YMCA St Paul’s Group (202125060)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202125060

YMCA St Paul’s Group

1 November 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:
   1. disposal of the resident’s possessions and the subsequent level of compensation offered;
   2. complaints handling.

Background

2. The resident has a license to occupy with the landlord. The landlord is a registered provider of social housing.
3. The resident had permission from the landlord to keep some of his possessions in storage. The landlord subsequently removed and disposed of these possessions without first seeking the resident’s consent. The resident raised a formal complaint and requested compensation for the value of his possessions, which he calculated to be £11,520.
4. In its formal response, the landlord acknowledged the resident had been permitted to keep some possessions in a storage room. It advised it had since repurposed this room as a maintenance store room, and that its maintenance staff had cleared the room and disposed of the resident’s possessions. Regarding his claim for compensation, the landlord noted it did not have evidence for the value of the possessions, and so was unable to agree to his requested amount. Instead, it offered compensation of £1,500.
5. In the resident’s complaint to this service, he advised he remained dissatisfied as he had received verbal permission to use the room for storage, and had not been advised this was a temporary measure. He was also not advised that he was required to keep an inventory for the items in storage, but noted all his possessions had his name on. He wanted the landlord to offer further compensation or replace the items. He also wanted the landlord to apologise and implement a policy to prevent the issue from recurring in the future. He added that the landlord had been slow to handle his complaint.

Assessment and findings

Disposal of the resident’s possessions

6. As noted in the landlord’s formal response, it is not disputed that there was a verbal agreement for the resident to store his possessions in a storage room. It is also not disputed that the landlord disposed of his possessions without consulting him.
7. 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 considers 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.
8. The licence agreement states that the landlord “will insure the accommodation but not your possessions (which are your responsibility).” Although the landlord would not be responsible for insuring the resident’s items, it is required to investigate and assess its handling of the disposal of the resident’s items.
9. The agreement for the storage of the resident’s possessions was a verbal agreement. Additionally, the landlord does not have a written policy for storage agreement. As such, there is no evidence that the permission for the storage of the resident’s possessions could not subsequently be withdrawn. However, in doing so, the Ombudsman would expect a landlord to provide reasonable notice to a resident. Additionally, in an instance where a resident could not be contacted, it is best practice for a landlord to complete and retain an inventory of any items it removes or disposes of. The landlord failed to do either of these actions, and so in the Ombudsman’s opinion, its failure to do so was unreasonable in the circumstances, which resulted in considerable distress for the resident.
10. Following the resident’s reports that his possessions were gone, the landlord carried out a reasonable investigation of the complaint. It determined that the verbal agreement had been made with staff that no longer worked for the landlord, and that no record had been kept. It further determined that the maintenance worker who had disposed of the resident’s possessions had been a temporary agency worker, and could not be contacted. It would have been helpful had the landlord committed to make changes to how it records such permissions to assure the resident this would not occur again in the future. A recommendation to this effect has therefore been made below.
11. The resident requested £11,520 compensation and he stated that the value of the items removed was £18,148.75. While he provided a breakdown of the items and estimated costs, the resident was unable to provide documentary proof in the form of receipts or an inventory, as requested by the landlord. As such, the landlord was unable to verify the cost of the items. It would have been helpful for the landlord to have referred the resident’s claim to its liability insurance to assess the claim, or to have advised him to seek legal advice, or to have signposted him to pursue a claim through his own contents insurance, which it did not do.
12. It is clear that there has been a significant impact on the resident, both financially and emotionally. In line with this service’s remedy guidance, awards of over £1,000 are appropriate in cases where there has been a significant failure, which has had a significant detrimental impact on the resident. In this case, the amount of compensation offered was reasonable to reflect its failings in this case and the impact on the resident. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, this offer amounted to reasonable redress in the circumstances. The Ombudsman notes, however, that this compensation is meant to reflect the landlord’s service failure, and is not considered to reflect the value of his possessions. A recommendation has therefore been made below that the landlord signpost the resident to its liability insurer regarding a potential claim.
13. The resident has also requested for the landlord to issue an apology. In the circumstances, given the impact on the resident, this would be appropriate, and a further recommendation has been made below that a senior landlord contact the resident to offer an apology for its service failure in this case.

Complaints handling

14. The landlord’s complaint handling policy states that it will respond to a stage one complaint within 10 working days and a stage two complaint within 20 working days. The resident’s formal complaint correspondence was undated, however, the landlord advised that the resident raised an expression of dissatisfaction in November 2020, which was escalated to a formal complaint on 8 February 2021. The landlord’s stage one response was not explicitly labelled as such, however the landlord later clarified that the letter sent on 15 March 2021 was to be considered its stage one response. As a result, the landlord exceeded its stage one response timeframe by 15 working days. The delay was not excessive and did not have a detrimental impact on the outcome of the complaint. However, the landlord should assess its staff training requirements regarding its complaints policy to ensure that formal complaint responses are labelled as such, to avoid any future confusion or issues in its complaint handling process.
15. There is no evidence to suggest that the resident sent a stage two escalation directly to the landlord, but this service contacted the landlord on 23 March 2022 advising it of the resident’s outstanding concerns. The landlord issued its stage two response on 4 May 2022, and explained that it met with the resident on 22 April 2022 to discuss the outstanding issues. It was reasonable that the landlord exceeded its response timeframe in order to ensure that it had the opportunity to discuss the resident’s outstanding concerns.
16. Overall, although the amount of time to resolve the complaint exceeded the timeframes noted in its policy, it is evident the landlord took appropriate steps to discuss the issue with the resident and the length of time taken did not cause an impact on the outcome of the complaint.

Determination

17. In accordance with paragraph 53(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 regarding its disposal of the resident’s possessions and the subsequent level of compensation offered satisfactorily.
18. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its complaints handling.

Recommendations

19. Within four weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord to contact the resident and include the following:
    1. reiterate its offer of £1,500 compensation, if it has not done so already;
    2. a senior member of the landlord to offer an apology for the failings outlined in this report.
20. The landlord to review its staff training requirements regarding complaint handling to ensure that its complaints responses are appropriately labelled and include all relevant information.
21. The landlord to consider implementing a policy and record keeping procedure in relation to the storage of residents’ personal possessions.