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Clarion Housing Association Limited (202213067)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202213067

Clarion Housing Association Limited

8 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:
    1. Handling of the annual gas safety inspection at the resident’s property and its communication.
    2. Complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident holds an assured shorthold tenancy. The property is a 4-bedroom house.
  2. On 25 April 2022, the landlord wrote a letter to the resident informing her that the annual gas safety check and service inspection was due. It informed the resident that an appointment was booked for 9 May 2022 and that her tenancy agreement required that she allowed access to her home for inspections to be carried out. It noted in its letter that failure to allow access could result in legal action being taken against the resident.
  3. The landlord sent the resident another letter on 10 May 2022, reminding her of her obligations to allow access and rebooked the annual check for 19 May 2022. This was subsequently rescheduled for 25 May 2022 . The landlord reported that it attempted to access the property on 9 May and 25 May 2022 but it was not able to access the property.
  4. It subsequently emailed the resident on 31 May 2022 stating that it had tried to contact her, but her number was unavailable. It stated that its contractors had made several attempts to arrange an appointment, but the resident had failed to allow access. It reminded the resident that failure to allow access was a breach of her tenancy agreement and if she did not make an appointment for the annual check, it would start legal action and she would be charged for any legal costs. It provided phone numbers where it could be contacted to arrange an appointment.
  5. On 31 May 2022, the resident asked the landlord to log a formal complaint. She said she was unhappy with the threatening tone used in the landlord’s email of 31 May 2022 and the landlord telling her it would start legal action if she did not make an appointment was also very dictatorial and unnecessary.
  6. A new appointment for the gas safety check was fixed for 8 June 2022. However, the landlord was unable to attend. This appointment was then rebooked  for 13 June 2022. The landlord attended on 13 June 2022 and successfully completed the safety check.
  7. The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint on 27 July 2022, the resident contacted this Service on 19 September 2022 informing us that she had not received a response to her complaint. This Service wrote to the landlord on 9 December 2022 asking it to respond to the resident’s complaint. The landlord provided a stage 1 response on 5 January 2023 stating the following. In summary:
    1. It acknowledged that the resident had made many attempts to log her complaint, and she was promised call backs in relation to her complaint which did not happen. The landlord explained that in June 2022 it experienced a cyber security incident which meant the residents complaint was not logged.
    2. That its contractors attended the property on 9 May 2022 and 25 May 2022, but they could not gain access to the property, its contractors attempted to call the resident whilst at the property and pictures of the attendance were taken and a card was left at the property.
    3. That the communication the resident received in relation to the gas safety check, was not intended to cause her distress. It explained that it had to conform to strict gas safety regulations to ensure the safety of its residents.
    4. It apologised for the distress and inconvenience it caused the resident, upheld the complaint, and offered £200 as compensation.
  8. The resident requested for her complaint to be escalated to stage 2 on 23 January 2023. She stated in summary, that the landlord did not attend the property on 9 May 2022, 25 May 2022, and 8 June 2022. That she would like to be compensated for the no show appointments and the time spent trying to resolve her complaint.
  9. This Service wrote to the landlord on 2 March 2023, asking it to respond to the resident’s complaint by 27 March 2023. The landlord provided a stage 2 response on 20 March 2023. In summary it stated as follows:
    1. It apologised for the delay in raising and responding to the resident’s formal complaint and stated that the £200 offered at stage 1 was in line with its compensation policy.
    2. That its contractors attended the resident’s property on 9 and 25 May 2022 but were unable to gain access. A new appointment was booked for 8 June 2022, but the engineer did not attend, so this was a missed appointment. It apologised for the missed appointment on 8 June 2022 and offered £15.
    3. It revised its compensation to £315 and broke it down as follows; £250 as discretionary compensation in recognition of the service failures it identified, £15 for the missed appointment and £50 for not responding within its published timeframe.
  10. The resident contacted this Service and asked us to investigate her complaint, she was unhappy with the length of time the landlord took to resolve her complaint and felt a compensation of £500 would be a fair amount.

Scope of the investigation

  1. The resident has stated that she would like the landlord to reimburse her for lost wages while she waited at home for contractors to attend the property. In general, we would not propose a remedy of compensation to reimburse a resident for their time off work, loss of wages or loss of employment whilst repairs are carried out.
  2. Whilst such works will inevitably cause some inconvenience to residents, their occupancy agreement will require them to give access for repairs to be carried out as needed, and it would not be fair or reasonable for the Ombudsman to order a landlord to pay a resident reimbursement for loss of earnings for routine appointments. However, there may be circumstances when the Ombudsman decides that it is appropriate to make an order that a landlord pays compensation in recognition of the inconvenience caused, for example where repairs appointments are repeatedly missed or fail to resolve the repair issue.

