Clarion Housing Association Limited (202123838)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202123838

Clarion Housing Association Limited

9 March 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 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 reference requests.
2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Background

3. The resident is an assured tenant.
4. Noting that the landlord was a member, the resident made several bids for properties via the Mayor’s Housing Moves Scheme (HMS) – “a housing mobility service for Londoners who live in social housing”. This gave the resident access to properties held by other housing providers, offering a route for cross-borough housing moves. Operating a Choice Based Letting Scheme (CBLS), the resident could bid on properties of interest and once the bidding process was closed and the prioritised list of bidders produced, the “referring” landlord were required to share information about the resident (a reference) with the “receiving” landlord.
5. The Ombudsman can see that on 9 August 2021, a receiving landlord made a reference request. While it advised the resident’s landlord that the reference needed to be provided by 15:00 on 10 August 2021, the landlord shared this on 13 August 2021.  Both the resident and the landlord were subsequently informed that the resident had been “bypassed” due to the delay in receiving the reference. This resulted in the resident submitting a complaint on 7 September 2021.
6. On 6 October 2021 the landlord issued its stage one response. It explained that it found no service failure as its service level agreement (SLA) set out that emails needed to be responded to within five working days and it did not believe that there was a SLA for the HMS. An offer of £25 compensation was offered, nonetheless, in recognition of the delay in responding to the complaint.
7. Dissatisfied with this, the resident requested that the landlord escalate her complaint on the same day. As such, on 1 December 2021 the landlord issued its stage two final response having undertaken a peer review. The landlord acknowledged that it had misunderstood the resident’s complaint at stage one and the outcome she was seeking. It apologised for this. It concluded, nevertheless, that while the resident sought to be re-housed, it was unable to satisfy this request. It reiterated that it found no service failure but offered a further £25 for its additional delay in responding to the resident.
8. The resident remains dissatisfied with the landlord’s final response and states there are elements of her complaint that have not been addressed. The resident explained to this Service that her desired outcome is for the landlord to respond to requests for references within 48 hours and for the landlord to rehouse her.
9. This Service additionally notes that the eligibility criteria for HMS changed on 1 July 2022 closing the scheme to all applicants except for former rough sleepers and survivors of domestic abuse.  There is no evidence that the resident retains eligibility to apply for the scheme.

Assessment and findings

Scope

10. The resident believes that due to the delay in handling the references, the landlord should transfer her to another property. This is not something that the Ombudsman is able to grant or order, however, as the Ombudsman will not generally interfere with a landlord’s allocation of its stock. As such, no such orders have been made within this report.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reference requests.

11. The Ombudsman has considered the HMS policy and procedure guidance which sets out:

“The bidder’s current landlord has a target time to respond with the required information of 48 hours. If they are unable to respond within this time they must inform the receiving landlord, giving a timescale of when they can provide the information requested and reasons for any delay. The receiving landlord will take due regard of any delay but will need to adopt an approach of reasonableness so as not to disadvantage the bidder. Not providing this information within a reasonable timescale may result in the bidder losing the opportunity to be considered for the property.”

