Thirteen Housing Group Limited (202105749)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202105749

Thirteen Housing Group Limited

14 July 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 resident complains about:
   1. Not being offered carpets/flooring when they moved into the property. 
   2. The landlord’s handling of repairs to the bath.
   3. Differences in the rent amount.
   4. The landlord declining to pay the £7 ‘Homeswapper’ fee.
   5. A lack of soundproofing,
   6. The landlord not offering the neighbouring property to their relative.
   7. The level of rent in comparison to other properties nearby.

Jurisdiction

2. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
3. After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 39 (a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the following aspects of the complaint are outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
   1. The landlord declining to pay the £7 ‘Homeswapper’ fee.
   2. Poor soundproofing.
   3. The landlord not offering the neighbouring property to their relative
4. This is because paragraph 39 (a) of the Scheme sets out that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, are made prior to having exhausted a landlord’s complaints procedure, unless there is evidence of a complaint handling failure and the Ombudsman is satisfied that the landlord has not taken action within a reasonable timescale.
5. The £7 fee and the neighbouring property are not referred to in the formal complaint. While the resident did mention soundproofing in the body of their stage one complaint letter, this was among numerous other issues and concerns. The landlord, not unreasonably, focused on the bullet pointed complaints at the head of the letter. The resident did not then refer to these matters in their stage two escalation request, and so these complaints have not exhausted the landlord’s complaint procedure.
6. In addition, paragraph 39 (g) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, states that the Ombudsman will not consider complaints that concern the level of rent or service charge or the amount of the rent or service charge increase. This is a matter for the First Tier Property Tribunal to consider. Therefore, the complaint about the level of rent in comparison to other properties nearby is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Background

7. The property is a two-bed ground floor flat. The tenancy began on 2 October 2020 with a weekly rent of £120.
8. The tenancy agreement sets out that it is the resident’s responsibility to decorate all internal parts of the property.

Summary of events

9. On 10 May 2021 the resident logged a formal complaint to the landlord, in which they referred to a large number of different issues they were unhappy about. In particular, they set out the following complaints as bullet points:
   1. They had to pay for carpets and flooring that they could not afford because the landlord failed to assess for this, and the landlord had refused to explain who was eligible for free flooring.
   2. The bath had been broken for three months with no other way of washing.
   3. The rent amount had changed on sign up day from £480 to £520, and while the reasons for this were later explained the resident remained unhappy.
10. The resident went on to go into more detail on these issues in the body of their letter. The resident stated, ‘Ever since I moved in one of your properties in October 2020 I have had nothing but rubbish…I am not happy and I want to move out! Someone else can rent this rubbish for nearly £500. I want to leave this property and leave my carpets and kitchen/bathroom flooring as it is brand new and I have nowhere to take it to and I want to be reimbursed for this….I also want compensation for how I have been treat and mis informed and put into debt by having to purchase my own flooring after not being assessed by you correctly and for the general experience I have had from living in 1 of your properties.’
11. On 17 May 2021 the landlord provided its stage one response to the complaint, addressing each of the bullet pointed issues from the resident’s letter in turn, including:
    1. Carpets/flooring: The landlord noted that the resident had explained that during contact with the landlord regarding an appointment for a joiner to attend to shave the doors, they were told that the landlord paid for carpets to be fitted in properties if customers were on a low income, depending on circumstances, and that the Neighbourhood Coordinator (NC) would be able to provide more detail. The NC had then emailed the resident on 27 October 2020 to advise that carpets within the property were looked at on an individual basis and offered as an incentive. They were not provided as standard in properties.

The landlord said that this option was not discussed with the resident at sign up ‘due to one of the rooms already having carpet in for you.’ The landlord apologised for the incorrect information that had been given about the matter, and said that this would be followed up with that team.

