Sanctuary Housing Association (202205924)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202205924

Sanctuary Housing Association

15 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 handling of the repair and replacement of the resident’s front door.

Background

2. The resident is a tenant of the landlord.
3. The repair records provided by the landlord are incomplete. Therefore, some of the dates and information referred to in this report have been taken from the landlord’s complaint responses and internal correspondence.
4. The landlord has explained that a surveyor attended the resident’s property on 13 February 2020 to attend to a loose panel above her front door. The surveyor reported that the front door needed to be replaced, but the landlord did not take any further action (the records do not show why the door should be replaced). According to the landlord there were no further issues followed up or raised by the resident until she reported an issue on 29 April 2021, regarding the door not closing into the frame properly. Another surveyor attended on 2 February 2022 and noted that there were multiple repair issues outstanding with the door, and that it was understandable that a replacement had been requested.
5. The resident complained via telephone on 16 February 2022 about the length of time she had been waiting for a new door. She said that she had to use the letterbox to pull the door closed, and complained about the overall inconvenience the faulty door was causing.
6. The landlord upheld the resident’s complaint. It explained that there had been a breakdown in communication between its repairs team and contractors and apologised for the delays in getting the door replaced. The landlord offered £100 compensation in its stage one response. However, this was done via telephone call, and no record or documented evidence was provided for this response. The resident was not satisfied with the amount of compensation, and asked to escalate her complaint. In its stage two response the landlord apologised for the delays and poor service and communication, explained how it planned to improve its services, and increased its compensation offer to £350 for the time, trouble and inconvenience caused to the resident. The door was replaced on 8 June 2022.
7. The resident remained dissatisfied with the overall time taken to replace her door and brought her complaint to the Ombudsman. She wanted the compensation amount increased due to the stress and inconvenience of the delay, and to cover additional heating costs.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

8. Paragraph 42(c) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which “were not brought to the attention of the landlord as a formal complaint within a reasonable period which would normally be within 6 months of the matters arising”. The resident complained to the landlord in February 2022 that the door repairs had taken two years. While there is no evidence of the landlord taking any action following the February 2020 inspection, there is also no evidence that a formal complaint was raised with the landlord in respect of that until two years later. Because of that, in line with paragraph 42(c) this investigation centres on matters from when the resident reported door problems in 2021.

Handling of the repair and replacement of the resident’s front door

9. The landlord acknowledged that, following the resident’s reports of problems in April 2021, there were significant delays replacing the door. It explained that the delay was largely due to communication problems between its teams and its contractors. Regardless of the cause, the time the repairs had been outstanding was understandably inconvenient and time-consuming for the resident, and the overall time taken to resolve matters was not reasonable, by any standard.
10. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint was initially also poor, insofar as the complaint response was done by telephone. The landlord subsequently fully recognised this poor complaint handling. It apologised, and explained that the action had been counter to its complaints process.
11. In its final complaint response, the landlord acknowledged and apologised for the significant repair delays, and its poor communication. It explained what it had done and would do to improve its services going forward, and increased its earlier compensation offer to £350. The evidence shows the door was indeed in a poor condition, including that, of its several locks, one was inoperable and another was difficult to operate, and the door handle was broken, necessitating the resident needing to close the door by pulling on the letterbox flap when leaving. So, there seems to be no dispute that the long delays to complete the repairs were frustrating and inconvenient for the resident and her family. Nonetheless, there is no evidence of a long term or permanent impact from the long delay, and the level of compensation offered by the landlord was broadly in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance for complaints in similar circumstances. Accordingly, the remedies offered by the landlord i.e. apologies, compensation, and improvements, were reasonable and in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
12. In her complaint to the Ombudsman the resident explained in detail how the door repairs issue had impacted on her day to day life, especially around poor communication with the landlord and its contractors, and extra heating costs. It is not apparent from the evidence that the resident provided this level of detail to the landlord at the time of her complaint. Nonetheless, the landlord addressed its overall poor service, including poor communication, in its complaint response, and, as set out above, the remedies it offered in that regard were reasonable. There is no indication that the resident raised issues of extra heating usage with the landlord, and so it did not have an opportunity to consider or respond to that point. In the circumstances of this complaint the matter is not an unreasonable one to raise, and a recommendation is made below in regard to it.

Determination

13. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of redress in respect of the complaint prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint satisfactorily.

Recommendations

14. The findings in this investigation are based on the landlord paying to the resident the compensation it previously offered. It should now complete that payment, if it has not already.
15. In light of the resident’s concerns about increased heating usage resulting from the defective door, the landlord should consider any reasonable evidence (such as records from the energy provider) the resident can provide showing increased heating consumption for the period in question, with a view to offering a reasonable level of reimbursement if the resident’s concerns are borne out by the evidence.