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A2Dominion Housing Group Limited (202400057)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202400057

A2Dominion Housing Group Limited

2 December 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 handling of:
    1. Faults with the resident’s mechanical ventilation system.
    2. The resident’s report of smells from a bathroom drain.
  2. The Ombudsman has also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Jurisdiction

  1. What the Ombudsman can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Scheme. When a complaint is brought to this service, the Ombudsman must consider all the circumstances of the case, as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.

Reports of smells from a bathroom drain

  1. The Scheme states at paragraph 42.a. that the Ombudsman may not investigate a complaint which is received prior to having exhausted a landlord’s complaints procedure.
  2. In her original complaint to the landlord the resident reported that smells had been coming from her bathroom drains for several months. She asked the landlord to investigate and resolve the issue.
  3. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) requires a landlord to “recognise the difference between a service request and a complaint. A service request is a request from a resident to their landlord requiring action to be taken to put something right. Service requests should be recorded, monitored and reviewed regularly. A complaint should be raised when the resident raises dissatisfaction with the response to their service request.”
  4. While this issue was included in the resident’s complaint, it was not itself a complaint issue. Rather, it was service request. In these circumstances, and in line with the Code and paragraph 42.a., this issue has not formed the basis of a complaint to the landlord and will not be considered in this investigation.

Background

  1. The resident has been an assured tenant of the landlord since 2014.
  2. The resident reported to the landlord that she had reoccurring damp and mould in her bathroom on 5 June 2023 and 27 June 2023. The landlord completed a damp and mould inspection on 27 July 2023. This investigation found that the ventilation system was not working wholly as it should have been. The report explained that the property relied on the correct functioning of mechanical ventilation. It stated that inadequate ventilation had caused condensation and mould at the property. The report advised the landlord to appoint an engineer to inspect, test and re-commission the ventilation system. The landlord’s contractor inspected the resident’s ventilation system on 22 November 2023.
  3. The resident complained to the landlord on 18 December 2023 about the ventilation in her property, which she said had not worked for 2-years. The resident said that she had contacted the landlord on several occasions over the last year to report that her flat was hotter than usual. She explained her concerns about the effect of the poor ventilation on her family’s health.
  4. The landlord provided its stage 1 response on 29 January 2024. The landlord apologised for the delay repairing the ventilation system. It advised that the problem was first reported to it in November 2023. Its contractor then attended on 22 November 2023 and identified the works required. The landlord explained that specialist parts were on order from outside the UK to fix the ventilation system with a delivery time of up to 12-weeks. The landlord considered that there was no service failure.
  5. The resident requested escalation of her complaint on 1 February 2024. She disputed the landlord’s explanation about the time it would take to repair the system. She considered that the landlord had more than a year to investigate her concerns and order the parts required.
  6. The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 26 March 2024. It apologised that it took 3-months to repair the system and explained why its specialist nature meant extra time had been needed to obtain the necessary parts. The landlord advised that the delay was not due to a service delivery failure but parts availability. The landlord did not uphold the resident’s complaint.
  7. The resident contacted this Service on 2 April 2024 to request that we investigate her complaint. She said that poor ventilation was impacting her household’s health and wanted the landlord to move her to a suitable property, provide an apology and provide compensation for the distress this issue caused her.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. As part of her complaint, the resident has said that her, and her son’s health have been affected by the poor ventilation and temperature of her property. It is outside of the Ombudsman’s remit to establish whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions or inaction and specific health conditions of the resident’s household.
  2. Matters of liability for damage to health are better suited to a court or liability insurance process to determine. This is in line with paragraph 42.f. of the Scheme, which says the Ombudsman may not consider matters where the Ombudsman considers it quicker, fairer, more reasonable, or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts, other tribunal, or procedure. Because of that this investigation does not consider any specific health impacts.
  3. As was explained above, paragraph 42.a of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not investigate complaints which have not completed the landlord’s internal complaints process, unless there is evidence of a complaint handling failure, and the Ombudsman is satisfied the landlord has not acted within a reasonable timescale.
  4. The resident advised this Service and her landlord that she wants to move to another property as a resolution to her complaint. In addition, the resident explained to this Service that:
    1. The work completed to her ventilation system had not resolved the hot temperatures she experiences in her property.
    2. The landlord had not completed mould washes in all rooms as recommended by its damp and mould inspection.
    3. The landlord had not returned to the property to resolve an issue with there being insufficient gaps under her internal doors.
  5. The above issues and request have not been through the landlord’s internal complaint process. Therefore, this Service will not consider these issues in this investigation. If the resident’s concerns about these issues remains, she has the option of raising them formally with the landlord as complaints. If she remains dissatisfied once the landlord has investigated her complaints, she can then ask the Ombudsman to investigate them.

