Guinness Housing Association Limited (202207927)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202207927

Guinness Housing Association Limited

4 Sepember 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 response to the resident’s reports of a structure built over the patio of a neighbouring property.

Background

2. The resident is a secure tenant at the property of the landlord. The landlord is a housing association. The property is a house.
3. On 14 April 2022, the resident reported a “large shed” having been built over the patio of a neighbour’s property which was blocking light into his property.
4. Following several telephone conversations concerning the issue from April 2022 to July 2022, the resident raised a formal complaint. The resident described the elements of the complaint as:
   1. A neighbour had put up a shed structure made of wood and plastic sheeting over their patio which had blocked light into his property and was erected without the landlord’s permission.
   2. Despite corresponding with the estate manager and other landlord staff members, the structure remained in place.
   3. He was dissatisfied with the length time it was taking the landlord to arrange the removal of the structure and the poor level of service he had received from the landlord staff members he had reported the issue to.
5. The landlord sent a stage one complaint response to the resident on 3 August 2022, then a stage two complaint response on 22 September 2022. The landlord’s responses included the following:
   1. It apologised for the length of time it was taking it to resolve the issue and arrange the removal of the structure.
   2. It also apologised for the poor level of communication the resident had received. It accepted that he had not been kept regularly updated on the status of the structure and what action the landlord had taken.
   3. It confirmed that it had asked the neighbour to remove the structure and would be visiting the neighbour’s property on 26 September 2022 to inspect the structure and speak with the neighbour.
   4. It advised the resident that the process to arrange removal could be lengthy, as it may result in it having to take legal action.
   5. It offered the resident £50 compensation for the delays he experienced in receiving updates on the status of the issue.
6. In referring the case to this service, the resident described the outstanding issues of the complaint as the structure still remained in place and that he was still receiving a poor level of service from the landlord when he had chased it for updates.
7. As part of providing evidence for this case, the landlord undertook a review of its complaint responses. It then sent a follow-up stage two complaint response to the resident on 13 June 2023. The landlord apologised for the ongoing delays in removing the structure and the continued poor communication the resident had received. It also accepted that it should have considered the distress and inconvenience the matter had caused the resident when it calculated its compensation offer. The landlord increased its compensation offer to £450 in light of these failures. It also confirmed that it expected the structure to be removed by 30 June 2023.

Assessment and findings

Relevant policies and procedures

8. The landlord’s alterations and improvements policy sets out the process of how its tenants can request an alteration or an improvement to their home and how it manages unapproved alterations. The policy states that if a tenant makes unapproved alterations to their home, the landlord will arrange an inspection of the property and determine whether retrospective permission will be granted or if it will request for the alterations to be removed. If removal is requested, the landlord will write to the tenant to explain its decision and give them 42 days to arrange removal.
9. On the expiration of the 42-day deadline, the landlord will arrange a site visit to confirm that the alteration has been removed. If it has not been removed, the landlord will escalate the matter to its Tenancy Enforcement Team as a tenancy breach and will consider taking legal action.
10. The landlord’s compensation policy states it will offer compensation in circumstances where “we are at fault and an apology or other remedy alone is not sufficient…. based on the detriment caused to the individual or the household by our failure”. The policy states that it will offer a payment from £250 to a complainant when “the issue took a long time to resolve which resulted in moderate inconvenience having a demonstrable impact on the customer or the household”.

Removal of the structure

11. Upon being informed by the resident of the structure over the neighbour’s patio, the Ombudsman would expect the landlord to provide a response and outline its position within a reasonable timeframe.
12. It is not in dispute that the neighbour did not have permission to erect the structure and the landlord had requested that it be taken down. It is also not in dispute that the resident experienced a poor level of communication from the landlord during this period. This resulted in the resident raising a complaint with the landlord and also contacting this service on several occasions to request assistance in progressing his complaint and queries with the landlord.
13. While the length of time it took to resolve the issue would be understandably frustrating to the resident, as set out in its policy detailed above, the landlord would need to commence formal tenancy action against the neighbour once the initial 42-day deadline had expired. Due to data protection laws, the landlord would not be able to provide detailed descriptions of its conversations with the neighbour and its attempts to have the structure removed. However, the landlord would be expected to provide an update to the resident about its position on what action it would take. If this was likely to take an extended period of time, it would be best practice to commit to further updates. This clearly did not happen in this case.
14. Therefore, it was appropriate for the landlord to apologise to the resident and offer compensation in its complaint responses. Given the repeated failure to provide updates after multiple requests, the landlord’s initial offer of £50 did not reflect the frustration caused to the resident.
15. The landlord’s review of its compensation offer increased the amount to £450, which put it in line with the remedies guidance in its compensation policy detailed above. While it was appropriate for the landlord to revise its compensation offer in June 2023, this was only after the complaint had been referred to this service. While the Ombudsman encourages a landlord to review any identified failings, in this case, it appears it only did so once this service had intervened. This offer therefore has not been considered as part of this investigation.
16. In the circumstances, given the repeated failure to provide adequate communication, a finding of service failure has been made. The Ombudsman’s order of compensation for the impact caused to the resident in these circumstances would match the landlord’s revised offer. The landlord is therefore ordered to reiterate this offer if it is yet to have been accepted.

Determination

17. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord for its response to the resident’s reports of a structure built over the patio of a neighbouring property.

Orders

18. For the service failure identified above, the landlord is ordered to reiterate its offer of £450 compensation within four weeks of the date of this determination, if it is yet to have been accepted.
19. It is the Ombudsman’s position that compensation awarded by this service should be treated separately from any financial arrangements between the landlord and resident and should not be offset against any arrears.