Sanctuary Housing Association (202303393)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202303393

Sanctuary Housing Association

24 September 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests for soundproofing in her property.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant. The property is a two-bedroom basement flat.
  2. The Ombudsman wrote to the landlord on 16 May 2023, asking it to raise new complaints for the resident about several issues. These were about its handling of ongoing anti-social behaviour (ASB) the resident was experiencing from a neighbour, a repair to the resident’s fence and the resident’s request for soundproofing. The landlord wrote to the resident on 17 May 2023, informing her it had raised two complaints. One regarding the fence and soundproofing, and one regarding the ASB. This investigation focuses on the complaint regarding the fence and soundproofing.
  3. The landlord sent the resident an interim stage 1 complaint response acknowledging her complaint. It also advised that it had spoken to the relevant team about the fence and asked for more information about the repair issues. It followed this up with another interim response on 30 May 2023 and its stage 1 complaint response on 31 May 2023. In this, it offered the resident £75 compensation, consisting of £50 for delays in completing repairs to the fence, and £25 for the time, trouble and inconvenience of these delays. It also confirmed its plans for repairing the fence. In relation to the soundproofing issue, it said that, after speaking with the area housing manager, it would not be implementing any soundproofing. This was due to the building meeting soundproofing regulations at the time it was built.
  4. The resident escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process on 20 June 2023. She said she was happy with the compensation for the fence repairs but felt the soundproofing remained an issue. She mentioned she was woken on 15 June 2023 by noise from her upstairs neighbour. She said the noise was having an effect on her health and wanted a written explanation as to why soundproofing could not be completed.
  5. The landlord provided its stage 2 complaint response on 19 July 2023. It apologised to the resident for not passing on information at the end of May 2023 that it would install noise equipment to determine if soundproofing was required. It said that, after internal discussion, the building met soundproofing regulations and therefore it would not take any further action. It added that it had asked the resident’s housing officer to get in contact with her about the ASB. It also increased its total compensation for the complaint to £125. This consisted of £50 for time and trouble, £50 for its stage 1 complaint handling, £25 for its poor communication.
  6. The resident contacted the Ombudsman on 27 September 2023, asking for us to consider her complaint. She said that the ASB continued and that the noise had not been rectified. She later added that she felt she required either soundproofing or serious intervention from the landlord to resolve the ASB.

Assessment and findings

Scope of this investigation

  1. Paragraph 42(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which ‘are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure’. The landlord separated the resident’s issues into 2 separate complaints. The complaint dealing with the resident’s reports of ASB in May 2023 have not therefore been considered as part of this investigation. However, as part of the stage 2 complaint escalation and subsequent landlord response, there was reference to some ASB incidents. As these were part of the landlord’s stage 2 complaint response, they have been considered as part of this investigation.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests for soundproofing in her property

  1. When the resident first contacted the Ombudsman and mentioned her desire for soundproofing, this was within the context of the wider noise nuisance that she was experiencing. Despite this, the landlord decided when dealing with her complaints to separate these issues into separate cases.
  2. The resident mentioned that she was unhappy with the landlord’s decision not to add soundproofing to her property as she was aware of neighbouring properties which had similar work done. The landlord advised that it would be unable to provide any information on its decision to provide soundproofing to a neighbouring property. The landlord’s response in this instance was fair as it would not be obliged to provide information about a neighbouring property to the resident. However, the landlord could have offered a more detailed explanation to the resident at this point to advise in what scenarios it may, or may not, provide additional soundproofing to a property without divulging personal information about the neighbour in question.
  3. The landlord’s internal communication indicated that it would not be providing soundproofing in the property as it met the required building standards when the property was built. It also said that it would not be considering this as it would be an improvement to the property. This was a reasonable position when considering its legal obligations and it was fair of the landlord to explain this to the resident.
  4. Nevertheless, the resident’s request was to combat the noise nuisance concerns (that dated back to 2017) rather than an attempt to gain a property improvement. The landlord internally noted that it would install noise recording equipment before considering the installation of soundproofing. However, it failed to explain this to the resident, or make the offer of further investigation of the noise nuisance, until mid-July 2023, around 7 weeks later. This delay was unreasonable and meant that the landlord missed out on an opportunity to assess the noise that the resident later said occurred during June 2023. This meant that the landlord did not undertake work at that time to investigate the exact nature of the problem, or to measure if this could potentially reach the level of a statutory noise nuisance.
  5. Whilst the landlord may not be under any legal obligation to install soundproofing, it still should have performed inspections to see what actions it could take to combat the fundamental cause of the resident’s request – the noise nuisance. The landlord’s decision to separate out the complaints the resident made about soundproofing and ASB likely meant that those matters were not considered in combination with each other.
  6. In its submission to the Ombudsman, the landlord said that the reports were not dealt with as a repairs issue but were handled by the Housing Team as reports of nuisance. However, its reason for rejecting this request was based on its stance that this was an improvement request. Even in its final complaint response, the landlord did not provide any firm proposal of when it would install the equipment that it had said was necessary to progress the soundproofing request. This represented a failure in communication from the landlord.
  7. The landlord acknowledged in its submission to the Ombudsman that the resident had vulnerabilities. However, it has not demonstrated that it took these into account when dealing with the soundproofing request. There is no evidence of any risk assessments or special considerations given to how the noise nuisance could affect the resident and whether any discretion should therefore be applied.
  8. The landlord’s handling of the soundproofing request during May to July 2023 was confused and its communications unclear. It failed to properly consider the reasons why the resident said she needed soundproofing and consider what actions (other than soundproofing) it could undertake in order to resolve the impact of noise on the resident. This was despite being aware of the resident’s struggles with the noise.
  9. Through its final complaint response, the landlord apologised for its communications failure, awarded £125 compensation and said its housing officer would be in contact. Although it was appropriate for it to offer redress, the landlord again failed to provide clarity on how it would assess the impact of noise and if, or when, it would install the noise recording equipment that it said was needed before considering soundproofing. This meant that it failed to put things right.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s requests for soundproofing in her property.

Orders

  1. It is ordered that within 4 weeks of the date of this letter, the landlord:
    1. Pays the resident compensation of £250, inclusive of the previous offer of £125 made in its stage 2 complaint response, for the distress and inconvenience caused by the failings in its handling of her requests for soundproofing in her property.
    2. Writes to the resident to:
      1. apologise for the failings identified in this report;
      2. offer to conduct a risk assessment and check what ASB is ongoing;
      3. explain if, or when, it will install noise recording equipment;
      4. advise in what circumstances it may install soundproofing at a property.
  2. The landlord must reply to this Service with evidence of compliance with these orders within the timescale set out above.