Central and Cecil Housing Trust (202002657)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202002657

Central and Cecil Housing Trust

23 February 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

The tenant has complained that:
1. The landlord took too long to refund a service charge credit
2. The landlord took too long to respond to concerns about fire safety; including repairs to smoke/heat detectors and an emergency light
3. The cyclical decorating works to the communal areas were overdue
4. The landlord took too long to repair a leak caused by rain
5. The landlord took too long to refund a parking voucher
6. The complaint was not handled correctly, including the panel hearings

Background and summary of events

This case stems from 4 separate complaints that were then handled at one final panel hearing, resulting in the July 2019 final response letter.
The tenant reported various repairs on 4 July 2018. The landlord’s inspections on 1 and 21 August 2018 recommended repairs to: the windows, heat and smoke detectors; kitchen socket, bathroom sealant; and to the roof. On 3 September 2018 the resident requested an update as they had not heard from the landlord since the inspections.
The landlord replied on 5 September 2018 and explained:
1. Parts were required for the windows
2. A work order had been raised to inspect and install a kitchen heat detector and hall smoke detector
3. It would update the following day about the other repairs
The landlord’s next update explained it was unable to locate a request from the repairs team to book the work after the 1 August inspection. The landlord apologised for the “unacceptable” delay and said its department head would chase up the work. The landlord was able to confirm that a work order was raised on 7 August for the heat and smoke detectors and the contractor would be in contact to arrange an appointment “as soon as possible”.
On 14 December 2018 the resident made a formal complaint about a parking voucher refund of £4. They explained they had given one of their vouchers to staff who couldn’t find alternative parking, but had not received the agreed refund. They also sent a further complaint that they believed they had been overcharged for their service charges, and requested a refund and copies of the service charge accounts for 2017-2019.
The Housing Ombudsman Service Scheme asks that complaints are submitted within 6 months of an issue occurring. This is to ensure landlord and tenant efforts are focused on the most pressing disputes. The tenant stated they shared their parking voucher in June 2017. Therefore a complaint in December 2018 would normally be considered out of time. However as it was an issue discussed during the complaint procedure and in the complaint brought to the Housing Ombudsman Service, it has been included in this report for completeness.
The landlord sent a stage one response about the repairs on 22 January 2019. The landlord upheld the complaint due to the significant delays. It confirmed the repairs had been completed, and offered £100 as a goodwill gesture. The response did not address the smoke or heat detector works that had been included in the earlier correspondence however.
On 12 February 2019 the landlord confirmed the £4 refund had been applied to the tenant’s rent account for the parking voucher.
On 5 April 2019 the resident sent emails disputing the stage one responses. The first email referred to the service charges. The resident complained that the landlord had not responded to this issue. The resident explained the calculations that he believed showed an overcharge total of £44.20 over the previous two years. The resident also complaint about the time taken to process the parking refund and that they had not received confirmation of the refund (despite the internal February email stating the refund had been credited to the account).
The second email sent by the resident related to the repairs. The resident complained that:
1. It had taken six months from when he first contacted the landlord for some of the repairs to be resolved.
2. The rainwater issue had not been resolved as of April 2019. They explained the water had damaged carpets and underlay, and resulted in a cold flat regardless of heating.
3. There had been no works or update for the fire safety issues (the heat and smoke detector, and a hallway emergency light that was added to the works due by the landlord in September 2018).
4. That cyclical decorations were due to be carried out every five years under the tenancy agreement, but that they were last carried out in 2011.
On 5 April 2019 the resident and landlord agreed to have the issues he raised reconsidered at stage one again. The resident proposed their own conditions (including all issues to be covered, timeliness of response, and what information would be passed to any stage 2 panel if needed). They felt agreeing to an additional stage 1 (despite it being their suggestion) was a gesture they had made to the landlord to allow it to try and resolve the complaint at an earlier stage. Ultimately, following the follow-up stage one responses the tenant felt their conditions had not bene met and so the complaint was escalated to stage 2.
The complaints procedure is in place to try and resolve a complaint. The escalation of a complaint is available to try and move past any obstacles, as opposed to it being an item for negotiation itself. By doing so, this complaint became as focused on procedural matters as much as the actual important, substantive issues themselves. This is why the Housing Ombudsman Service would recommend that, once a landlord has a robust and appropriate complaint procedure in place, it simply follow this procedure as far as possible.
The first additional stage one response (24 April 2019) dealt with the service charges. It partially upheld the complaint on the grounds that there was a delay in providing the information requested by the resident. The landlord provided a full breakdown of the service charges from 2016-17 onwards and apologised to the resident. The response focused only on the information to be provided and its failure to provide an adequate explanation of charges in the past. It did not respond to the complaint about an overcharge. It also did not address the parking voucher in the response. This was not a service charge issue as such, but did relate to the resident’s rent account and was not addressed elsewhere.
The second additional stage one response (also on 24 April 2019) dealt with repairs. It upheld the complaint due to the delays in completing the repairs. The landlord stated that most repairs were completed by the end of 2018 and that £100 compensation had been offered for the delays. It explained that the heat/smoke detectors repairs had not been completed, and the rain water entry not investigated yet. The landlord did not give a reason for the continued delay. It did confirm it would consider further compensation once these items were completed.
The tenant escalated the complaint on 2 May. During an email exchange the landlord confirmed the members of the final stage panel on 7 June 2019. The tenant was dissatisfied that landlord staff members were on the panel and that the original stage one response sent on 22 January and the two emails he sent on 5 April were not included in the evidence bundle.
The landlord delayed the panel so that the additional evidence could be included in the information for the panel. In terms of the panel, it explained of the 4 people listed 2 were Resident Scrutiny Panel members (as the tenant had expected and not disputed) and 1 was the relevant head of Service to advise on policy and procedures. The fourth, also a landlord member of staff, and been incorrectly listed as a panel member, but was only attending to take notes
The stage two panel review was undertaken on 27 June 2019 and on 3 July the landlord sent its final response to the resident. The final response offered no comment on the substantive issues. By this time the resident had become focused on their dissatisfaction with the organization of the panel.
The final response highlighted the panel was cancelled once with an hour’s notice due to the tenant’s dissatisfaction. The minutes record that the resident was dissatisfied some of the email correspondence was missing from the panel bundle. The landlord appears to have asked the relevance of the omitted emails, and the resident was given the opportunity to read out the relevant emails. However they felt the landlord was hiding details. The minutes do not record any discussion about the complaint issues, only the process. As a result the landlord decided that the matter needed to be escalated to the Ombudsman instead of it attempting a third panel meeting with the resident.
From the documents provided by the landlord there has been ongoing correspondence in 2020 about a decoration allowance (ultimately agreed at £125) from the landlord to the resident. The decoration follows the repairs to the roof in August 2019 to address the roof leak. The role of the Housing Ombudsman is to assess the reasonableness of the landlord’s response to a formal complaint. Therefore this report will focus on the complaints made and the resulting responses up to the 3 July 2019 final response. However dates after this final response will be used if clearly relevant to the substantive issues.