Assessment and findings

Handling of the annual gas safety inspection at the resident’s property and its communication

  1. Section 36 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, places two main duties on landlords: To ensure that gas appliances/ flues and installation pipework are maintained in a safe condition and an annual gas safety check is carried out on relevant gas appliances and their flues. Also, the landlords gas safety management policy in summary, states:
    1. It will ensure that a gas safety check is completed at intervals of no longer than 12 months from installation or the previous check aiming for a 100% compliance rate.
    2. Where tenants fail to cooperate with us to allow necessary access to their accommodation, we will use all legal devices and services at our disposal to gain access to complete required servicing and inspection.
  2. In line with this the landlord wrote to the resident on 25 April 2022, 10 May 2022 and 31 May 2022 informing her that the annual health safety check and service inspection was due. In all its communications regarding the safety check, it reminded the resident of its legal duty to complete the gas safety checks and the resident’s responsibility under her tenancy to allow access to her home for these checks to be completed.
  3. The landlord reported that it attended the property on 9 and 25 May 2022. However, the resident disputes that the landlord attended the property on either of these dates. The resident was dissatisfied with the landlord’s communication of 31 May 2022 and reported that she felt threatened by it stating that it would start legal action against her if she did not allow access. The landlord has a legal duty to conduct yearly gas safety checks and would have been in breach of its legal obligation if it was not able to complete the check when it was due. As the current certificate was due to expire on 13 June 2022 it was appropriate for the landlord to seek to complete the checks before the certificate expired.
  4. The landlord needed to ensure it acted in line with its legal obligations by completing the inspection and was reasonable in reminding the resident of her responsibility to allow access. Even though it was both reasonable and appropriate for the landlord to send the reminder, It apologised to the resident in its stage 1 response for any distress the letter caused her.
  5. It explained in its stage 2 response that it did not attend on 8 June 2022 and offered the resident £15 compensation in line with its missed appointment policy. This Service considers the compensation to be reasonable redress for the one missed appointment. This Service finds that in relation to this complaint, there was no service failure in the landlord’s communication and there was reasonable redress for the gas safety checks appointment.

Complaint handling

  1. Due to a cyber-attack, the landlord had an interim complaints policy which was effective from June 2022. The complaint policy stated that new complaints received after 17 June 2022 would be responded to within 20 working days at stage 1 and 40 working days at stage 2.
  2. The resident requested for her initial complaint to be logged via email on 31 May 2022, and again on 9 June 2022. The landlord did not respond to the resident’s complaint until 5 January 2023 following an intervention from this Service on 9 December 2022. The landlord failed to log the resident’s initial complaint made on 31 May 2022 and there was a delay of more than 6 months in the landlord’s stage 1 response. This was not in line with the landlord’s complaints policy or this Service Complaint Handling Code. This was a failing by the landlord and it would have caused distress and inconvenience to the resident.
  3. The resident then requested that her complaint to be escalated to stage 2 of the landlord’s process on 23 January 2023, again the landlord did not respond until this Service intervened on 2 March 2023 asking it to respond by 27 March 2023. The landlord responded on 20 March 2023. This was within the 40 working days timeframe set out in its interim complaints policy. It apologised and increased its compensation offer to £300, which it broke down as £250 for time taken to resolve the complaint and £50 for issuing the stage 2 response outside its timeframe.
  4. This Service would have made a finding of maladministration for the identified failures regarding the logging of the resident’s complaint and the significant delay in responding to the complaint. However, the landlord has identified and acknowledged its failings prior to the Ombudsman’s formal investigation and has made an offer of compensation that puts things right. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance suggests that compensation between £100 – £600 should be considered where there is a failure that adversely affected the resident. The landlord therefore made an offer of £300 which was in accordance with this Service’s guidance and in the Ombudsman’s opinion, proportionately reflected the level of detriment. The landlord’s offer of redress was satisfactory in putting matters right.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, resolves the complaint regarding the handling of the annual gas safety inspection and its communication satisfactorily.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, resolves the landlord’s handling of the complaint satisfactorily.

Recommendations

  1. This Service recommends that the landlord pays the £315 compensation offered in its complaint response if it has not done so already. The findings of reasonable redress above are dependent on the landlord paying the resident the £315 compensation it offered in its final response.