East Midlands Housing Group Limited (202116488)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202116488

East Midlands Housing Group Limited

19 August 2022

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 repairs to the external rendering of the resident’s property.

Background

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord. The property is a bungalow.
3. The first contact was made on 5 July 2021 as some of the render (external plastering) on the front of the property was coming off in large patches. A contractor attended on 15 July 2021 and identified that only minor repairs were needed to the render. There was a delay in the landlord responding back with an update, but a job for the render was booked on 19 August 2021 to take place within two weeks.
4. The resident complained on 3 September 2021 due to the lack of communication, unattended job bookings and a date when the painting would take place as this was a two-part job. The render was corrected on 6 September 2021 and the paint work was done on 8 September 2021 as the render needed time to dry. The landlord gave its stage one response on 9 September 2021 explaining that the render needed time to dry before painting, and it had liaised with its contractor and found that all booked appointments were attended.
5. Dissatisfied with the painting quality the resident contacted the landlord on 13 September 2021, who arranged a visit within the week. Further contact was made by the resident on 17 September 2021 as the contractor had visited (no date specified) but she was still not happy. However, the notes for this call relate to concerns about the render, whereas the initial concern was the painting, so it is unclear what work was actually undertaken. Nevertheless, the landlord agreed to inspect again on 7 October 2021. The conclusion from this visit was that works were completed to a reasonable standard, however, some additional painting was required to achieve a better finish. These works were completed on 2 November 2021 and with a post-works survey on 19 November 2021, where the job was signed off as completed to a satisfactory standard.
6. The resident remained dissatisfied, and, this Service escalated her complaint with the landlord on her behalf.
7. The landlord provided its final complaint response on 3 February 2022. It explained that it had discussed the complaint with the resident, and that her outstanding concern was a lack of communication, and that she was seeking further painting to the rendered wall. It set out the steps the landlord had taken in response to the repair work, and that the final post-work inspection in November had found the work to be satisfactory. It concluded that there had not been any service failure in relation to the repair work, although it apologised for delays handling her complaint.
8. The resident referred her complaint to this Service as she remained dissatisfied with the quality of rendering and painting done on her property.

Assessment and findings

9. The complaint made to the landlord, and to this Service, centres on the resident’s dissatisfaction with the quality of the rendering and/or painting work done to her home. There is no evidence of any specific aspects of the quality being clarified. It is important to explain that the Ombudsman cannot act as an adjudicator of the quality of repair work, especially when the work is largely of an aesthetic or decorative nature. Because of that, this investigation cannot determine whether the painting and rendering was, or was not, of an acceptable quality. The investigation can only determine whether the landlord’s conclusions about the quality of the work, and its response to the resident’s concerns, were reasonable — based on the evidence provided.
10. What is apparent from the evidence is that the landlord responded to the resident’s initial reports of problems with the rendering within the three-month timeframe its repair guidance sets out for these types of repair issues. The work took longer than three months to complete, but part of that extra time was to undertake further painting work requested by the resident. In a situation where a tenant is not satisfied with the quality of repair work done by a landlord (or its contractors), the appropriate action for the landlord is to inspect the matter and reach its own conclusions. In this case the landlord did two post-work inspections, one in October, and one in November. The outcome of the first was for more painting to be done. The evidence shows that the second inspection occurred, but actual evidence of its outcome has not been provided. Nonetheless, other records referring to the visit state that the inspector was satisfied with the work. Ultimately, a landlord is entitled to rely on the opinions of its contractors and operatives when undertaking or planning maintenance or repair work — unless there is clear evidence to the contrary. No such evidence has been seen in this investigation, and so the landlord’s conclusion that it had appropriately completed the work was reasonable, even though the resident remained dissatisfied.
11. Some of the landlord’s internal correspondence suggests that the reason for the resident’s ongoing dissatisfaction was that the newly painted areas of the wall did not match the other areas. Reference is made to telling the resident that the wider property would be painted as part of the landlord’s cyclical painting programme, which other internal correspondence clarifies would be in 2022/2023. It was appropriate for the landlord to advise the resident of this, as it is through these cyclical programmes that landlord’s maintain the general appearance and condition of their buildings and property. If the resident’s property is indeed scheduled for the 2022/2023 programme, then any remaining concerns she has about the painting will likely be addressed in the programme before the end of March 2023.

Determination

12. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord.

Recommendation

13. If it has not already done so, the landlord should write to the resident confirming when her home is scheduled for cyclical external redecoration work.