Assessment

Service charge

The landlord did not fully answer this issue in its complaint responses. The actual complaint handling has been discussed below (including the time taken to respond to this issue).
In terms of the actual service charge the landlord did ultimately: a) provide the requested information and b) refund the reported overcharge. Therefore the landlord has used its complaints procedure as intended, ie to address the omissions in its day to day service.

Fire safety works

There was a significant delay in these repairs. The landlord acknowledged this delay and in April 2019 and offered £100. However at the time of this response and offer the repairs for the smoke and heat detector remained outstanding despite the landlord stating they had been first raised in August 2018.
The landlord’s decision to not provide any further comment on the fire safety repairs in the stage 2 (final) response means that the issue was outstanding despite the end of the complaint procedure with no action plan to resolve it.
The resident has reported that emails have continued to be exchanged in July 2020 after chasing the matter unsuccessfully in February 2020. During these emails the landlord has apologised for the continued delay, confirmed that the smoke and heat detectors are recommended by its fire safety consultant, and that the landlord would confirm when the works are due.
The landlord has given a similar update from August 2018 until July 2020. Therefore this is a serious failure, compounded by the fact it relates to an issue as important as fire safety.

Cyclical works

The resident raised this matter prior to the additional stage 1 responses. However neither the response about service charges nor the response about repairs addressed the resident’s report that the cyclical repairs had not been completed as required by the tenancy agreement.
The landlord has been notified of this complaint from the tenant but has not provided any evidence that the building had been inspected/assessed to determine what (if any) works were required or how the timetable related to the tenancy agreement. This was therefore a failure of the landlord’s repair service.

Leak from rain

The water entry was first reported in July 2018 and the landlord’s inspection in August 2018 recommended works to the roof. The repairs were completed in August 2019.
This is an unreasonable delay. The landlord’s repair policy does not specify timeframes. It is not uncommon for routine repairs to be expected within 28 days.
The landlord has offered compensation (£100) for repair delays. However this compensation was relevant up to January 2019 and was intended to cover the various repair reports and not just the roof. Therefore the landlord has not made a reasonable offer of redress for the inconvenience caused by the time taken to complete the roof repair.

Parking voucher

As explained above, this issue is outside the jurisdiction of the Housing Ombudsman Service as the event was over 6 months prior to the formal complaint.
It is noted that the landlord has refunded the parking voucher.

