Sanctuary Housing Association (202123803)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202123803

Sanctuary Housing Association

12 September 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 concerns:
   1. The landlord’s decision to issue a letter and email relating to its intention to begin possession proceedings and its handling of the resident’s concerns about its decision.
   2. The amount of compensation offered by the landlord for delays in its complaint handling and providing a copy of the letter.

Background

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is a flat.
3. On 17 December 2020 the landlord wrote a letter to the resident relating to the expiration of an injunction it had previously taken out against him regarding the language he had used against its staff. The landlord highlighted several derogatory remarks the resident had used in communication with it in November and December 2020 since the injunction had expired. It then warned the resident that if this type of language continued it may consider taking further legal action to seek possession of the property.
4. On 22 November 2021, the landlord wrote an email to the resident to update him on various issues he had recently enquired about, including a landlord staff member’s attempt to evict him. The landlord informed the resident that it was unaware of any attempts to evict him and the staff member he mentioned no longer worked for it. The resident replied on 26 November 2021 and stated that the staff member had sent a covering email with the 17 December 2020 letter saying that he was going to be evicted. The landlord replied and informed him it stood by its position set out in the previous email.
5. The resident called the landlord on 14 January 2022 and then sent an email on 17 January 2022 requesting to raise a complaint. He stated that he received an email in January 2021 from a staff member threatening him with eviction and that this had caused him stress and anxiety as he was expecting to be evicted when the Covid-19 pandemic ended. He further noted that he was only made aware that he was not going to be evicted during the 14 January 2022 telephone call, that the landlord had refused to provide him with a copy of the December 2020 letter or the January 2021 email, and the staff member he talked to when raising the complaint refused to talk to him about the letter or the email. As a resolution to the complaint, the resident requested to receive a written apology and compensation from the landlord.
6. In its responses to the complaint, the landlord:
   1. Apologised for the delay in providing a stage one complaint response.
   2. Also apologised for the delay in providing a copy of the 17 December 2020 letter. It explained that the letter was not scanned and added to its electronic records at the time it was sent and therefore did not show up when first searched for.
   3. Stated that it was satisfied that the letter was correctly sent in light of the language used by the resident described in the letter. It noted that the letter did not state that it was seeking to evict the resident, only that it may consider eviction if the resident’s behaviour towards its staff did not improve.
   4. Informed the resident it had been unable to locate an email sent to him on 5 January 2021 by the staff member he highlighted. It also noted that it had been in continuous contact with the resident since the sending of the December 2020 letter and it could find no record of the resident informing it that he had concerns that he was going to be evicted.
   5. Explained that the staff member he spoke with on 14 January 2022 was unable to answer his specific questions about the December 2020 letter and January 2021 email as they had not read them and did not have access to them during the telephone conversation.
   6. Offered £75 compensation in recognition of the delays in providing the stage one complaint response and a copy of the 17 December 2020 letter.
7. The resident wrote to the landlord on 10 March 2022 and noted that the landlord had not asked him for a copy of the 5 January 2021 email. The landlord replied on the same day and informed him that if he was able to supply it with a copy of the email within the next ten working days that it would send a follow-up complaint response with this new information included.
8. In referring the case to this Service, the resident described the outstanding issues to the complaint as the landlord not informing him that he was not being evicted for 12 months, the poor service he experienced from the staff member who wrote the 5 January 2021 email, and that the landlord had not addressed the conduct of the staff member. As a resolution to the complaint the resident requested that the landlord acknowledged its mistakes and increased its compensation offer. In further correspondence between the resident and landlord in July 2022, the resident stated that £500 would be an acceptable level of redress to resolve the complaint.

Assessment and findings

Relevant policies and procedures

9. Section A9 of the tenancy agreement states that if a tenant breaks any of the obligations set out in the agreement the landlord has the right to ask for a possession order from the court. Section C of the tenancy agreement sets out the tenant’s obligations. These include the tenant agreeing to not cause nuisance or harassment.
10. The landlord operates a two-stage complaints process. When a complaint is received, the landlord aims to provide a response at stage one within ten working days. If the complainant is dissatisfied with the response, they can request an escalation of the complaint to the next stage. The landlord will then undertake a review of the complaint and provide a stage two response within 20 working days. This will be the landlord’s final response to the complaint. The complaints policy also describes the circumstances where the landlord will not consider a complaint. This includes issues that occurred more than six months prior to the complaint being raised.
11. The landlord’s compensation policy states that it may consider offering a complainant financial redress when it has failed to meet the level of service set out in its published standards. The landlord’s recommended payment guide categorises its payment tariffs as: up to £50, £51-£150 and £151 to £400. Redress considered at the £51 to £150 level is defined as “High Effort/Low Impact or Low Effort/High Impact”. The policy recommends offering compensation for delays in providing a complaint response at this level.

Scope of investigation

12. The resident has described the adverse effect on his health caused by the suggestion that he was going to be evicted. The Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s comments.  However, it is beyond the remit of this Service to make a determination on whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and the resident’s health. Nevertheless, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced as a result of any errors by the landlord.
13. The resident has accused the landlord’s staff of gender discrimination in its correspondence and in its decision-making process. It is outside the Ombudsman’s remit to establish whether the landlord’s staff members were discriminatory in their correspondence with the resident because matters of discrimination are legal issues which are better suited to court to decide. However, the Ombudsman has assessed whether the landlord’s correspondence with the resident was appropriate, fair and reasonable including assessing its response to his concerns about the conduct of its staff.

