GreenSquareAccord Limited (202208247)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202208247

GreenSquareAccord Limited

13 January 2023


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 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 requests for flooring disability adaptations to her property and to be reimbursed for the cost of these to her.

Background

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord of a bungalow. She has mental and physical health and mobility conditions, for which she is a wheelchair user and that the landlord has been made aware of by her advocacy service. As the resident raised her requests and complaint through an advocacy service, for the purposes of this report both she and the advocacy service will be collectively referred to as ‘the resident’.
  2. The resident previously applied through her occupational therapist (OT) for disability adaptations to the property that her tenancy of started on 23 June 2020, for which the landlord confirmed that it had no objections on 29 June 2020 and she signed an agreement for it to progress as her agent on 2 July 2020, moving in on the following day. These works were to be covered under a disabled facilities grant (DFG), which she applied to her local authority for on 13 January 2021. The disability adaptations that the resident applied to the landlord and the local authority for included ramps, widening, a level access shower, kitchen, heater and accessibility works, but not works to level the subflooring or make any adaptations to this.
  3. The resident reported to the landlord on 1 and 5 July 2021 that her property’s flooring was uneven and impractical for her disability and wheelchair use. She therefore requested that the subflooring be levelled, and that wheelchair–tolerant flooring be installed as an adaptation due to her mobility condition. The landlord then agreed to conduct an inspection, and to discuss the matter with the resident via a surveyor on 20 July 2021.
  4. The resident nevertheless informed the landlord on 14 July 2021 that she had borrowed money to arrange for the flooring works to begin privately on 19 July 2021. She explained that this was because living with uneven subflooring had affected her mental and physical health to the extent that she could not wait for this any longer, having understood when she had moved to the property on 3 July 2020 that all necessary adaptations would be made to this for her.
  5. The resident therefore cancelled the appointment on 20 July 2021 with the landlord’s surveyor, and she requested a reimbursement of her costs involved in the flooring adaptations from it. This was because she believed it to be liable for this, and she also included video and photographic evidence of the condition of the flooring and of her injuries from falling on this several times with her correspondence to it.
  6. The landlord subsequently responded to an enquiry from the resident’s local councillor on 11 August 2021 by stating that a number of adaptations were approved to the property following her OT’s report. However, it explained that levelling the subflooring and installing wheelchair–tolerant flooring was not requested from it until 1 July 2021. The landlord also confirmed that the flooring was not identified by the OT as part of the works that the DFG had been applied for, and so would not be carried out under this. It additionally confirmed that the work would not be considered under its normal repairs service, so that it was unable to carry out or contribute towards this.
  7. Following further correspondence regarding the condition of the flooring and other adaptations at the property including to her front door and walkway, the resident then made a stage one complaint to the landlord on 7 April 2022. She believed that it was liable for the flooring adaptations due to her flooring contractor’s report on the state of this, which she provided to it for it to respond to. The landlord’s stage one complaint response of 28 April 2022 reviewed the evidence submitted about the condition of the floor. However, it stated that its surveyor and further opinions had found that the resident’s subflooring was in an acceptable condition at the time that the property was let to her, and in her subsequent photographs and videos of this.
  8. The landlord therefore again declined to reimburse the resident, as it explained that this was also not identified as needed work as part of the DFG, and it had arranged to inspect this within its repair timescales following her report to it about the flooring on 1 July 2021, for which it declined to uphold her complaint. She subsequently escalated the complaint to the final stage of its complaints procedure on 29 April 2022, querying why it had no record of previous reports from her about her flooring, or any mention of this in a survey report completed ahead of the other adaptation works scheduled at the property.
  9. The landlord nevertheless still did not uphold the resident’s complaint, maintaining its earlier position in its final stage complaint response issued on 10 May 2022. It explained that its staff had reviewed her videos of the condition of the flooring, and it was satisfied that they had handled her complaint appropriately, stating that this meant that there was no further action for it to take in relation to this.
  10. The resident then complained to this Service with a referral from her local councillor, acting in the capacity of her designated person. They stated that the landlord had not provided her with appropriate or timely action, or compensation for its failure to do so, which had severely impacted her enjoyment of her home.
  11. The resident also outlined that, with her disabilities and wheelchair use, she had experienced a fall from the uneven surface within the first two days of living in her property that had resulted in a hospital stay, as the dents and uneven condition of the flooring there had made it difficult to use her wheelchair. She explained that the flooring and other adaptations were therefore reported to the landlord in June 2020, and followed up in the following months, but that it had said that it was unaware of this and denied responsibility for the flooring. This was despite the resident’s videos of this, and the report from her flooring contractor that she had to pay to screed the floor herself.
  12. The resident therefore requested that the landlord reimburse her for the cost of the flooring adaptations that included £665.63 for latex floor screed, acknowledge that its surveyor did not complete a comprehensive survey of her property, and that she had made earlier calls to it mentioning the condition of the floor. She also sought compensation for the distress and detrimental effect that this had on her mental wellbeing, and the completion of the adaptations that she had previously requested from it to her front door and walkway.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. It is of concern that the resident has directly attributed living with the uneven flooring as affecting her mental and physical health and wellbeing, and that she has reported that there were still outstanding adaptations to her front door and walkway at the time of this complaint. While we do not doubt her comments about these issues, this Service is unable to determine liability or award damages for impacts on health and wellbeing because we do not have the authority or expertise to do so. We are also not permitted to consider complaints about matters that are made prior to these having exhausted the landlord’s complaints procedure, such as the resident’s front door and walkway.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests for flooring disability adaptations to her property and to be reimbursed for the cost of these to her

