Futures Housing Group Limited (202113588)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202113588

Futures Housing Group Limited

03 July 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 concerns about multiple leaks via the roof and guttering, and the positioning of scaffolding used to address this.
  2. This Service has also considered the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord and the property is a three-bedroom house.
  2. There had been historic issues regarding leaks at the property prior to the   resident’s report for repairs on 18 January 2021. On this date she informed the landlord that there was a leak coming into her two rear bedrooms. The landlord stated that the job raised was attended to on 25 February 2021. A further report of rain pouring through her daughter’s bedroom windows was made on 18 June 2021 which the landlord attended to on the same day.
  3. The resident states that she had made the stage one complaint on 18 June 2021 in an email sent to the landlord. The email contained an attachment with a video of the water damage to one of her bedrooms, along with the residents address and the statement ‘the matter is urgent’. The landlord asserted that this was a service request and not a complaint.
  4. On 22 June 2021 a job was raised to check the roof for leaks, as there was leaking into a bedroom. The landlord states it attended to this on the same day, but had to raise follow on jobs.
  5. On 2 July 2021 the resident sent an email to the landlord, stating that this was her stage two complaint. In this email she clearly expressed her dissatisfaction with the delays for the repairs and the time and trouble to chase the landlord. The landlord asserted that this email was the stage one complaint.
  6. On 5 July 2021 the resident raised a complaint to her member of parliament (MP).
  7. On 11 August 2021, the landlord sent its stage one response to the resident. The timeframe of events the landlord stated that it was assessing, was between April 2012 to August 2021. In its response it apologised to the resident and offered her £200 compensation as redress to acknowledge the frustrations and inconveniences she had experienced. The landlord also stated that the repairs had been completed by 2 August 2021 and that if the resident remained dissatisfied, she would need to supply further evidence in order for it to escalate the complaint to stage two of its process.
  8. On 12 August 2021, the resident emailed the landlord to escalate her complaint, she also rejected the compensation offer of £200. She requested that the landlord offer to her compensation equivalent to 25% of seven to eight years rent. Email correspondence between the resident and landlord shows that there was also disagreement as to which stage of the process the complaint was in. The landlord had stated that it provided a stage two response to the resident on 13 August 2021, however this Service has seen no evidence of this.
  9. On 2 November 2021, the resident reported a further roof and gutter leak. The landlord stated that its operatives attended on the same day and ascertained that the issue was not with the roof but that it was the gutters that were overflowing. The landlord then attended on 5 November 2021 to fix the gutters. The landlord emailed the resident reiterating its final position on the complaint and advising her to refer to this Service if she remained dissatisfied. Following further contact from the resident’s MP on 9 November 2021, the landlord advised that it would not be in contact with the resident until it heard back from this Service.
  10. The landlord informed this Service on 7 December 2022 that the repairs had now been completed. It subsequently made an offer of redress on 24 January 2023 of £5,000 to recognise the distress caused by the ongoing repair issue. This was increased to £8,000 on 1 February 2023 at which time, the resident was informed that she needed to agree on receipt of payment to notify this Service that the complaint had been satisfactorily resolved. The resident has informed this Service that while she accepted the compensation, she felt that she did so under duress, and would still like an investigation to be carried out.

Assessment and findings

Scope

  1. Although the resident has stated in an email in July 2021 that she had reported the repairs for the roof and the related water damage for a period of seven to eight years, this Service is unable to investigate as far back as this. This is because as events become historic, it becomes increasingly difficult for this Service to establish what took place. In this case in particular, the landlord has explained that as a different contractor was used, it does not have access to records which go back this far.
  2. Moreover, this Service would expect a resident to raise any dissatisfaction with the landlord as a complaint within six months of the issue arising.  The evidence suggests, however, that it was only in July 2021 that the resident did this and took steps to exhaust the landlord’s process and before bringing her complaint to this Service. As such, while this Service will consider the overall impact that the recurring issue would have had on the resident, and will note for context that the matter dates back to 2012, this investigation will not consider the landlord’s management of the repair prior to January 2021.
  3. The resident has also advised this Service that she seeks compensation for the damages to her personal belongings. This is a matter that she will need to pursue via an insurance claim or the courts as the Ombudsman is unable to comment on whether the landlord was liable to cover said damages or the subsequent reimbursement due.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about multiple leaks via the roof and guttering, and the positioning of scaffolding used to address this.

