Home Group Limited (202118335)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202118335

Home Group Limited

5 May 2022

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. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of repair issues involving the front door, kitchen, garden gate and grounds maintenance.

Background

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord.
3. The landlord’s repair records state that the resident reported that the rear garden gate was unsecure on 26 February 2020, the front door was loose on 28 April 2020, the kitchen was in poor condition on 14 July 2020 and that a bush was overgrown in the carpark on 17 September 2020. The resident had requested an inspection due to numerous repair issues on 14 July 2020. According to the repair records, on 21 October 2020, a contractor advised the kitchen needed inspecting due to the poor state of repair and on 4 November 2020 a contractor advised the front door needed to be replaced.
4. The resident raised a complaint to the landlord on 8 January 2021 as she had been chasing an inspection and repairs for several months and felt she was not making progress. The landlord issued its stage one complaint response on 13 April 2021. It said it had raised work orders for repairs to the rear gate and fence. It had surveyed the kitchen and front door and had agreed to replace them, but it did not have a timescale for the works. It reimbursed the resident £226.60 for the cost of installing vinyl flooring in the hallway (a further repair the resident had raised that she completed herself), and offered £150 compensation, comprised of £75 for the poor service provided by the contractor and £75 for the delay to address the repair issues the resident had raised.
5. The resident escalated the complaint on 21 April 2021, as she was dissatisfied with the compensation amount. The landlord issued its stage two complaint response on 25 May 2021. It acknowledged that there had been clear service failure and confirmed it would make a further compensation offer once all the repairs were completed. It also outlined further repairs including the guttering and damage caused to the grass area by the contractor. The landlord sent its final response to the complaint on 31 January 2022. It said its contract with the maintenance contractor would end in October 2022 and it had an interim contractor to resolve any outstanding issues. It also advised a new grounds contractor would begin in March 2022. It offered the resident a total of £850 compensation, broken down into disruption caused by the works, time and effort, poor communication, poor workmanship and overall delays.
6. The resident referred the complaint to the Ombudsman as she remained dissatisfied with the compensation for the delays to the repairs and she considered that the issue with the bush outside the property had not been fully resolved.

Assessment and findings

7. In accordance with the tenancy handbook, the landlord is responsible for repairs to the structure of the floor, gutters, gates and external doors. Therefore, the landlord should have responded to the resident’s repair reports of these issues, in line with its policy.
8. The tenancy handbook states that the landlord will “aim to complete routine non-emergency repairs in 14 days”. Whilst in some cases this may not be achievable, the landlord should update the resident on the repair progress, and provide reasons for any delays. In this case, the landlord did not adhere to this timeframe or initially make reasonable attempts to complete the works when the resident reported the issues. While some delays would have been understandable due to lockdown restrictions, the delays experienced by the resident were excessive. However, following the complaint being raised, the landlord did explain that delays had been caused due to poor communication by the contractor and that it had to raise an exclusion order for the bush trimming as it was outside of the standard works contract with the maintenance contractor. The landlord’s repair records do not clearly show when the repairs were completed, but it is evident there was a significant delay as the resident first began reporting repair issues in 2020, and in its final response to the complaint the landlord confirmed the repairs were completed on 21 January 2022. The landlord needs to ensure that it keeps clear, accurate and easily accessible repair records to provide an audit trail, so that the landlord and the Ombudsman can make a fair and accurate assessment of the actions that took place in the event of a complaint.
9. The resident had reported that the kitchen was in a poor state of repair on 14 July 2020, highlighting several issues. On 13 April 2021 the kitchen was surveyed and the landlord agreed to replaced it but said there was no fixed timescale. The kitchen was then measured on 14 July 2021, delivered on 4 August 2021, and the replacement works began on 20 September 2021. While initially there was a delay in acknowledging the resident’s concerns and arranging an inspection, once the landlord had identified that it would complete the works, it appropriately managed the resident’s expectations regarding the timeframe and it provided regular updates on the progress of the works. However, it was appropriate that the landlord identified its failings due to the delay in the inspection and as such it offered £75 compensation, which as reasonable as a remedy to this aspect of the complaint.
10. From April 2021, the landlord persistently chased the contractor for updates and an internal email confirmed that the contractor had provided a poor service regarding its communication and response times. It is evident that this impacted the repair timeframe and caused significant delays. In its final response, the landlord stated that it had not renewed its agreement with the contractor, in light of the poor service that had been provided. The landlord had also hired an interim contractor to reduce any future repair delays. This demonstrated that the landlord had learnt from the outcome of the complaint and implemented changes to improve its services.
11. The resident clearly spent a considerable amount of time and effort pursuing the complaint, due to the need to chase for updates and numerous appointments for inspections and repairs. It was therefore appropriate that the landlord compensated the resident individually for each of the repair delays, as well as offering additional compensation for time and effort, service failure for poor communication, disruption caused by the appointments and overall delays experienced. In accordance with this Service’s remedy guidance (published on our website), compensation of £250-£700 is appropriate in cases where the resident had to chase responses and seek correction of mistakes, the landlord failed to act in accordance with its policy over a considerable time period (including repairs) and when there are considerable complaint handling failures, all of which were evident in this complaint. The landlord’s final compensation offer was £850, exceeded the amount outlined in the Ombudsman’s remedy guidance and was therefore more than the Ombudsman would have ordered if the landlord had not already made an offer. The landlord has acted appropriately by acknowledging its failings, implementing changes to improve its service and appropriately compensating the resident. Therefore, the landlord does not need to do anything further to resolve this complaint.

Determination

12. In accordance with paragraph 55 (b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily.