Clarion Housing Association Limited (202226481)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202226481

Clarion Housing Association Limited

25 March 2024

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 report of an abandoned property.
2. The Ombudsman has also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

3. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord, a housing association. Her tenancy started in 2017 and the property is a 2 bedroom house.
4. In June 2022, the landlord experienced a cyber security incident, which  affected its IT systems and caused disruption to its services until December 2022.

Summary of events

5. On 12 September 2022, the resident reported that a nearby property had been abandoned. Eight days later the landlord told the resident that it suspected she had abandoned her property and asked her to confirm she was still living there.
6. The resident responded on 22 September 2022 and confirmed that she was still living at her property but that she had reported a nearby property was abandoned. She asked the landlord to check its records and confirm this had been sorted out. The landlord apologised for the oversight and confirmed that the required team would contact her.
7. The following month the landlord again made contact with the resident, as it suspected she had abandoned her property and asked her to make contact to confirm she was still living there. The resident responded the same day that she had already told it that it was not her property that was abandoned. She had spoken to several people and asked for a call back but never received one. She was going into hospital in 2 days and asked the landlord for a few days to recover before it made further contact about this.
8. Two days later, the landlord made further contact with the resident asking for contact to confirm she was still living at her property. It also visited her property on the same day and spoke with her Mother, who was staying there while she was in hospital. Following this, the landlord noted that it was investigating the wrong address and closed the case.
9. The resident made a complaint to the landlord on 22 October 2022. She had reported an abandoned property and then received contact from the landlord about her property being abandoned. She responded to the landlord but did not get return contact. She told it she was going into hospital and asked to be contacted another day, but still received contact and a visit.
10. On 7 November 2022, the landlord provided its stage 1 response. Her report of an abandoned property had been misinterpreted because staff were working offline, due to the cyber security incident, which led to the contacts and visit. There was a delay in her email requesting to be contacted on a different day being reviewed, due to a high volume of email enquiries because its phone lines were out of service. It apologised for the distress and inconvenience caused and offered £200 compensation.
11. Thirteen days later, the resident responded and said:
    1. She did not accept the response as the landlord had not taken account of how worried and intimidated she had been made to feel by its letters. It had not recognised the timeframe this matter went on for and she felt the apology and compensation offered were not enough.
    2. She had been in contact with the landlord in September 2022, about a noisy neighbour, which indicated that she was living at the property and asked why the landlord had not checked this.
    3. She was not happy with the way her Mother had been questioned on the doorstep of the property, as the member of staff would not accept that the resident was not available when she visited. She had to share personal, sensitive health information with the landlord, which she had not wanted to share, but felt she had to because of the possible consequences.
    4. The stage 1 response had an internal note on it and she asked for a final copy to be provided without this.
    5. All the time the landlord had been contacting her, the property she had reported had been empty.
12. On 30 December 2022, the landlord provided its stage 2 (peer review) complaint response, which said:
    1. It should have considered previous contact the resident had with it before starting the actions to investigate whether her property had been abandoned. This was a learning point and it would complete staff training on the need to review customer records.
    2. It failed to consider the dates she provided regarding her availability when carrying out a visit. It understood and appreciated the distress the visit caused. When completing these types of investigations, it was reasonable for its staff to carry out visits and make these enquiries to establish who was living at the property. However, in her case, it should not have reached that point as it should have considered the records and information provided.
    3. The stage 1 response did not fully consider the difficulties she had experienced and there were issues with the quality of the letter, which it apologised for and confirmed feedback had been given to the relevant team.
    4. It had contacted the resident of the abandoned property she had reported and addressed this.
    5. It accepted there had been failings in its handling of the matter and apologised for the inconvenience caused. It offered her increased compensation of £600 in relation to this and £50 for the delay to the stage 2 complaint response. It would contact her within 28 days to “move this matter forward”.

Assessment and findings

Handling of the resident’s report of an abandoned property

13. The landlord has explained why it mistakenly investigated the resident’s property as abandoned. While upsetting for the resident, the landlord’s explanation was understandable considering the circumstances of the cyber security incident and the impact this had on its systems and record keeping.
14. It is important that landlord’s take actions to investigate reports of abandoned properties, including reviewing its internal records, written enquiries, phone calls and visits. Within its communication, it is reasonable that landlords warn residents of the potential consequences of not responding to its enquiries and it is understandable that staff may need to be assertive and persistent in their questioning when visiting properties to investigate these types of issues.
15. In this case, the landlord identified that it did not properly review its internal records before taking other actions to investigate this matter. This resulted in phone calls, written contact and an unannounced visit to the resident; all of which were reasonable steps for it to take to investigate this type of issue but should not have happened in this case and caused unnecessary upset and distress to the resident. This amounts to maladministration and was particularly upsetting for the resident considering her circumstances at the time.
16. The resident responded promptly to all contacts from the landlord about this matter and despite being given assurances that return contact would be made, this never happened, which resulted in her feeling let down. From the records provided, it is not clear why no return calls were made and the landlord failed to address this breakdown in internal communication within the complaint responses.
17. While the landlord’s original mistake was understandable in light of the cyber security incident, these continued failings were not. The landlord has said that an increased volume of emails led to this, but it has given no explanation why the resident’s phone calls were not properly logged or passed on to the correct team or member of staff. This failure resulted in the landlord making contact with the resident at a time when she had specifically asked not to be contacted to allow her to recover from a hospital visit, which was very upsetting for her and amounts to maladministration.
18. When the landlord identified that it was investigating the wrong address, it closed the case, but it failed to update the resident or apologise. Where mistakes or errors occur, it is important that, where possible, landlord’s take proactive action to address these and put things right for the resident. That did not happen in this case, which was unfair and placed an additional burden on the resident to make a formal complaint.
19. The landlord acknowledged there was service failure in its handling of this matter and that this caused distress and inconvenience to the resident. It has apologised, identified learning and offered compensation, all of which are in line with the Ombudsman’s dispute resolution principles to be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
20. In January 2023, the resident told this Service that she had been satisfied with the landlord’s stage 2 response and the redress offered but escalated to this Service because the landlord had failed to contact her or pay the compensation offered. Considering the full circumstances of the case, the landlord’s offer of redress made in December 2022 was reasonable and in line with the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies and had it made follow up contact with the resident, as committed in the stage 2 response and paid the compensation offered, a finding of reasonable redress would have been made.
21. However, in a recent update, the resident has told this Service that she still has not received the compensation offered 15 months ago. She feels even more let down by the landlord’s failure to follow up and conclude this matter as she just wants to bring this matter to a close, so she can move on.
22. The landlord has recently told this Service that it made contact with the resident on 20 March 2024 to arrange payment of the compensation; however, this was only prompted by contact from this Service asking for an update. While the landlord offered reasonable redress in December 2022, its failure to proactively follow up and provide this to the resident in a timely manner has resulted in further detriment to her. Therefore, its handling of this matter amounts to maladministration and orders have been made below for it to apologise to the resident for the significant and unreasonable delays and to pay her the £600 compensation already offered, plus an additional £150 for the subsequent delays.

Complaint handling

23. The landlord’s stage 1 response included an internal note which was unprofessional and suggested that it had not been properly checked before being sent out. When the resident raised this, the landlord apologised and confirmed that feedback had been given to the relevant team, which was appropriate and showed that it took this feedback seriously.
24. The landlord’s complaints policy at the time said that it would provide the stage 1 response within 20 working days and the stage 2 response within 40 working days. Both of these were outside of the timeframes set out in the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code), which required landlord’s to respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 working days and stage 2 within 20 working days. Therefore, the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint is measured against the timeframes set out in the Code.
25. In this case, the landlord responded to the resident’s stage 1 complaint in 13 working days and the stage 2 in 28 working days, which were outside of the required timescales set out in the Code. The delay to the stage 1 response was only 3 working days, which is a minor delay, but the stage 2 response was delayed by 8 working days. The landlord acknowledged there had been service failure in its handling of the complaint, apologised and offered £50 compensation, which was reasonable and in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance.
26. The landlord failed to follow up with the resident to arrange payment of the compensation, as promised in the final response, 15 months ago. Therefore, the landlord has not provided reasonable redress and due to the significant and unreasonable delay in redress being provided, the landlord’s handling of the resident’s formal complaint amounts to maladministration. An order has been made below for the landlord to pay the resident the £50 compensation already offered and an additional £100 for its handling of this matter.

Determination (decision)

27. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
    1. report of an abandoned property.
    2. formal complaint.

Reasons

28. The landlord failed to check its internal records before contacting the resident as part of its investigation into her property being abandoned. Its failure to do this resulted in further actions being undertaken, which caused upset that could have been avoided. Despite the resident contacting the landlord on a number of occasions to confirm she was living at the property and make it aware of the mistake, it failed to properly communicate this to the relevant team and/ or staff member, which resulted in further contacts and increased upset and distress for the resident. When the landlord identified its mistake, it did not acknowledge this or apologise until after the resident made a formal complaint. The landlord offered appropriate redress but has failed to provide this to date, some 15 months later.
29. The landlord’s stage 2 response was not in line with the required timescales set out in the Code, as it was delayed by nearly 2 weeks. The landlord acknowledged this, apologised and offered redress but failed to follow up after the final response was issued in December 2022 to provide this; meaning that over 1 year later, the resident has still not received the compensation offered.

Orders

30. Within 4 weeks, the landlord is ordered to:
    1. Apologise to the resident for the delay in providing the redress offered for its handling of her report of an abandoned property.
    2. Pay the resident £900 compensation, made up of £750 for its handling of her report of an abandoned property and£150 for its complaint handling.
31. The landlord to provide evidence of compliance with the above orders to this Service within 4 weeks.