  1. This Service expects the landlord to handle repairs, for which it is responsible, appropriately by completing them in a reasonable time and providing regular communication and updates to the resident about the works. Where repair work is overdue, resident’s should receive regular updates clearly explaining the reasons for any delay and the expected date of completion.
  2. The landlord’s responsibility for repairs to the gutters, roof and windowsills/frames is confirmed in section 3.4 of the tenancy agreement. Section 3.7 of the tenancy agreement states that ‘if major repairs are carried out to the home and decorations are damage the landlord may provide assistance with the cost of redecorating’.
  3. Following the resident’s report of a leak on 18 January 2021, the landlord was slow to attend to the issue. It did not undertake the required works until 25 February 2021. The evidence shows that the resident had experienced leaks on and off for several years and the landlord had not put in place a permanent fix to resolve this.
  4. The landlord’s website states that containable water leaks, are categorised as standard repairs. These are repairs or initial inspections where longer works may be identified and followed on for planned works and should be completed between ten and 25 working days. With uncontainable leaks where the landlord may need further visits to fix the problem, it will still attend on the same day as reported to ensure that resident’s homes are left in a safe condition. The evidence shows that the landlord failed to inspect and ascertain what the problems were. It is reasonable to expect a landlord to investigate and correctly categorise the leak in a timely way.  Also, it had not communicated with the resident regarding the unreasonable delays in attending to the repairs or apologised / offered any specific redress in its correspondence with the resident.
  5. On 18 June 2021, the resident reported a leak going into her daughter’s bedroom. The landlord recognised its responsibility to attend to the leak and did this on the same day and concluded that the job required a roofer to attend. A job was raised to check the roof for leaks and attended to on 22 June 2021. Although, the landlord accepts that it had instructed the wrong tradesman to attend on 18 June 2021, the landlord did attend four days later which is in line with its customer offer for fast repairs which is zero to four working days. The job raised on 22 June 2021 had a follow on for scaffolding to be erected. The landlord stated that this follow on was delayed due to staff being on annual leave. From this job, it raised follow on jobs that it attended to on the 5 and 13 July 2021. There was an unreasonable delay from the landlord after it inspected the leak. The landlord acknowledges that the delay in ordering the repair may have been due to a lack of information shared internally. It would have been fair and reasonable to expect for the landlord to have communicated the reasons for the delays to the resident.
  6. On 5 and 13 July 2021, the landlord installed scaffolding and attended on both days to complete the follow on job’s that were raised on 22 June 2021 to replace the roof/batten. On 14 July 2021, the landlord asked the resident to email to it all the outstanding issues that she had. She responded the same day, outlining the various issues regarding the leaking roof and also health and safety issues with regards to the scaffolding that was erected. The resident informed the landlord that her guttering remained blocked. However, the landlord did not take any action in relation to this. This would have increased the resident’s frustration and distress.
  7. On 31 October 2021, the resident again reported the guttering needed repairing. On 2 November 2021, the resident reported the roof and gutter leak again. The landlord stated that its operatives attended on the same day and ascertained that the issue was not with the roof but that was the gutters that were overflowing. The delays in raising a repair job and acting on the resident’s service request were unfair and unreasonable. The landlord attended on 5 November 2021 to fix the gutters. Its actions on the whole where not in line with its customer offer timescales and would have led to distress and inconvenience for the resident.
  8. The resident has had to from June 2021 to November 2021, repeatedly chase the landlord for updates and for it to complete all the redecoration and remove/replace the rotten loft insulation. She complained on numerous occasions about the costs of calling the landlord, and went to significant time and trouble contacting her landlord. The delays in carrying out the works greatly impacted both her and her daughters ability to live peacefully in the property. She had informed the landlord that her daughter was breathing in mould spores, causing her to cough a lot. The landlord failed to appropriately address these issues. It is obligated to ensure that the property is habitable and should have arranged an inspection to ascertain if there was mould and then carried out a risk assessment.
  9. To compound matters further, despite being repeatedly informed by the resident of all the complaints the landlord still requested that she send in a list of all the issues she was facing. Also, on 2 November 2021 the landlord rejected the resident’s request that it inspects the property after the redecoration works due to continued water damage. The landlord again failed to fulfil its obligations under its repairs policy and missed an opportunity to put things right. It should have visited the property and not just relied on pictures taken. It then could have provided a report to the resident to allay her fears after its multiple failures. The landlord stated on 11 August 2021 that it would attend to replace any loft insulation that was affected by the leak. There is no evidence that it had attended and completed this job.  