12. With this in mind, the Ombudsman is not satisfied that the landlord acted appropriately, or that it openly acknowledged the issues its approach posed. While it was brought to the landlord’s attention that the reference request should have been satisfied within 48 hours, this Service is aware that the landlord maintained there was “no evidence of a special arrangement to provide references for this scheme” within this timeframe.
13. The Ombudsman has taken into consideration that the receiving landlord made its evidence request on 9 August 2021, giving the resident’s landlord less than 24 hours to respond. The landlord was therefore not provided with fair opportunity to act within the provisions of the HMS. Had the landlord provided the reference by 11 August 2021 in line with the expected timeframe, the resident still would have been bypassed for this housing opportunity.
14. It must be noted, nonetheless, that the landlord’s actions were contrary to the expectation under the HMS. Evidence demonstrates that the landlord did not share the resident’s reference until 13 August 2021 and there is no evidence that the landlord informed the receiving landlord of its difficulty in meeting the timescale nor when it would be able to provide the information. This was despite both the receiving landlord and the HMS policy setting out the potential consequences for the resident.
15. The Ombudsman has seen that the resident also raised concerns about the landlord having incorrect details on the HMS system. In conjunction with the landlord’s delay in sharing the reference, this led the resident to question how many properties she may have potentially missed out on. This was a fair concern.
16. The HMS policy requires landlord’s to ensure that the correct contact information is maintained on the HMS system to enable them to respond to reference requests and any alerts about applications awaiting verification. It was therefore inappropriate that an unreachable email address was listed as the landlord’s contact email and while this was brought to the landlord’s attention on 10 August 2021, there is no evidence that it addressed this problem until its stage two response. Even after this time, evidence suggests that a further reference request from a different receiving landlord was sent to the incorrect email address (on 18 January 2022). This would suggest that the contact details had still not been appropriately updated.
17. Despite undertaking a review of its position, and acknowledging internally that the HMS policy sets out a 48 hour timeframe for the provision of references, the landlord failed to accept that its approach was incorrect and problematic. This Service can see that internally, it rationalised this by referring to the voluntary nature of the scheme.
18. The Ombudsman accepts that the HMS is voluntary. In joining the scheme, however, members would have accepted the approach and agreed to act in accordance with the conditions to enable it to function well for residents. Given that the scheme works on a reciprocal basis, it is reasonable to expect members to act in accordance with the procedure to ensure fairness to all applicants. In the Ombudsman’s view, the landlord’s decision to ignore the recommended practice was therefore inappropriate.
19. Review of this complaint has shown that the landlord did not demonstrate that it took due regard for delays in sharing information, nor did it adopt an approach of reasonableness so as not to disadvantage the resident. While there is some ambiguity around whether the resident lost opportunities to be considered for properties, it is clear that the landlord’s approach risked this, and showed no willingness for a change in approach. The Ombudsman has subsequently concluded that there was a failure in service.

Complaint Handling

20. While the landlord’s complaints policy is silent on the timescales for complaint responses, the Housing Ombudsman Service’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) explains that complaints at stage one should be responded to within 10 working days. As such, this Service would have expected the landlord to have responded to the resident within this timeframe upon receiving her complaint on 7 September 2021.
21. Contrary to this, however, the landlord did not provide its response until 6 October 2021. This exceeded the expected timeframe by 11 working days. While the Ombudsman would have expected the landlord to have made contact with the resident to manage her expectation (prior to the 10 working days elapsing), the landlord did not do this. There was subsequently a service failure here.
22. Appropriately, this Service can see that the landlord recognised this within its stage one response. In recognition of its delay, it made an offer of £25 compensation which was reasonable given that the delay was not significant and therefore did not result in an adverse impact.
23. The Ombudsman can see that upon receiving an escalation request from the resident on the same day, however, the landlord again delayed in providing its stage two response. While the Code indicates that at stage two, a landlord should offer a response within 20 working days, the final response was not issued until 1 December 2021 – 40 working days later. This was inappropriate.
24. In the same fashion, the Ombudsman can see that the landlord recognised this delay in its stage two response and again made an award of £25. In the Ombudsman’s view, however, this was not satisfactory in resolving this element of the complaint. As the landlord had now failed to deliver its complaints service in accordance with its policy twice, had delayed the response by a greater length of time, and had clearly not learned from its earlier failing, a greater award of compensation would have been warranted. The landlord’s failure to recognise this meant that it did not do enough to put things right.
25. Finally, for completeness, the Ombudsman notes that the resident requested the transcript from her initial complaint and made several requests throughout her communication. In accordance with the complaint handling code, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to have responded to this, and if it took the decision not to provide the transcript, for it to have explained why. It does not appear that the landlord did, however, and this was inappropriate. The Ombudsman has subsequently concluded that there was a service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Determination

26. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was a service failure with regards to the landlord’s response to the resident’s reference requests.
27. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was a service failure with regards to the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

28. The Ombudsman orders the landlord to:
    1. Pay the resident compensation of £100 in recognition of the inconvenience and stress caused by the landlord’s incorrect contact information and the landlord’s approach to sharing references.
    2. Ensure that the correct email address is held on the HMS system to prevent residents from being disadvantaged.
29. The landlord should also award the resident an additional £50, on top of the £50 already offered, in recognition of its complaint handling.
30. The landlord should make the above payment (£200), and provide this Service with evidence of the payment, within four weeks of receiving this determination.

Recommendations

31. The landlord should support the resident in establishing her housing priority and whether she is eligible for a housing move. She should be provided with information and guidance on all current housing options.
32. The landlord should consider its obligations under the HMS and should ensure that its tenants are treated equally and fairly when compared to other member landlord’s tenants.
33. While the resident disclosed to the landlord a diagnosis of complex PTSD and mental health concerns, the landlord advised this Service that it had no vulnerabilities recorded for the resident. The landlord should subsequently ensure that it updates its details to reflect the resident’s conditions.