2. Bath repair: The landlord stated that the repairs history showed that a bath panel repair was reported on 5 October 2020 and repaired on 4 November 2020. The landlord had at the same time agreed to pay for an electric shower to be installed as a goodwill gesture.
3. Rent: The landlord explained that the advertised rent was £120 per week, and at sign up the resident was asked if they would like to pay on a 4 weekly or a monthly basis. It was explained that monthly was calculated at £120 x 52 and divided by 12, whereas four weekly was £480 every four weeks. The resident requested to pay £480 every four weeks and the direct debit had always run on that frequency.

12. On 23 May 2021 the resident responded stating that they were unhappy as, ‘All you have done is provide answers/statements to each point which for most of them I have already been told. It looks like as a company you are not willing to do anything to rectify the issues and are only providing me with comments which I have already had. I would expect a company to put things right and to give a better outcome than just giving me statements.’
13.  In particular the resident was unhappy with the answer regarding carpets, stating that they had asked who would be eligible for these but had no response, and still had not been informed who would be eligible and why they were not offered this help. They also said that it was untrue that there was carpet in the flat already, explaining that there was only half of an old dirty carpet in the sitting room which they had to take up. They said that new flooring for the property had cost them over £700 and asked, ‘If they are looked at on an individual basis and offered as an incentive why was mine not? Was I even assessed for this or was that just forgotten about?’
14. On 28 May 2021 the landlord sent its review stage response:
    1. Carpets/flooring: The landlord confirmed that each property was viewed and assessed on its own merit. Incentives were not offered as standard, nor were they offered to every customer on a low income. It said, ‘There is no standard in place which states customers should receive incentives such as carpets and they are not given out on the basis of any set criteria. There is no assessment completed to determine if an incentive is offered. I can therefore confirm that an assessment was not carried out on your circumstances when the property was offered.’ It noted that in their email dated 27 October 2020 the NC had confirmed this. The landlord said, ‘I am sorry for the incorrect information you were given regarding the offering of carpets.’
    2. Bath panel repair: The resident had first reported this on 5 October 2020. Initially the developer had been contacted to see if this was something it would pick up as it was within the retention period. As it was not, a repair was carried out on 4 November 2020, and as a goodwill gesture the landlord also arranged for an electric shower to be fitted. The landlord said, ‘I acknowledge this may have took slightly longer to complete, however we were still under government restrictions as a result of Covid, and repairs were taking slightly longer.’
    3. Rent: As had been explained previously, the different payment options available had been set out at sign up, and the resident was told that they could either pay £480 on a four weekly payment cycle, or £520 monthly.

Assessment and findings

15. In their complaint to this Service, the resident has said that they are dissatisfied with the landlord’s final response to the formal complaint as it had not apologised or rectified the situation. They explained that the main issue was the carpeting complaint. The resident states that while one of the reasons the landlord gave as to why carpets were not provided was that the property was already partially carpeted, ‘…I had half a carpet in the sitting room which was just a piece of old carpet and no underlay and a small patch of carpet in the spare room that didn’t fit it. So obviously I had to get the whole place done as this was no good.’ They say that they did ask the landlord about providing flooring before signing for the property but was ‘just told no’. The resident says that they accrued over £700 worth of debt to fit carpets to later find out that the landlord provided these for free for some people. 
16. They say, ‘The issue with the bath is I had a broken bath from the day I viewed this flat and I assumed it would be fixed quickly, it took Thirteen ages and at the time I had no shower…’
17. The resident feels that they have been discriminated against and deliberately treated poorly, stating that the landlord’s complaint responses, ‘…were statements and replies, nobody every once gave an apology or even any sort of goodwill gesture or agree with the way I was treat was poor.’