The landlord’s handling of faults with the resident’s mechanical ventilation system

  1. The evidence shows that the landlord’s inspection of the resident’s home in July 2023 identified that the ventilation system was at least partly not working. It emphasised the importance of the system to the overall condition of the home and recommended that the landlord test and review it. No evidence of the landlord following up on the inspection recommendations has been seen until it inspected again in November 2023, nor is there any evidence explaining the nearly 4 months of inaction.
  2. The landlord stated in its stage 1 complaint response that it was not aware of a ventilation issue until 14 November 2023. It then arranged for its contractor to inspect the ventilation system on 22 November 2023. The landlord’s inspection in July 2023 had identified that the system appeared to not be fully working and recommended action to address it. Accordingly, it is not clear why the landlord was unaware of there being ventilation problems. Because of its lack of understanding of the issue’s history it then failed to identify that it had not followed up on the inspection’s recommendations.
  3. The landlord completed the necessary work on the ventilation system on 6 February 2024, which was nearly 28 weeks after the problem had been identified the previous year. Part of the delay was due to the need to obtain parts, which was outside the landlord’s control. However, given the unexplained lack of action between July and November 2023 the time taken was excessive and unreasonable.
  4. The resident escalated her complaint in early February 2024, several days before the landlord completed the work on the ventilation system. Her grounds centred on her long running frustration with the landlord about the ventilation issue. In response the landlord apologised for the time taken to complete the work, but it still did not show that it appreciated that ventilation problems had been noted at least as long ago as July 2023. It apologised only for the time taken since November 2023.
  5. Overall, there was significant delay in the landlord taking action to resolve problems with the resident’s ventilation system. The delay caused the resident considerable distress, inconvenience and worry about her family’s health. The landlord failed to identify its poor handling in its complaint responses, meaning the resident’s complaint remained unresolved.
  6. The landlord’s complaint handling
  7. The landlord operates a two-stage complaint process.
    1. Stage 1 – The landlord will respond to the complaint within 10-working days of a stage 1 complaint being logged or within 20-working days if agreed with the resident.
    2. Stage 2 – The landlord will respond to the complaint within 20-working days of the complaint being escalated or within 30-working days if agreed with the resident.
  8. The resident complained to the landlord on 18 December 2023. The landlord provided its stage 1 response on 29 January 2024, 27-working days after the complaint. This represented an unreasonable delay against the landlord’s published timescales of 10-working days. The landlord did not contact the resident to agree an extension, as it should have done in accordance with its policy and the Code.
  9. The resident requested escalation of their complaint on 1 February 2024. The landlord provided its stage 2 response on 26 March 2024, 38-working days after the resident requested escalation of their complaint. This represented an unreasonable delay against the landlord’s published timescales of 20-working days. Again, the landlord did not contact the resident to agree an extension.
  10. The landlord did not acknowledge or apologise for the delays in either of its complaint responses. Accordingly, it did not demonstrate that it had identified or learnt from its failings.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of faults with the resident’s mechanical ventilation system.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to do the following within 4 weeks from the date of this report, ensuring that it provides the Ombudsman with evidence of compliance by the same date:
  2. Pay the resident compensation of £550. This is comprised of:
    1. £450 in relation to the service failures identified with its handling of the faults with the resident’s mechanical ventilation system.
    2. £100 in relation to the service failures identified with its complaint handling.
  3. The landlord to provide the resident with an apology in writing for the impact its failures had on her and her household.