Scaffolding

  1. The resident had complained to the landlord on 12 July 2021, that the scaffolding that had been erected was a health and safety issue. She further informed it, on 14 July 2021, that when the scaffolding was put up on the rear of the property on 8 July 2021, her back gate was left wide open. Also, that the scaffolding poles were placed two inches in height above her neighbours patio door, and that the scaffolding was not being inspected enough by supervisors. The landlord responded appropriately to the resident’s concerns by raising them with its scaffolding contractor. The contractor confirmed that although the scaffolding on the rear was untidy, it did conform to health and safety standards. The landlord then emailed the resident on 15 July 2021, to update her that the scaffolding did conform and the landlord also arranged for its repairs manager to visit the residents property on 23 July 2021. These initial actions were  reasonable and fair by the landlord, as it sought an answer for the resident and arranged/ carried out a visit to investigate her concerns.
  2. On 23 July 2021, the landlord’s repairs manager shared its findings with the resident after the visit. It reaffirmed that the scaffolding was scheduled to be dismantled on 28 August 2021. It acknowledged that the pole was in a contentious position and that a hi-viz and bump barrier would have ensured the area was completely safe for the neighbour. Although, it maintained this did not breach health and safety regulations, it promised that it would discuss these matters with its contractor. There is no evidence that the landlord did any of this though.
  3. The landlord also missed an opportunity to put things right because it should have acted on the findings from its initial investigation. It should have instructed its contractor to go back to the area in contention and mitigate any risks. To manage the resident’s expectations the landlord had informed her that the contractor had stated that they were experiencing issues with a large portion of their staff being unavailable. This was fair and appropriate. On 28 July 2021, the resident chased an update from the landlord as to when it would remove the scaffolding. On 5 August 2021, the resident emailed the landlord asking when the scaffolding from the front of the property would be brought down, and stated that the contractors had left two poles in her garden.  The landlord should have acknowledged these emails. Its failure to do this would have led to more frustration as the resident chased updates.
  4. With consideration of the issue as a whole, this Service has concluded that the landlord mismanaged the resident’s repairs and removal of scaffolding and that there was a significant delay in putting things right. The landlord’s poor communication meant that the resident was uncertain of how the landlord intended to address the leaking roof or when redecoration works would be completed. Also, it would have been particularly distressing given that she had told it that the issues had adversely affected both her and her daughter. She took considerable time and trouble, repeatedly chasing the landlord for updates with no response. This would have amounted to significant distress and inconvenience.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