Not being offered carpets/flooring when they moved into the property

18. Soon after moving into the property the resident bought and fitted carpets and flooring at their own cost. On 23 October 2020 the resident called and emailed the landlord to report that while the NC had informed them that the landlord would not install carpets, they had now been told that in fact the landlord could carpet properties for those on low incomes. The note of the call states, ‘I have explained to the tenant that this all depends on circumstances and the best person to speak to [is the NC].’
19. The NC then emailed the resident stating, ‘Carpets within the property are looked at on an individual basis and are offered as an incentive so are not provided as standard in our properties. As an organisation we would not reimburse the cost of the carpets that you have had fitted. I apologise that the incorrect information has been given to you on the telephone call.’ The NC said that usually internal doors were the responsibility of the tenant but would arrange for the landlord to trim them down itself.
20. The NC acted reasonably here in responding to the resident’s concerns and apologising that they had been wrongly advised.
21. When the resident complained about the matter, the NC was spoken to as part of the investigation. They reported that they did not recall anything being discussed by either party relating to incentives such as carpets. There was an open plan kitchen/living room, with the living room end carpeted. The NC confirmed that incentives would not be offered on this property.
22. The landlord acted reasonably here in contacting the NC, demonstrating that it took action to investigate the issues that the resident had raised. The NC’s response to this reflected the information that they had previously provided to the resident, and so was consistent.
23. The landlord then went on to reiterate this in the stage one response, although appears to have slightly misrepresented the NC’s comments in saying the reason for carpets not being offered was due to there being carpets already: The NC did not state this, rather they noted that there was carpet in the living area.
24. However, the stage two response clearly set out that incentives such as carpets were not offered as standard, and nor were they offered to all residents on a low income. It apologised for the incorrect information that the resident had been given.
25. This was a reasonable response. It is the case that occasionally landlords might offer incentives such as the provision of white goods and carpeting, where, for example, they wish to encourage under-occupying tenants to consider moving to smaller properties. This does not place an obligation on a landlord to offer the same to all new tenants.
26. It is understandable that the resident felt aggrieved when they were told that the landlord provided floor coverings for free for low income tenants, but the landlord has consistently explained that this is not the case and apologised for the incorrect information. Ultimately, the landlord was not under any obligation to provide the resident with flooring coverings, which, as per the terms of their lease (being internal decorations) were the resident’s responsibility. From the resident’s own account, they accepted the property in the knowledge that carpets would not be provided.

Repairs to the bath.

27. The landlord’s repairs policy does not specify a timescale in which it would attend to non-emergency repairs, rather, it stated that it would ‘Attend all non-emergency repairs by appointment, at a time agreed with the customer.’ It did so in this case, with the repair being made a month after the resident moved in. While it might be expected that a landlord carry out a repair sooner than this if it meant that washing facilities were unavailable, in this case the repair was to the bath panel which had come away partially at one end. Bath panels are typically part of the finish of a bath, rather than connected to functionality, and so would not affect its use.
28. The landlord acknowledged in its response to the stage two complaint that the repair had taken slightly longer to complete than usual, but explained that Covid-19 restrictions had contributed to this. As a goodwill gesture, it had installed an electric shower, which shows that it took action to ‘put things right’ for the resident. There was no maladministration on the part of the landlord here.
29. Overall, while perhaps there was scope for this repair to have been made quicker, the timeframe of a month for a routine repair is reasonable, and does not warrant a finding of maladministration. Further, the landlord took action to ‘put things right’ for the resident by installing an electric shower at its own cost, which was over and above its obligations.

Differences in rent amount

30. The rent for the property is £120 per week, was set out in the advertisement for the property, and in the tenancy agreement. If this is paid on a four-weekly basis, this would be £480 per payment, if paid on a monthly basis, this would be £520 per payment. The resident was aware of the £120 per weeks rent, and there is no indication that the landlord had incorrectly advised the resident of the rent amount at any point. It has clearly explained the reasons for the two different payment options/amounts in its response to the complaint. There was no maladministration on the part of the landlord here.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with section 54 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration on the part of the landlord with regards to the following complaints::

1. Not being offered carpets/flooring when they moved into the property. 
2. The landlord’s handling of repairs to the bath.
3. Differences in the rent amount.

Reasons

31. The landlord apologised for and corrected the incorrect information that resident was given about carpets being provided for free to those on low incomes, explaining that this was not the case.
32. The repair to the bath panel took a month, which is not an unreasonable timeframe for a non-urgent repair. There is no indication that the repair rendered the bath unusable. The resident was correctly informed of the rent amount, and this did not change.