A2Dominion Housing Group Limited (202216864)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202216864

A2Dominion Housing Group Limited

29 June 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:
   1. The landlord’s handling of repairs to the communal lift.
   2. The landlord’s subsequent complaint handling.

Background

2. The resident is a leaseholder. The landlord is a housing association. The property is an apartment in a block of flats that is accessed by a lift which is controlled by electronic fobs.
3. From September 2018 to August 2022, the lift in the resident’s building had broken down or stopped working properly multiples times. This was reported by various other tenants in the building.
4. The resident made her complaint on 5 July 2022, and 22 July 2022, raising the following issues:
   1. The lift not working properly had been a recurring issue and had not been fixed when the landlord had promised to address it.
   2. The resident wanted to be compensated for the lift being out of action.
5. The landlord provided its complaints responses on 13 July 2022, and 28 October 2022. It explained the following:
   1. Its records showed the lift had been out of service on numerous occasions in the previous six months but that it had been restored back to service either on the same day or within seven days as per its repairs policy. As such, no compensation would be given as it did not compensate for the loss of use for a lift for less than seven days.
   2. It had been conducting joint site visits and had made several adjustments to the lift. It had identified an intermittent issue affecting the operation of the lift. Its access control company was investigating the issue.
   3. In its final complaints response, it explained that the issues with the lift had proven to be a complex issue and it had been working hard to resolve it. Once it was confident that the lift was operating as expected it would inform residents and review if any compensation could be paid in line with its policy for how long the lift was out of action.
   4. It acknowledged and apologised for the delay in its complaints response and the time taken to resolve the issue and, as such, it upheld the complaint.
   5. As a result of the complaint, it had spoken to its contractor to reinforce the service level it expects from them and the obligation they have in providing a good service to residents.
6. The complaint was accepted with this Service on 5 December 2022. The resident remained dissatisfied that there had been issues with the lift for nearly four years and believes the landlord should compensate for this. She had been unable to have elderly relatives come and visit due to the lift not being in operation. As an outcome of this investigation the resident would like compensation and for the lift to be permanently fixed.
7. Despite this Service requesting further information as to whether a permanent fix for the lift had been made and whether the landlord reconsidered compensation, the landlord has not provided this information as of the date of this report.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

8. The resident has told this Service that the issues with the lift had been happening over the previous four years. Under Paragraph 42(c) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, we may not consider complaints that were not brought to the attention of the landlord as a formal complaint within a reasonable period, which would normally be within six months of the matters arising. Therefore, although the historical incidents of the lift breaking down would provide important contextual background to this report, the Ombudsman cannot assess the full four years of the resident’s complaint. This report will focus on events occurring within a maximum of six months prior to the resident’s complaint, starting from 1 March 2022 until she brought her complaint to this Service on 5 December 2022.

Assessment

9. As per the resident’s lease agreement the landlord is responsible for maintaining all communal areas of the building including the lifts. As per the landlord’s responsive repairs policy an urgent repair will be attended to within twenty-four hours. From the evidence provided the landlord treated this repair as urgent, and attempted to respond within its twenty-four-hour timescale.
10. From 1 March 2022 until 23 August 2022, various residents reported that the lift was not functioning. The landlord attended at least ten times within the five-month period. On the majority of occasions, the landlord acted appropriately by attending within its urgent policy timeframe. However, on 5 July 2022, the landlord’s evidence states that the lift was out of order for over a week before it was attended to. This was outside of the landlord’s timescale stated above, and left the residents without a functioning lift for over a week.
11. Additionally, the amount of times the landlord had to attend within five months was excessive. Under the landlord’s lease agreement, it is obligated to provide a functioning, well maintained lift for its residents. It was not reasonable for it to be required to attend on so many occasions in a five-month period. Despite the landlord attending within the correct timescales, in-line with general good customer service standards, the landlord would be expected to consider a long-term solution to the lift issue. The landlord discussed internally if the system should be changed, but did not reach a conclusion nor make any tangible steps toward changing the lift system. No evidence has been provided to this Service to indicate if the landlord has resolved this ongoing problem, which was evidently ongoing from at least March 2022 until December 2022.
12. A delay is not always considered a failing. However, in line with general good customer service standards, the landlord would be expected to continue to communicate with the resident, and effectively manage their expectations. It would also be expected to have a legitimate reason for the delays in managing the outstanding repair. In this case, the landlord did not do this. While it did assure the resident it would investigate the failures, it failed to provide meaningful updates with the resident and thereby it did not manage the resident’s expectations. There is no evidence to show that the landlord has permanently resolved the issue with the lift. Therefore, the delays in providing a long-lasting solution to the issue with the lift is a failing.
13. In this Service’s complaint handling code (the code) the landlord is expected to identify its mistakes, acknowledge these to the resident, explain how they occurred and to put things right. In the landlord’s complaint responses, the landlord acted appropriately by acknowledging that there had been an ongoing issue with the lift. It apologised for the delay in resolving the issue and explained that to put things right in the interim, it had arranged for increased monthly visits from once a month to twice a month from 10 October 2022.
14. The landlord’s compensation policy states that when the lift is out of order for more than seven consecutive days it will compensate per day thereafter. In the landlord’s complaints response, it explained to the resident that it would not compensate under its compensation policy as the lift had not been out of service for more than seven consecutive days and did not qualify. While the evidence states the lift was out of service for over a week in July 2022 the evidence does not show how many days this refers to, therefore we cannot comment on whether the landlord should have compensated under these stipulations. However, the landlord should have compensated for the impact on the resident for the continuous issues with the lift.
15. In this case, the landlord failed to acknowledge the amount of times the lift was attended to and it did not take any action to permanently resolve the issues with the lift. It also did not take into consideration the time and trouble and inconvenience to the resident nor did it offer any compensation to reflect that. Therefore, a finding of service failure has been found and the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £100 compensation to put these failures right.

Complaint handling

16. The resident raised a formal complaint with the landlord on 5 July 2022. In accordance with the landlord’s complaints policy, the landlord should have provided its stage one response within ten working days of receipt of the resident’s complaint. In this case, the landlord responded on 13 July 2022, six days later, which was within the timeframe of the complaints policy for a stage one complaints response.
17. The resident escalated her complaint with the landlord on 22 July 2022. In accordance with the landlord’s complaints policy, the landlord should have provided its stage two response within twenty-five working days of receipt of the resident’s complaint. However, it did not do so until 28 October 2022, sixty-five working days later and forty-five working days outside of the timescales given in its complaints process.
18. While the landlord did acknowledge, and apologise for, the delay in its stage two complaints response, it did not explain why there was such a delay. The offer of an apology was not proportionate redress for the time and trouble as well as the inconvenience caused to the resident. As a result of this, the unreasonable delay in the landlord providing its stage two response and its partial redress in its apology for how long it had taken to resolve the issue, a finding of service failure has been made and the landlord ordered to pay the resident £100 compensation in order to put this failure right.

Determination

19. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of repairs to the communal lift.
20. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of the subsequent complaint.

Orders

21. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident £200 in compensation and to provide this Service evidence of this within 4 weeks of the date of this report. The amount is broken down as follows:
    1. £50 time and trouble.
    2. £50 for inconvenience.
    3. £100 for complaint handling.
22. The landlord is to provide this Service evidence the lift has been permanently fixed, or if it has not been permanently fixed to provide a plan of action to get it permanently fixed, within 4 weeks of the date of this report.