Severe maladministration for Catalyst’s handling of complaint on new build defects prompts wider investigation

We found severe maladministration for Catalyst’s significant failings in handling a complaint from shared owners about cold and draughty rooms and other defects in their new build house. The landlord’s responses did not sufficiently identify what had gone wrong, what action would be taken to remedy the defects or assess to what extent it had met its responsibility.

The Ombudsman has other cases that also raise issues around the landlord’s complaint handling so we have started a wider investigation using powers in the Scheme to identify areas for the landlord to learn and improve.

In this case, the residents made reports of cold and draughty rooms but our investigation found no evidence that the landlord asked for updates from the developer or provided oversight on fixing the issue. There was a delay in the developer investigating the defects during which time the landlord did not take sufficient steps to get the developer to take action and mitigate the delay. It meant the residents were approaching a second winter with no indication that any further works to reduce the draughts and coldness would take place. This demonstrated a lack of urgency by the landlord in reaching a resolution.

The landlord failed to meet the standards in our Complaint Handling Code. It did not state the complaint stage or make clear how the complaint could be escalated. It did not maintain contact with the residents about the defects, and did not appreciate the impact on them or acknowledge the frustration caused.

Following our investigation, the landlord’s learning from this case includes making improvements to its aftercare arrangements and quality control procedures for all new homes and refresher training for staff.

Richard Blakeway, Housing Ombudsman, said: “This case raised serious concerns about the landlord’s complaint handling. Taken altogether the landlord missed opportunities to address the wider aspects of the resident’s complaint, show empathy and possibly improve the landlord/resident relationship. The landlord also delayed in sending its complaint responses, not meeting the timeframes set out in its complaints procedure at each stage.

“Landlords must ensure they meet the standards set out in the Code, which aims to support a positive complaint handling culture and enable landlords to respond to complaints effectively and fairly.

“I welcome the landlord’s response on its learning from this case and the changes being made to improve its service. We also welcome their engagement with us on our wider investigation.”

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We ordered the landlord to pay £1,650 compensation, confirm its position on the issues in the property and carry out further investigations, inspections and works as required. It also ordered the landlord to review the failings in its complaint handling.

In cases of severe maladministration the Ombudsman invites the landlord to provide a short statement on the lessons learned following the decision.

A Catalyst spokesperson said: “Buying and moving into a new home should be a happy experience and we are sorry we let this customer down. We take full responsibility for where we went wrong and have apologised and compensated them.

“We commissioned an independent surveyor to inspect the property and identify where further work was needed and we are liaising closely with the customer to resolve the outstanding issues.

“As an organisation that supports the ombudsman’s complaint handling code, we are disappointed to have fallen short of the standards expected on this occasion and have already made improvements to our service.

“We have improved aftercare arrangements and quality control procedures for all new homes and are also carrying out more thorough tests and checks to ensure properties perform as designed.

“Our process for providing aftercare has moved to a central function, which provides a better, more consistent service for customers. We have also provided colleagues with refresher training to stress the importance of providing thorough, timely responses, and have implemented more robust measures to improve internal record keeping and ensure better communication. In addition, we have tightened procedures for how we monitor, flag and fix problems like this.

“Our ambition is for our customers to never have cause to complain. However, on occasions where problems do escalate, we want people to feel confident they are going to be listened to, kept informed about progress and receive the best possible and timely outcome. We are sorry we did not do that for this customer, and we are committed to ensuring that such a loss of trust does not happen again.”