  1. The landlord has supplied its complaints and compliments policy that was in effect at the time. This policy was valid from December 2019 to December 2022. The complaint policy does not state any complaint stages or the timescales for responses. However, this Service had introduced its Complaint Handling Code in July 2020, which set out good practice to allow landlords to respond to complaints effectively and fairly. In section 3.11 it stated that a landlord should log and acknowledge a complaint within five working days. Also the landlord’s stage one decision should have been sent to a resident within 10 working days and the stage two response within 20 working days from receipt of complaint. If this was not possible at either stage, then the landlord needed to send an explanation and a date by when the response should be received, which should not exceed a further 10 days without good reason.
  2. The resident is dissatisfied with the landlord’s complaint handling, due to a dispute about what stage the complaint was at, the delays in responding to her complaints and its requests to her for further evidence. This Service defines a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of a service, actions or lack of action by an organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting and individual resident or group of residents. The evidence clearly shows, that the first complaint the resident made regarding her roof repairs and repairing the damaged plaster in her daughter’s bedroom was on 2 July 2021. She had stated that she had been waiting for three weeks for workmen to attend to her property and expressed her dissatisfaction with the landlord. She also complained to her MP on 5 July 2021 about the roof repairs, blocked gutters and the long unreasonable waiting periods for a response from the landlord. The landlord’s internal communications show it had discussed getting back to the resident with an update. However, the landlord failed to do this despite the resident chasing it repeatedly. When the landlord emailed the resident on 14 July 2021 requesting a list of the issues she was facing, it missed an opportunity to put things right. The landlord should have acknowledge the complaint at this time and explained to the resident any reasons for delays in responding to her.
  3. On 11 August 2021, the landlord sent the stage one response, approximately two months after the complaint was made. The delay with the stage one response was an unreasonably long time. The landlord also failed to respond to all the issues raised by the resident in her complaint. She had explained that she had a high phone bill due to the frequency with which she had to call the landlord. This was not addressed in the landlord’s response. By not issuing responses in a fair and timely manner or addressing all the issues the landlord did not follow this Service’s Code. This caused the resident time and trouble in pursuing the complaint and huge distress and inconvenience.
  4. On 12 August 2021, the resident rejected the landlord’s compensation offer and requested an escalation for her complaint. The landlord reaffirmed to the resident that in order for it to consider her complaint at stage two of its procedure she needed to provide it with new relevant evidence. Despite the resident’s request for escalation, the landlord did not provide her with a formal stage two response. In contravention of the Code, the landlord did not escalate the resident’s complaint. Its actions created a barrier to the resident obtaining a suitable resolution. The landlord failed to provide a formal response to the resident at stage two of the complaint.
  5. On 2 November 2021, the resident raised her issues with her MP. On 9 November 2021, the MP forwarded this complaint to the landlord. The landlord responded to the MP on 10 November 2021. This was inappropriate action for the landlord to take, it missed another opportunity to put things right. It should not have dealt with the complaint as an MP enquiry, due to the resident’s clear dissatisfaction, it needed to respond to her.

Compensation

  1. In its complaint response, the landlord had apologised to the resident and to acknowledge the frustrations and inconveniences she had experienced with the repairs service, it offered her £200 compensation. This was to acknowledge both the landlord’s handling of the repairs as well as the handling of the subsequent complaint.
  2. After the case was referred to this Service, the landlord reviewed its offer and significantly increased this to £5,000. The resident advised this Service on 27 April 2023, that the award had again been increased to £8,000 as a full and final settlement.
  3. Given the significant shift in position, this Service requested that the landlord provide a breakdown of its calculations for the compensation offer. The landlord informed this Service on 4 May 2023 that the compensation settlement was to cover the period between 2014 and 2022 when the issue with the roof was ongoing. It is noted that the landlord added as a condition of payment of this compensation that the resident withdraw her complaint with this Service. This condition the landlord imposed was completely inappropriate. The resident’s acceptance of the compensation did not relinquish her right to have the complaint reviewed by an alternative dispute resolution service, and so she should not have been led to believe this.
  4. In this Service’s opinion, despite the compensation amount and the fact all the repairs and decorations have now been completed, there was still maladministration which the landlord failed to consider, properly review, and account for by the time of its stage two response. It appears to this Service that the landlord has only given this matter fair attention and sought to proportionately put things right following the intervention of this Service. This is inappropriate. The purpose of the stage two is for a landlord to review the issues that a resident has been complaining about and its approach to this, including how it responded at stage one and the overall detriment to the resident. Had the landlord done this, it may have recognised the issues the resident had been experiencing over several years, and the need to considerably increase its compensation offer. This Service would have likely concluded that an offer of £8,000 compensation would have been satisfactory in putting things right. 
  5. As the landlord did not do this, however, this Service has determined that there was still maladministration. This Service is content that the landlord has made a fair offer of redress and so will not be seeking to order further compensation, however the adverse finding in this case should encourage future learning for the landlord.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s concerns about multiple leaks via the roof and guttering, and the positioning of scaffolding used to address this.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to:
    1. Pay the resident the total compensation (£8,000) it has already offered, if it has not done so already.
    2. Review its complaints and compliments policy to ensure that this specifies its response timescales for stage one and final stage two complaints, in line with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code, and provide further complaint handling training to its staff to ensure that complaints are accurately acknowledged and addressed moving forward. 
    3. Provide the resident with a formal apology and set out the action it will be taking (or has taken) to prevent a recurrence of this in the future.
  2. The landlord should provide this Service with evidence of compliance with the above, within four weeks of receiving this determination.