The landlord’s decision to issue a letter and email relating to its intention to begin possession proceedings and its handling of the resident’s concerns about its decision

14. Between September and November 2021, the resident and landlord corresponded about numerous issues. The landlord sent an email on 22 November 2021 summarising its position on these issues and informed the resident that it was not currently seeking to evict him. The resident replied on 26 November 2021 and disputed this. He noted that the December 2020 letter “backed up with emails” stated the landlord’s intention to evict him. In his complaint raised on 14 January 2022, the resident said that a covering email sent with a copy of the letter on 5 January 2021 confirmed this and he described the December 2020 letter as an eviction notice. The December 2020 letter was sent by the landlord’s legal team. However, it was titled “Your Behaviour” and did not constitute an eviction notice.
15. The letter sent to the resident listed some of the language and comments made by the resident to landlord staff members in his recent communication. The letter then warned the resident that if this behaviour continued that it would consider taking further action and that “any further legal action that we may have to take will be to seek possession of [the property]”. The letter did not state that the resident was to be evicted.
16. The landlord’s decision to send the letter was made in line with the clause in the tenancy agreement described above which sets out the circumstances where the landlord can consider seeking possession of the property, which includes a tenant’s behaviour towards the landlord and its staff. Therefore, it was reasonable for the landlord to send the letter to the resident and to inform him of the possible consequences if the behaviour continued.
17. The landlord has been unable to locate the email sent to the resident on 5 January 2021. The landlord’s records state that it received an email from the resident on 5 January 2021 requesting to raise a complaint relating to issues with his rent account (which was considered in a previous Housing Ombudsman case) and a formal complaint was opened by the landlord on 6 January 2021. There is no record of an email being sent to the resident on 5 January 2021, nor in the days before or after this date, concerning the December 2020 letter.
18. As detailed above, the landlord’s complaints policy states that it does not normally consider complaints into matters which occurred more than six months from when the complaint was raised. At the time the resident requested a complaint to be raised into the email and letter, it was more than 12 months from when the email and letter were originally sent. It was reasonable for the landlord to comment on the December 2020 letter as it had a copy in its records and had also recently sent a copy of the letter to the resident. However, it was unable to locate a copy of the 5 January 2021 email and therefore unable to comment on its contents.
19. It should be noted that the landlord has not disputed the resident’s description of the contents of the email, but has explained that without having seen the email it was unable to comment further. The Ombudsman encourages residents to raise complaints with their landlords in a timely manner, so that the landlord has a reasonable opportunity to consider the issues whilst they are still ‘live’, and whilst the evidence is available to reach an informed conclusion on the events which occurred. As the substantive issues become historical it is increasingly difficult for either the landlord, or an independent body such as the Ombudsman, to conduct an effective review of the actions taken to address those issues. In light of this lack of information and the timescales involved, the landlord’s response to this element of the complaint was reasonable in the circumstances.
20. Following the conclusion of the complaint process, the landlord was informed by the resident that he had a copy of the 5 January 2021 email. The landlord asked the resident to send it a copy and advised him that it would send a follow-up complaint response based on the information in the email. This was appropriate action for the landlord to take. As with the December 2020 letter, the landlord could use its discretion to consider a complaint element outside of the six-month window if it possessed all the required information. As this email was not provided by the resident, it was reasonable for the landlord not to send a follow-up complaint response. While the resident is under no obligation to provide a copy of the email to the landlord, as the landlord had already provided a final response to the complaint, it would not be expected to provide a follow-up response without the requested additional information.

The amount of compensation offered by the landlord for delays in its complaint handling and providing a copy of the letter.

21. In its complaint responses, the landlord recognised that there had been service failure because of its delays in providing the stage one complaint response and a copy of the December 2020 letter. The landlord apologised, explained how the delays were caused and offered compensation. Where there are admitted failings by a landlord, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
22. The landlord acted fairly in acknowledging its mistakes and explaining what went wrong (the stage one response was provided nine-working days outside of its published timescales detailed above due to a staff member absence, and the delay in providing the December 2020 letter was as a result of it not being scanned into its records at the time it was sent). It put things right by apologising to the resident and awarding £75 compensation. It looked to learn from its mistakes by reminding its staff members to ensure all letters are scanned into its electronic records, and in ensuring that the stage two complaint response was provided within its published timescale of 20 working days.
23. The £75 compensation award was calculated by the landlord at its £51-£150 tariff in line with the guidance its compensation policy gives for this level of service failure, as detailed above. This award is also broadly in line the Ombudsman’s own remedies guidance (which is available on our website). This recommends a payment of £50 to £250 in instances of service failure resulting in some impact on a complainant. As examples for when this level of redress should be considered, the guidance suggests “failure to meet service standards for actions and responses but where the failure had no significant impact”. Therefore, a payment of £75 for the delays in providing the stage one complaint response and December 2020 letter to the resident was reasonable in the circumstances.

Determination

24. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its decision to issue a letter and email relating to its intention to begin possession proceedings and its handling of the resident’s concerns about its decision. 
25. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress to the resident in respect of its delays in its complaint handling and providing a copy of the 17 December 2020 letter which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, satisfactorily resolves the complaint.

Recommendations

26. As the determination of reasonable redress was made based on the landlord’s compensation offer of £75, it is recommended that the landlord now pay this amount to the resident if it has not done so already.