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West Kent Housing Association (202116558)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202116558

West Kent Housing Association

29 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 complaint is about the landlord’s decision not to install soundproofing in the resident’s property.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The property is a semi- detached house that was built in 1933.
  2. From early 2019 the resident made numerous antisocial behaviour (ASB) reports that included noise nuisance, about her neighbour in the adjoining property. In May 2020 a new ASB case was opened after mediation arranged by the landlord failed to solve the problem. The landlord took various measures to try to resolve the issue, including issuing a notice of seeking possession to the neighbour in September 2020, along with a breach of notice of seeking possession in January 2021. It also liaised with the district council’s environmental health department, who provided sound recoding equipment and served a notice of noise abatement on the neighbour in September 2020.
  3. In February and March 2021, the resident, her neighbour and the EHO raised concerns about the sound insulation at the property. The resident also told the landlord she believed that soundproofing in the neighbours property had been removed or damaged following a leak in the loft before the neighbour moved in. On 27 April 2021 the landlord arranged for the resident’s property to undergo a sound insulation test.
  4. In June 2021 the landlord received the results of the soundproofing test and visited the resident with its contractor to inspect the property and the loft and to inform them that the first floor of the property had failed the sound insulation test. On 20 September 2021 the resident asked the landlord if it would be soundproofing the property. The landlord said it had sent the soundproofing report to the EHO and was awaiting a response. On 29 September 2021 the EHO emailed the landlord to recommended that “serious consideration” should be given to improving the sound insulation between the two properties, noting however, that “The District Council cannot ordinarily require an older building in normal use to comply with current building regulations – provided it was considered satisfactory at the time of construction and has not been significantly altered”
  5. On 12 October 2021 the landlord made the decision not to install soundproofing in the resident’s property and subsequently confirmed this to the resident. On 19 October 2021 the resident raised a formal complaint as she disagreed with that decision. In its stage one complaint response on 28 October 2021 the landlord explained that it would not be insulating the walls upstairs as this “does not meet our regulations for older stock.” It also said that it was willing to take legal action against the neighbour (for ASB) but that the resident had said that she did not want to do that. The resident escalated her complaint as she said that the EHO had told her the insulation would help with the noise nuisance and, as she was wary of taking legal action against her neighbour due to previous threats and damage to her property, she felt this was a better way to resolve the situation.
  6. In its stage two complaint response on 8 November 2021, the landlord acknowledged that the EHO supported the installation of soundproofing, but said it was not required to upgrade its properties to achieve the current building regulations and confirmed that it was not proposing to carry out any sound insulation works to its older housing stock as the regulations were not retrospective. It advised the resident it would support her if she chose to take legal action against the neighbour however it understood that she was fearful of reprisals. The resident contacted this Service as she was unhappy that the landlord was still refusing to install soundproofing at her property.  The landlord has confirmed to this Service that the resident agreed to close the ASB case on 6 December 2021 as there had been no further incidents reported since October 2021.

Assessment and findings

  1. As the resident, her neighbour and the EHO had all raised concerns about the sound insulation at the property, and as the adequacy of the sound insulation could be questioned in court if the landlord were to take legal action against the neighbour for noise nuisance, it was appropriate that the landlord arranged for the sound insulation at the property to be tested. As the resident said she believed that soundproofing in the neighbour’s property had been damaged or removed following a leak, the landlord acted appropriately by investigating this. When it could find no record of any previous soundproofing investigations at the property, and the only record it could find was of a leak affecting the seal of the thermal insulation, rather than sound insulation (which was rectified) it acted appropriately by awaiting the results of the sound insulation test and then arranging for its repairs contractor to inspect the property and the neighbour’s loft space, to see if any work was needed. There is no record of any issues being found with damaged or missing soundproofing, and in a later email in September 2021, the landlord mentioned that the contractor believed that the installation of soundproofing would have a” minimal impact”. With this in mind the landlord acted appropriately by sending the test result to the EHO and awaiting their views before making a decision about whether to install soundproofing.
  2. Once the EHO recommended that the landlord give “serious consideration” to improving the sound insulation, internal emails show that the landlord acted appropriately by discussing amongst its senior management whether to install soundproofing. The landlord’s emails show that that when making its decision, it took appropriate steps to factor in the needs of the resident, its legal obligations, and the wider potential cost implications of agreeing to install soundproofing in a property where it was not legally required to do so. As the landlord has to work within a budget, it was reasonable that it considered not only the potential cost of the soundproofing work to the resident’s property and whether this was cost effective, but also the potential cost if other residents in similar older properties requested soundproofing. Taking all these factors into account the landlord’s decision not to install soundproofing at the resident’s property was reasonable.
  3. It is important to note that soundproofing alone was not the cause of the noise issue. The range of formal legal interventions by the landlord and local council show there was ASB committed by the neighbour. Therefore the landlord’s decision to not install soundproofing must also be seen in the context where it has other options (namely legal action against the neighbour), and where the landlord would be incurring a cost to mitigate another party’s unreasonable and inappropriate behaviour.
  4. The landlord responded to the residents complaint promptly and in line with its complaints policy timeframes. During its complaint investigation the landlord’s investigating officers acted appropriately by contacting the ASB officer who was familiar with the case and also contacting the landlord’s management to clarify the reasons for the decision not to install soundproofing. Although it may have been helpful if, in its complaint responses, the landlord had explained all of the factors that it had taken into account when making its decision not to install soundproofing, its explanation that it was not required to upgrade its properties to achieve the current building regulations was correct, had been confirmed by the EHO and was therefore reasonable.  As the property was built in 1933 the landlord has no legal requirement to update or improve the soundproofing in the property to bring it into line with current regulations. Therefore, its decision not to install soundproofing was reasonable.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of its decision not to install soundproofing in the resident’s property.