  1. In accordance with its provision of aids and adaptations policy and procedure, the landlord is required to respond to requests for major structural adaptations costing over £500 within 10 working days, and to complete such adaptations within 12 months. It is obliged to assess requests for these by visiting and discussing them with the resident, helping her to approach the necessary agencies to support such requests, and liaising with her permission with OTs and other relevant agencies to determine these. Where works are carried out by a third party, these installations will be treated as if carried out by the resident, and the landlord’s permission for alterations will be required. It is also obliged to maximise adaptation budgets from other funding such as DFGs.
  2. The landlord responded to the resident’s concerns over the property’s uneven flooring from 1 July 2021 by arranging an inspection and a discussion with its surveyor about this on 20 July 2021, which was three working days later than its provision of aids and adaptations policy and procedure’s 10-working-day response timescale. It was reasonable that it agreed to do so given her concerns over the effect on her wheelchair use and mobility condition of the state of the flooring, and the need for it to assess this under the policy and procedure.
  3. However, it is very concerning that the resident states that she had been reporting this to the landlord since June 2020, when she had understood that all necessary adaptations to the flooring would be made by it for her, but that it had no record of any flooring concerns until 1 July 2021. This is particularly given the repeated injuries and the effect on her from this that she described experiencing since she moved in to her property from 3 July 2020 onwards.
  4. Nevertheless, there was no reference to the need for flooring adaptations at the property for the resident in either the agreement that she signed for the landlord to progress disability adaptations there as her agent on 2 July 2020, or in her subsequent DFG application to the local authority on 13 January 2021. It would therefore have been unreasonable to have expected the landlord to have responded to her concerns over the quality of the underflooring before 1 July 2021, in the absence of any evidence that it was made aware of prior to this date. Although it is noted that neither party provided this Service with a copy of the resident’s original OT’s report for the property, which we requested from them both.
  5. Moreover, the landlord was prevented at the time from conducting a thorough investigation of the condition of the resident’s flooring, to assess her request for this to be adapted for her, by the cancellation of the appointment for its surveyor to inspect and discuss this with her on 20 July 2021. This meant that it was appropriate that it did not immediately approve this, but instead queried if the works were covered under the existing adaptations scheduled to the property, which they were not, and so it was reasonable that the flooring was not adapted as part of these works. This is because this was neither agreed as part of these adaptations nor funded with them by the DFG.
  6. However, it is of concern that the landlord continued to fail to comply with its provision of aids and adaptations policy and procedure’s requirements after its late response to the resident’s request for flooring adaptations from 1 July 2021 onwards. After she had notified it on 14 July 2021 that she had borrowed money to arrange for the flooring works to begin privately on 19 July 2021, it was obliged by the policy and procedure to require her to obtain its permission for these alterations, but there is no evidence that it did so. This meant that the resident may have proceeded with works at her own expense without first being informed of the need for the landlord’s or another necessary agency’s assessment of their suitability for her or the property, which was inappropriate.
  7. There is additionally no evidence that the landlord responded to the resident’s request for flooring adaptations by helping her to approach the necessary agencies to support her request by liaising with her permission with OTs and other relevant agencies, which it was also obliged to do by its provision of aids and adaptations policy and procedure. Moreover, it is concerning that there is no evidence that it followed the policy and procedure’s requirement for it to maximise the budget for this adaptation from other funding such as DFGs. This is particularly given that the resident had told the landlord that she had borrowed money to pay for this, and the fact that it had been made aware that she was vulnerable.
  8. The landlord should have instead followed its provision of aids and adaptations policy and procedure by responding to the resident’s request for flooring adaptations with at least advice and assistance to her to seek another OT’s assessment to support the request, and another DFG application to fund this. It also ought to have obliged her to seek its permission for alterations if she continued to propose to arrange and pay for these works herself, but there is no indication that it took any of these actions, which was inappropriate and contrary to the policy and procedure.
