A2Dominion Housing Group Limited (202205463)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202205463

A2Dominion Housing Group Limited

5 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:
   1. Handling of repairs to a toilet at the property.
   2. Handling of the associated complaint.
   3. Record keeping.

Background

2. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord and lives in a maisonette owned and managed by it.
3. In July 2021 and March 2022, the resident reported intermittent problems with a leaking and unstable toilet at her property. By the end of July 2021, the landlord’s contractor had fixed the leak and secured the toilet pan. A further leak was repaired in March 2022. Having fixed the toilet, the contractor needed to repair a gap between the base of the toilet and the floor tiles and arranged to do this with silicone sealant.
4. The resident refused permission for the work to be done with silicone since she wanted grouting used for the job. The landlord’s contractor advised the resident that grout was not suitable for the repair. The resident continued to insist that she would not allow silicone to be used and so the base of the toilet remained unsealed. The resident complained to the contractor and to the landlord about the repairs on more than one occasion between July and October 2021. The landlord did not however provide a formal response to the resident’s complaints until May 2022.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of repairs to a toilet at the resident’s property.

5. The resident’s tenancy agreement says that the landlord is responsible for keeping her toilet in good repair and working order.
6. The landlord’s responsive repairs policy sets out response times for repairs. Repairs needed to fix containable leaks and an insecure toilet pan are classified as standard repairs. This means that the landlord will carry out the repair at the next available appointment that is convenient for the customer.
7. The resident’s toilet was first recorded as requiring attention on 29 June 2021 and an appointment for the landlord’s contractor to fix the toilet was made promptly for 2 July 2021. This appointment was missed, and the resident complained. This investigation is satisfied from the dated, customer record provided that the contractor did attend the property but was unable to gain entry.
8. The landlord’s handling of the repairs was appropriate in the circumstances. It responded to the reported fault in a timely manner and in line with its responsive repairs policy. The landlord has also acted reasonably in arranging follow up visits to the property in an effort to complete the work. A leak to the toilet reported in March 2022 was also fixed within appropriate timescales.
9. The landlord’s contractor recognised the resident’s concerns about the material used to seal the base of her toilet. It therefore arranged for a supervisor to visit on 29 July 2021 to check that the toilet had been fixed properly and to explain the work that still needed to be done. This demonstrated that the landlord was prepared to take the resident’s concerns seriously.
10. It is reasonable for the landlord to rely on the advice of its suitably qualified contractor as to how that work is carried out. The resident cannot require the landlord to undertake work in a way which conflicts with this advice. The landlord and the resident have reported that the toilet pan is stable but due to a continued lack of agreement, the toilet remains unsealed. If the resident wants the work to be carried out in a different manner, using different materials, then she may seek the landlord’s permission to complete the works herself, at her own expense. Such a decision would be at the landlord’s discretion.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s complaint

11. The landlord’s complaints procedure defines a complaint as an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions, or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting a resident. The landlord has a two-stage complaint procedure and stage one complaints will be acknowledged within two working days. If the complaint is made by phone, then the phone conversation is treated as the acknowledgement. The procedure does not say how long the landlord will take to provide a response, but the landlord’s service standards say that it aims to respond to complaints within ten working days and, if unable to do this, will let the resident know when to expect a full response.
12. In July, August and October 2021 the contractor’s operatives and the landlord’s repair scheduling team recorded the resident’s dissatisfaction with the way in which the landlord was handling the repairs. They also recorded that the resident said that she had made, or would be making, a complaint. An undated record from the landlord’s contact centre describes an unequivocal complaint by the resident about the grouting issue and notes that the resident said she had been told by a contractor “to raise a complaint”.
13. Despite this evidence that the landlord was aware of the resident’s dissatisfaction with its service and aware that the resident’s intention was to complain, the landlord failed to follow its own procedure and recognise the resident’s concerns as a formal complaint for many several months.
14. In its stage one response, which did not uphold the resident’s complaint, the landlord apologised for not responding sooner, acknowledged the additional frustration caused by the delay and offered £50 compensation for the time taken to communicate the outcome.
15. In her request for a stage two review of the response the resident referred to a wait of seven months for her complaint to be dealt with. This investigation has seen evidence that the resident expressed dissatisfaction with the landlord’s service, which should have been recognised as a complaint much more quickly. Having acknowledged and apologised for its delay in responding at stage one it is disappointing that it took the landlord 52 days to issue its stage two response. This is significantly longer than the ten working days set out in its service standards.
16. There was maladministration by the landlord in its failure to recognise the resident’s expressions of dissatisfaction as complaints and in its failures to respond to the complaint and review in line with its procedures. The Ombudsman notes the landlord’s observation that the resident had made other complaints which had complicated its complaint handling response and that the landlord offered partial redress for the delay with an apology and compensation offer.
17.  In relation to the failures identified, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this the Ombudsman takes into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: Be Fair, Put Things Right and Learn from Outcomes as well as our own guidance on remedies.
18. The £50 offered does not adequately reflect the impact on the resident. Additional financial compensation of £100 is appropriate here for the evident frustration, inconvenience caused to the resident as well as the time and trouble spent pursuing matters.

Record keeping

19. Establishing an accurate sequence of events for this investigation was made more difficult than it should have been by the fact that some of the records supplied by the landlord were unclear and conflicting. The landlord provided the Ombudsman with the contractor’s responsive repairs chronology for the period of the works. This chronology did not provide a detailed record and was not always consistent with extracts from the contractor repair log entries also supplied. The chronology records a complaint from the resident as having been made on 22 July 2021, but the only explicit complaint recorded by the landlord’s customer centre is undated and the circumstances of that complaint indicate it is more likely to have been made in October 2021.
20. It also appears entries in the log were not always recorded on the date the repair visit took place which also made it difficult to establish when work had been carried out. For example, the similar repairs are reported variously in the repair log and in the chronology as having been completed on 7 July, 8 July, and 17 July 2021. Doubt remains therefore over dates of repair appointments, the action taken on specific dates and whether in some instances there are multiple and slightly differing records for the same contractor visit to the property.
21. The Ombudsman concludes, however, that the identified problems with record keeping, did not cause disadvantage to the resident in the handling of the repairs.
22. In its stage one response to the resident, the landlord did not explain why it had taken so long to recognise and respond to her complaints. It is reasonable to assume that the landlord’s lack of attention to accurate record keeping is likely to have been a contributory factor in its complaint handling failures. These failures, as the landlord acknowledged, added to the resident’s frustration with the repair issues. They also undermined the resident’s trust in the landlord and undermined the landlord’s ability to meet its aim, set out in its service standards, to continually improve its services.

Determination

23. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of repairs to the resident’s toilet.
24. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the complaint.
25. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was service failure by the landlord in its record keeping relating to the resident’s complaint.

Orders

26. The landlord to apologise in writing to the resident for the failings identified in this report.
27. The landlord to pay £100 compensation to the resident for the identified complaint handling failures, in addition to the £50 compensation already offered.
28. The landlord to review the training needs of its staff and contractors to ensure they are equipped to recognise and respond appropriately to complaints.
29. The landlord to provide evidence to the Ombudsman of compliance with the orders within four weeks of this determination.

Recommendations

30. It is recommended that the landlord reviews its customer and repair record systems to ensure these are fit for purpose and to ensure that accurate data is recorded that will assist the landlord with its repair obligations as well as its complaint handling.