Complaint handling

The complaint handling has been a significant, complicating factor in this case. Both parties have become excessively focused on the procedure and this has inhibited any efforts towards effective dispute resolution. Both parties bear responsibility for this.
The landlord failed to address all of the resident’s substantive concerns at the first stage of the complaint procedure. This stage has been taken to include both the January and the April responses. The following issues were not adequately covered in the landlord’s complaint responses:
1. The service charge overcharge
2. The fire safety and leak repairs
3. The cyclical repairs
The resident complicated matters by focusing on what they saw as an agreement to be upheld so that the matters could be revisited at an additional stage 1 in April. This did not help advance the discussion about the substantive issues and only served to provided more issues around which there could be debate and disagreement.
The landlord was not robust enough in its handling of the complaint at the additional stage 1 responses. The landlord has a complaint procedure in place and so, following the resident’s feedback to the January 2019 stage 1 response, it should have simply escalated the matter to stage 2. It could then have investigated what responses had been given, whether they were appropriate, and what issues had been missed entirely.
Furthermore the landlord’s response to the panel membership was not sufficiently robust. The landlord has a complaint procedure that has been adopted through its governance processes. Therefore it is reasonable for it to explain to any resident making a complaint that is the process that will be used (subject to any equality or conflict of interest issues). The resident’s dissatisfaction with the panel membership was not a sufficient reason for the landlord to modify its process. It is reasonable (and common) for a member of staff to sit on the panel alongside resident members. Some landlords use panels that only have (albeit senior and independent of the issue at hand) members of staff on the final stage panel.
The landlord should have focused on the substantive issues by conducting an appropriate investigation and reaching a conclusion about its position. It would then be for the resident to decide if they felt the explanation was reasonable and evidenced, if there were errors in the conclusion, or if they wished to continue focusing on the membership as opposed to the matters at hand.
As a result of these various issues, by the time of the final stage panel the conversation was solely focused on procedure. This was a result of both parties’ actions. The landlord therefore failed to provide a final response to the actual substantive issues raised by the resident. It is not enough to refer a complaint to the Ombudsman Service because the complaint procedure has been allowed to become overly complicated, or because a resident’s expectations have not been appropriately managed.
Therefore there were failures in the landlord’s handling of the complaint. The extent of these failures (and the redress required to acknowledge the inconvenience caused) is tempered by the challenging approach taken by the resident.

Determination (decision)

Therefore I can confirm:
1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the complaint about the service charge account
2. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the fire safety repairs
3. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the roof repairs
4. In accordance with paragraph 39(e) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme the complaint about the parking voucher refund is outside the jurisdiction of the Housing Ombudsman Service.
5. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the complaint

Reasons

There was a delay in the landlord responding to the service charge enquiry, however it then used it complaint procedure to resolve the issues (information and overcharge) that had been raised.
The smoke and heat detectors were raised in August 2018 and outstanding as of July 2020. This is a significant failure of the landlord’s repair service, given both the importance of fire safety and given the landlord’s repeated statements over the period that the repairs were been arranged and the resident contacted ‘soon’.
The roof repairs were first identified by the landlord in August 2018 and completed in August 2019. This is an unreasonable delay. The decoration voucher offered in 2020 would apply to the decorative works that the landlord has not been able to arrange, however it is not adequate redress for the inconvenience caused by the repair delay.
The voucher was provided in June 2017 but only complaint about in December 2018 and so is outside the time period for our jurisdiction.
Both parties did not approach the complaint process in a helpful way. The complaints were excessively focused on procedure and the landlord engaged with these issues to the detriment of the substantive issues. It would have helped if the resident focused on the services they believed that were outstanding or substandard. The landlord should have followed its complaint procedure as published and focused its responses on the substantive issues. The focused on process meant most of the main areas of complaint were not responded to.

Orders and recommendations

As a result of the determination above I have ordered that within 4 weeks the landlord will:
1. Pay the resident a total of £1500, calculated from:
  1. £750 to acknowledge the distress and inconvenience of not only failing to complete repairs that relate to fire safety; but also failing to learn from its earlier responses by repeatedly incorrectly stating the tenant would be given a repair date.
  2. £500 to acknowledge inconvenience caused by the year timeframe from the roof/leak repairs
  3. £250 for the inconvenience caused by the landlord’s failure to respond to all the substantive issues raised during the complaint procedure
2. Provide a date by when any remaining repairs related to fire safety (heat/smoke detectors, door closers, emergency lights) will be completed
I would also like to recommend that the landlord:
1. Review its complaint handling process and the training provided to frontline and support staff. It should in particular review the training provided about how to manage complex complaints and challenging complainants.