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Guinness Housing Association Limited (202012044)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202012044

Guinness Housing Association Limited

15 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 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
    1. its eviction of the resident due to rent arrears;
    2. the disposal of the resident’s possessions after the eviction;
    3. the related complaint.

Jurisdiction

  1. 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.
  2. Paragraph 39(h) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which ‘concern matters that are, or have been, the subject of legal proceedings and where a complainant has or had the opportunity to raise the subject matter of the complaint as part of those proceedings’.
  3. Evidence seen by this Service indicates that there was court action related to possession of the property (due to rent arrears) at least as early as April 2007 and that the court produced a notice of bailiff appointment dated 24 November 2017 that showed it would execute the possession warrant on 6 December 2017.
  4. A court judgment was also made on 21 March 2018 that dismissed an application from the resident of 20 March 2018 to reinstate his tenancy, noting that:
    1. an order for possession had been made in 2017
    2. the resident had applied to ‘stay’ that warrant and this had been dismissed by the court on 29 August 2017
    3. the resident had applied to be re-admitted and this had been dismissed by the court on 14 December 2017
    4. the resident would need to take urgent legal advice to request the continuation of temporary accommodation provided by the local authority.
  5. Given the landlord’s rent account recovery action led to court proceedings and that the court authorised execution of the warrant of eviction, the landlord’s handling of its eviction of the resident due to rent arrears is out of jurisdiction.
  6. Paragraph 39(e) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which ‘were not brought to the attention of the member as a formal complaint within a reasonable period which would normally be within 6 months of the matter arising’.
  7. Evidence seen by this Service shows that the landlord advised the resident on 18 September 2017 and 4 December 2017 that he needed to remove his belongings before the eviction (which occurred on 6 December 2017). It subsequently sent a ‘notice imposing obligation to collect goods’ and ‘notice of intention to sell goods’ dated 16 April 2018, advising it would sell or dispose of the resident’s goods if they were not collected by 13 May 2018.
  8. The resident wrote to his Member of Parliament (MP) on 29 December 2020 and the complaint was forwarded to this Service on 2 January 2021. The complaint partly related to the belongings that the resident said the landlord had disposed of during April-May 2018. Given there is no evidence that the resident raised a formal complaint about these concerns with the landlord between May 2018 and December 2020, the landlord’s handling of the disposal of his possessions after the eviction is out of jurisdiction.
  9. However, the Ombudsman has considered the landlord’s handling of the related complaint.

Background and summary of events

Background

  1. The resident was an assured tenant of the property. His tenancy began on 7 July 2003 and he was evicted from the property on 6 December 2017. The property is a one-bedroom fourth floor flat.
  2. The landlord has a complaints policy that sets out a two-stage process with responses required within 10 working days (at stage one) and 20 working days (at stage two).
  3. The landlord’s website shows that it can award compensation if it has failed to meet its responsibilities and this has caused undue distress. It adds that if the complaint is ‘about a legal or insurance issue, we will handle it differently to other complaints’.

Summary of Events

  1. Following contact from the resident’s MP, this Service wrote to the landlord on 21 March 2021. This Service provided the landlord with a copy of the resident’s concerns that he had set out in a Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman form dated 28 January 2020. This showed that the resident had complained that the local authority, Department of Work and Pensions and landlord had conspired to falsify rent arrears and evict him, leading to homelessness and all his possessions being lost. This Service advised the landlord to approach the resident if it needed more information and to offer a written complaint response to him.
  2. The landlord’s internal records show that it reviewed the rent account records on 22-23 March 2021. It noted that it had reviewed the records back to 2015 and was satisfied at how the rent arrears had accrued.
  3. The landlord issued a complaint response to the resident on 23 March 2021. It provided the background to the rent arrears and court action from May 2015, leading to it applying for a warrant in March 2017. It concluded that:
    1. it received no rent payments from the resident between July 2016 and June 2017 and housing benefit payments had reduced and then been suspended
    2. the resident had appealed the eviction but been unsuccessful
    3. the resident’s belongings had been placed into storage
    4. it had contacted the resident on 13 April 2018 about his belongings and he had advised that he was due to travel and he provided an address for the items to be delivered to him that day
    5. the storage company had not been able to deliver the possessions on the same day as the request and it was agreed that there would be further contact to make alternative arrangements.
  4. Following further correspondence from the resident, this Service wrote to the landlord on 21 April 2021, advising that the resident wished to escalate his complaint. It asked the landlord to respond to the resident’s escalated complaint within 10 working days. This Service chased the landlord on the matter again on 18 May 2021, 3 June 2021 and 20 July 2021.
  5. The landlord issued a final complaint response on 22 July 2021. It apologised to the resident for any distress caused by its delay in escalating the complaint and concluded that:
    1. it was satisfied that it had thoroughly reviewed the resident’s complaint
    2. it awarded £25 compensation for the complaint handling delay and was reviewing its complaints procedure to ensure stage two complaint requests are actioned.
  6. The resident approached this Service in July 2021. He advised that:
    1. the landlord had evicted him in December 2017 despite his rent and arrears being in full payment
    2. the landlord had removed belongings from his property (at a value of £200,000) in April 2018 when the court had fixed a hearing date of 10 May 2018
    3. he wanted the landlord to reinstate his tenancy, provide him with his belongings (or compensate him to this value), reimburse him for monies he had paid towards falsified rent arrears, compensate him for distress caused by his homelessness over four years and remove his bankruptcy records.

Assessment and findings

  1. In reaching a decision we consider whether the landlord has kept to the law, followed proper procedure and good practice, and acted in a reasonable way. Our duty is to determine complaints by reference to what is, in this Service’s opinion, fair in all the circumstances of the case.
  2. The Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles are:
  • Be fair
  • Put things right
  • Learn from outcomes

This Service will apply these principles when considering whether any redress is appropriate and proportionate for any maladministration or service failure identified.

  1. The landlord was made aware of the resident’s complaint on 21 March 2021. It reviewed the rent account records the following day and responded to the complaint on 23 March 2021 when it set out the background information as to how the resident had come to be evicted and how it had dealt with his belongings. The landlord’s complaints policy required it to respond to the complaint within 10 working days – it therefore responded within an appropriate timescale and addressed the resident’s concerns even though these related to an eviction that occurred more than three years previously.
  2. This Service advised the landlord on 21 April 2021 that he wished to escalate his complaint. The landlord failed to issue its final complaint response until 22 July 2021, more than three months later. Although there is no evidence that the resident approached the landlord directly to escalate the complaint, it is of concern that the landlord failed to contact him once the Ombudsman made it aware that he remained dissatisfied. Its eventual response was provided more than two months outside the timescale its complaints policy allows for stage two responses – this was inappropriate.
  3. When the landlord issued its final complaint response, it apologised, awarded compensation of £25 and explained how it would learn lessons to avoid delays with complaint escalations in future. These actions were in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles to be fair in assessments of service failure, put things right and learn from outcomes and therefore represented reasonable redress for the delay of two months.
  4. In summary, the landlord delayed unreasonably between May-July 2021 in responding to the resident’s escalated complaint. However, the combination of the landlord’s apology, proposal to improve the way it deals with escalated complaints and compensation award represented reasonable redress for the service failures identified in the way it handled the resident’s complaint.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 55 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has offered reasonable redress to the service failures identified in its handling of the resident’s complaint.

Reasons

  1. The landlord delayed by two months in answering the resident’s escalated complaint. However, the apology, compensation award and commitment from the landlord to review its complaints procedure were fair given the circumstances of the case.