  9. Instead, the landlord’s response to the resident’s local councillor’s enquiry on 11 August 2021 declined her any assistance with her request for flooring adaptations. Its response was permitted to decline her request of 14 July 2021 to reimburse her for the flooring works that it had not assessed, obtained funding for itself, or given her permission to arrange herself, which was understandable. However, the landlord’s refusal in the response to offer the resident any assistance with doing so was based on her previous OT’s referral for the adaptations agreed over a year earlier on 29 June 2020, which was unreasonable as this was not an up-to-date assessment of either her needs or of the condition of the flooring.
  10. It is additionally concerning that, while the landlord subsequently confirmed on 28 April and 10 May 2022 that its surveyor, staff and other opinions had reviewed the resident’s videos and photographs of the condition of her flooring, their findings that these meant that the floor was in an acceptable condition were not based on any physical inspections or surveys. Although it would have been reasonable for it to have relied on the expertise of its appropriately qualified staff and contractors, and on those of other agencies such as an OT, their assessments of the suitability of the flooring for her needs ought to have been based upon up-to-date information that they had obtained in person, which they did not have in this case.
  11. This was unreasonable, and so was the landlord’s failure to address the findings to the contrary of the resident’s flooring contractor, which she provided to it on 7 April 2022 in support of her complaint that it should have adapted the flooring due to the poor state of this, as outlined by the contractor, and the resulting effect on her conditions. As a consequence, it ought to have apologised to her and considered exercising the discretion available to it under its compensation policy and discretionary compensation procedure to recognise the distress, inconvenience and financial impact that she experienced as a result of its failings in her case.
  12. The landlord should have done so with a proportionate level of compensation, but it did not award the resident any compensation, and there is no evidence that it considered doing so. It also failed to show that it had followed the compensation policy and discretionary compensation procedure’s requirement for it to refer her to its insurers for the personal injuries that she reported to it from 14 July 2021, which was inappropriate.
  13. The landlord has therefore been ordered below to contact the resident to apologise to her and pay her £700 compensation in recognition of her distress, inconvenience and the financial impact on her from its failure to respond to her flooring adaptations request in accordance with its provision of aids and adaptations policy and procedure. This is in line with this Service’s remedies guidance’s recommendation of awards in this range for failures that had a significant impact on her and the redress needed to put things right is substantial.
  14. This amount also reflects, in accordance with this Service’s remedies guidance, the lack of evidence that the landlord was informed of the resident’s flooring adaptations request prior to 1 July 2021. The fact that she cancelled its appointment to inspect and discuss this with her on 20 July 2021, and instead arranged the adaptations herself at her own expense from 19 July 2021, has additionally been considered in calculating the above compensation.
  15. Moreover, the landlord has been ordered below to provide the resident with details to enable her to submit a liability insurance claim for it to refer to its insurers for the personal injuries that she reported to it. It has additionally been ordered below to review its staff’s training needs in relation to their application of its provision of aids and adaptations policy and procedure, compensation policy and discretionary compensation procedure, and this Service’s remedies guidance, to ensure that its failings in her case do not occur again in the future.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s requests for flooring disability adaptations to her property and to be reimbursed for the cost of these to her.

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to:
    1. Contact the resident within four weeks to apologise to her and pay her £700 compensation in recognition of her distress, inconvenience and the financial impact on her from its failure to respond to her flooring adaptations request in accordance with its provision of aids and adaptations policy and procedure.
    2. Provide the resident with details within four weeks to enable her to submit a liability insurance claim for it to refer to its insurers for the personal injuries that she reported to it.
    3. Review its staff’s training needs in relation to their application of its provision of aids and adaptations policy and procedure, compensation policy and discretionary compensation procedure, and this Service’s remedies guidance at https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/about-us/corporate-information/policies/dispute-resolution/policy-on-remedies/, to ensure that its failings in the resident’s case do not occur again in the future.
  2. The landlord shall contact this Service within four weeks to confirm that it has complied with the above orders.