Nottingham City Homes Registered Provider Limited (202213680)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202213680

Nottingham City Homes Registered Provider Limited

25 May 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:
    1. The resident’s reports of noise nuisance.
    2. The resident’s request to be rehoused.

Jurisdiction

  1. 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.

The resident’s request to be rehoused

  1. Paragraph 42(k) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which fall properly within the jurisdiction of another Ombudsman, regulator or complaint-handling body.
  2. Part of the resident’s complaints to the landlord and the Ombudsman centre on his requests to be rehoused, on the basis of the impact on his mental health from the noise nuisance he has been experiencing. Applications for rehousing based on reasons of health are the remit of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO), which includes complaints about the handling of such an application by a landlord. Because of that, the LGSCO is the more appropriate Ombudsman to address this aspect of the complaint and will not be considered in this investigation.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The property is situated in a low-rise flat complex which comprises of two floors. The landlord has acknowledged that the resident started making noise reports about the tenant living in the property directly below his in December 2020.
  2. The resident raised a complaint to the landlord on 28 April 2022 regarding the noise disturbance, which he said he had been living with “for a prolonged period of time”.  He stated that he had been contacting the landlord for over a year, speaking to the officer he was advised to speak with. However, the landlord’s officer had acted in a “condescending and disrespectful” way and had failed to resolve the situation. He said the landlord had not replied to his updates on the noise recording app, email correspondence, or phone calls. He complained about the landlord’s failure to open an ASB case.
  3. The landlord issued a stage one response on 10 May 2022. It confirmed that it had spoken with the resident on 6 May 2022 about the actions being taken to resolve his concerns. It explained that his assigned officer was off work between December 2020 and February 2021, and acknowledged its failure to allocate the case to another team member and open an ASB case. The landlord apologised, and said it would review its procedures to ensure work is covered effectively when an officer is not at work. It advised the resident that it would open a new ASB case and investigate the ASB.
  4. The evidence indicates that the resident escalated his complaint on 31 May 2022, although this Service does not have a copy of the complaint escalation. The landlord provided him with a final response on 23 June 2022. The landlord acknowledged that the resident was dissatisfied with the actions taken following the landlord’s response to his complaint, as well as with the officer’s alleged poor behaviour. The landlord presented a summary of events dating back to the resident’s first complaint in April. The landlord explained its plan of action and explained why a digital recording machine could not be fitted yet.
  5. The resident brought his complaint to this Service because he remained dissatisfied. He wanted the landlord to take appropriate action to resolve the ASB.

Assessment and findings

Investigation scope

  1. Much of the information provided by the resident and the landlord relates to his ASB reports at the end of 2022 and up until the present time. The landlord’s final complaint response was in June 2022. The Ombudsman can only investigate a complaint which has exhausted the landlord’s complaints process. Because of that, this investigation centres on the landlord’s handling of the ASB reports up until June 2022. If the resident has concerns about its handling of his reports after that date, he should raise them as a new formal complaint with the landlord. If, after taking his new complaint through the landlord’s complaint process, he remains dissatisfied, it is open to him to return to the Ombudsman.

Handling of the noise nuisance reports

  1. The landlord’s antisocial behaviour policy sets out that when an incident is first reported, an initial report and assessment must be completed. This initial report and assessment should indicate the level of harm (either raised or standard) and guide the relevant officer on how to proceed. Where a standard risk response is required, the officer must arrange an appointment for the Housing Patch Manager to interview the victim at an agreed location within three working days. It should also give appropriate advice and signpost as necessary. Moreover, the manager should open a new ASB case on the landlord’s case management system (called REACT). The policy states that all cases must be updated on REACT weekly and at the end of each month.
  2. Most of the evidence that the landlord has provided for this investigation consists of email correspondence with the resident after October 2022. Only limited evidence has been provided relating to the action it took between December 2020 and October 2022. No records from its REACT system have been provided.
  3. The landlord’s first complaint response (in May 2022) acknowledged that the resident had started making ASB reports in December 2020, and that no action had been taken. It explained how that had caused a delay of two months and apologised. It said it would open a new ASB case at that point. The resident had complained that he had been making reports on an ongoing basis and had not received responses from the landlord. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, it therefore appears that the landlord took no action at all for approximately 18 months. That was clearly a serious failing, and the apology offered by the landlord was not a proportionate remedy.
  4. The resident escalated his complaint because he did not believe that the actions promised in the landlord’s first complaint response had been taken.
  5. In its final response, the landlord acknowledged the resident was escalating the complaint due to several reasons, which it laid out. However, the response is unclear and again failed to address every issue raised. The landlord presented a summary of events from June 2022, when the resident raised the complaint, until the review was being investigated. Whilst it explained that an officer had met on several occasions with the resident to discuss an action plan, the response did not set out specific measures which the landlord was taking, or planning to take, to resolve or address the noise problem. Furthermore, no evidence of these actions has been provided for this investigation.
  6. Overall, the landlord acknowledged that the resident had been making ASB reports since December 2020, yet there is no evidence of it responding to or handling those reports in the manner called for by its ASB policy. Its complaint responses acknowledged this failing but did not seek to provide reasonable remedies in line with the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. Given the significant period involved (December 2020 to June 2022), these were serious failings.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the resident’s noise nuisance reports.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 42(k), the complaint about rehousing is not in the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction to investigate.

Orders

  1. In light of the failings found in this investigation, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £500 compensation. This payment must be made within four weeks.
  2. The information provided by the resident and landlord shows that he has continued to make ASB reports about a neighbour up to the time of this report. Given the landlord’s failure to respond to such reports previously, it is ordered to conduct a review of its handling of the resident’s reports since July 2022 to the present time and prepare a report confirming that it has handled them in line with its policy and good practice. It should also confirm that it has kept appropriate and meaningful records of any actions it has taken so that if asked, it can provide supporting evidence. The outcome of this review must be shared with this Service within four weeks of this report.