on 11 May 2021. In the return, the resident was asked to confirm his responsibility for its specific aftercare requirements, of which it provided details for the grass to be cut, kept clear, watered daily, and allowed to grow.
9. On 5 May 2021, the resident responded to the landlord. He did not feel that it had addressed the matter of the poor-quality turf, of which “50 percent of the rolls were very poor quality with hardly and grass on them…and dried up”. In respect to the landlord’s suggestion that areas of the lawn had not been sufficiently watered, the resident confirmed that all areas of this had been watered the same, and that the turf that it had laid in those areas was dry originally. He also highlighted to it that, although it had advised him to cut the grass, the gardener had advised him against this as the grass was not at the appropriate length. The resident did not agree to the work that the landlord had offered to carry out, and he wanted this to be investigated further, as he did not believe that the turf was of an acceptable standard.
10. On 7 May 2021, the landlord responded to the resident. It noted his decision not to accept the offer of additional work on 5 May 2021. As the landlord was satisfied that it had completed the re-turfing of the resident’s garden to an acceptable standard, it considered the matter closed.
11. On 8 May 2021, the resident responded to the landlord. He explained that he did not wish for the matter to be closed, and that he wanted the gardeners and a manager to revisit his property to review the progress of this, as there were patches where no grass was present. He also wished to complain about its assessment that the re-turfing had been completed to an acceptable standard.
12. On 11 May 2021, the landlord issued its final stage complaint response to the resident. It confirmed that it would not be considering the resident’s complaint, as this had already been dealt with under its complaints procedure. The landlord reiterated that it was satisfied that the re–turf had been completed to an acceptable standard. It also re-offered to carry out the work that it had previously offered on 5 May 2021, providing that he also confirmed his responsibility for the aftercare requirements for this.
13. The resident subsequently referred his complaint to this Service. He remained unhappy with the quality of the re-turfing of his garden lawn, and he confirmed that he would like the grass to be re-turfed again to resolve the complaint. The landlord would also not consider his complaint about this further.

Assessment and findings

14. The resident was unhappy with the quality of the landlord’s re-turfing in his garden, with this being agreed in settlement of his previous complaint about this, as detailed in the background section above. The re-turf was completed on 11 March 2021, and this was delayed from its initial commitment to re-turf his garden lawn in September 2020 due to poor weather, and the ongoing impact of the corona virus pandemic. It was reasonable of the landlord to have completed this work when it was able to do so, and it had kept the resident updated during this time.
15. The resident subsequently contacted the landlord again on 12 March 2021, as he remained unhappy following the work to ret-turf his garden lawn on the previous day. In response to this, it was obliged to complete a post-inspection of the work, in line with its responsive repairs policy detailed above that confirmed that it would post-inspect repairs that residents considered to be unsatisfactory. The landlord did this on 30 April 2021, and it had assessed that the newly laid lawn had been laid to an acceptable standard, with the condition of this being due to environmental factors, different species of grass and the level of the lawn.
16. This was reasonable of the landlord to find, as the re-turfing of the resident’s garden lawn was found by its gardener’s expert assessment to have been completed to an acceptable standard, in the absence of any other expert evidence to the contrary. This was then communicated to him by it in its response to him on 5 May 2021, which was additionally fair of it to do so because it explained the basis of its findings to him and the reasons for the condition of the lawn.
17. The landlord did find evidence to suggest that the resident’s garden lawn had not been attended to its specific aftercare requirements, for example in sufficiently watering all areas of the lawn, lifting and bruising from cutting the lawn with a dull blade, but this was disputed by him. Notwithstanding this, it offered to cut back, apply more topsoil to and reseed the affected areas of his lawn on 11 May 2021 in its response to him of 5 May 2021, on the basis that he committed to the aftercare requirements that it specified for the lawn. This was a fair response from the landlord, and this demonstrated its desire to address the resident’s concerns regarding the lawn’s condition. He did not accept this offer, however, and he wished for a further investigation of this by it.
18. In response to this request, the landlord issued its final stage complaint response of 11 May 2021 to the resident. It confirmed that it would not be considering his complaint further, as this had already been dealt with under its complaints procedure, it had found that it had carried out the re-turfing work to his lawn to an acceptable standard, and it had offered to carry out further work to address the lawn’s condition. This was reasonable of the landlord to decline to investigate the resident’s complaint about this further, as this was in line with its policy as detailed in its customer feedback policy and procedure above, which confirmed that it not consider a complaint that had already been considered within its complaints procedure.
19. In summary, the evidence demonstrates that the landlord took reasonable steps to meet its obligations to the resident, which were for it to carry out a post-inspection of the re-turfing of his garden lawn, and in offering to carry out work on the areas of the lawn which he was concerned about. It was under no obligation to further consider his complaint according to its policy, and it had communicated this to him. Therefore, there was no failure identified in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint about this.

Determination (decision)

20. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the re-turfing of the resident’s garden lawn.

Reasons

21. The landlord carried out a post-inspection of the re-turf of the resident’s garden lawn, and it had assessed the work to have been carried out to an acceptable standard. It had also offered to carry out work to address the areas of the lawn which remained of concern to him.
22. The landlord had communicated the outcome of its post-inspection of the garden lawn to the resident, in addition to explaining the reason why it would not consider his complaint about this further, as this had already been dealt with under its complaints procedure.