Catalyst Housing Limited (202013380)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202013380

Catalyst Housing Limited

28 February 2022

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

The complaint is regarding:
1. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of defects, including the level of compensation offered.
2. The landlord’s proposal to offset a compensation award against the resident’s service charge/rent account.
This Service has also considered how the landlord responded to the resident’s complaint.

Background and summary of events

Background

The resident is a shared owner of the property, which is a ground floor, new build flat. The landlord, a housing association, is the freeholder. The resident has lived at the property since 2020.
Having purchased a new build property, the resident benefits from a two-year defects insurance period. All the repair issues reported by the resident fall within this period, which is yet to expire.
The landlord operates a two-stage complaints procedure and advises that it aims to provide a response at each stage within 10 working days.
Within his complaint, the resident has stated that damp, and stress brought on by the delays to repairs have impacted on his health. It is beyond the expertise of this Service to determine whether there is any direct link between any disrepair issues and reported health conditions. The resident may therefore wish to seek independent advice on making a personal injury claim if he considers his health has been affected by any action or lack thereof by the landlord.

Summary of Events

The resident completed the purchase of a share of the property on 3 April 2020. A few days after moving in, he reported several issues with the property, including damp and a leak from his shower
On 11 July 2020, the resident emailed the landlord to log a complaint regarding the build quality of his new home. While he noted that there was ‘too much to list’ in his complaint, he raised the following issues in particular:
1. The ground floor flats on the development, including his own, were affected by damp and damp patches in ‘the hallway walls’, and these had been painted over rather than treated properly.
2. Having arranged his own snag report, the landlord had delayed in attending to the identified issues, despite the fact that tradesmen were, as of June 2020, allowed to resume work following the initial coronavirus related nationwide lockdown.
3. He expected to be compensated for the ‘stress and grief’ he had experienced, as well as the time and trouble caused by calling and emailing the landlord regarding the defects, as well as missing work.
4. He also expected to be compensated around £5000 due to the fact that the value of the flats on the estate had apparently dropped by that amount since he purchased a share of his property.
The landlord replied to the resident on 14 July 2020, noting it was ‘responding to your complaint’ of 11 July. In its response, the landlord advised that:
1. It had been unable to complete a home demonstration and three week visit due to the coronavirus lockdown and restrictions on home visits. It stated that he had been advised of this prior to completing his purchase in March 2020 and that he had been provided with a ‘virtual’ aftercare service. It also stated that it had been ‘upfront’ with the resident about the fact that the developer had only been dealing with ‘essential or emergency defects’.
2. It acknowledged that the situation was ‘frustrating and upsetting’ for the resident and stated that it would normally expect defects to be resolved within a month of being reported. It ‘sincerely apologised’ that this was not the case.
3. Regarding the reported damp in the property, it would take damp meter readings ‘once restrictions have been lifted’ and would then address the matter. It also stated it had advised him that this would be the case ‘since the day you reported these issues’.
4. It would meet with him, and the developer, on a ‘mutually convenient day’ to review the resident’s snags list. It would also seek to carry out the damp meter readings the same day.
5. It had passed his sales related complaints to its Area Sales Manager who would respond separately.
6. It offered a further apology but advised that now the developer was ‘completing routine defects, we can assure you that (the outstanding issues) would be resolved within reasonable given timeframes’.
The resident responded the following day and advised that he believed the landlord had ‘brushed over’ some of the concerns he raised, including regarding its poor communication and his own wellbeing and requested that it provide a further response. He also stated it was ‘unacceptable’ that neighbouring, empty, flats were being worked on while his reported issues were not being resolved.
The landlord replied to the resident on 16 July 2020 and, within its response, noted the following:
1. It had discussed the damp issue with him and agreed that ‘no remedial works were to be undertaken before it was inspected’. It noted that an inspection had now been booked for 27 July 2020.
2. The property had been ‘snagged’ by both the developer and the landlord’s Clerk of Works. It advised it would discuss this with him on 27 July.
3. It reiterated that the developer was only completing ‘essential works’ during the coronavirus lockdown but that working in empty properties was permissible due to them being vacant.
4. It referred to repeat visits and acknowledged that it had attended four times to ‘rectify the front door issue’, although it noted that one visit was aborted due to the resident not allowing the fitting of a fire strip. It also acknowledged that three visits had taken place regarding a communal door.
5. It believed that communication between it and the developer had been good.
6. Regarding the resident’s complaint of having to make ‘constant phone calls (and) emails’, as well as missing work, it stated it had been in regular contact with him to book in works and update him but also noted that the resident called it on a ‘regular basis’. It suggested that, once works were agreed, it ‘could send one email or agree one call’ to provide an update each week if that was preferable to the resident.
7. It also stressed that it ‘did care’ about the resident’s wellbeing and was ‘working behind the scenes’ to rectify the issues raised, which included setting up the meeting on 27 July. It also again advised that the concerns raised regarding sales and compensation would be responded to separately.
On 18 September 2020, landlord records show that the resident contacted it again and requested to speak to an executive member of staff as he wished to make a further complaint. The landlord’s notes of the call indicate it advised the resident he should raise any issues via its complaints procedure, but he advised he had already submitted a complaint and a response was outstanding. The landlord sent a further response the same day to acknowledge his complaint, while it also advised him that his previous complaint from July 2020, had not been ‘initially recorded as a formal complaint because (his concerns) were being managed through the defects process’.
The landlord issued its Stage One complaint response on 2 October 2020. It advised it understood the resident’s complaint to be about the way in which his reported defects – and in particular a damp issue – had been responded to, and poor communications from the landlord. Within its response, the landlord:
1. Noted some of the items picked up on his snag report were cosmetic and would be deemed ‘compliant in terms of standards prior to completion’. However, it acknowledged ‘there are some items…that are not acceptable’.
2. Acknowledged that ‘there have clearly been issues with getting defects resolved in a timely matter’, but stated that the delays had ‘previously been explained’ and that, additionally, ‘the added complications of Covid-19’ caused issues with getting operatives to the property.
3. Stated it understood the damp issue to be the main area of concern. It advised it had raised an order with its contractor on 29 April 2020 to investigate, however ‘due to delays it was not possible to investigate and therefore you were advised to air the property and wipe down the mould’. It described this as ‘standard advice’ for a general mould issue and noted it had not been able to access the resident’s property to investigate until July 2020. The landlord stated that damp was ‘a complicated issue’ but that ‘all of the assumptions that have been made to date are understandable’, although it acknowledged the resident would be frustrated that it had yet to identify the cause or find a resolution.
4. Noted that it had appointed an independent damp consultant to assess the issue and that, while there had been a delay in obtaining their report, it had reviewed the findings that day. It advised that the main area of concern were the external walls in the two bedrooms and that it had been recommended to ‘remove plasterboard in these areas to check for additional mould growth and then target dry these areas’. It stated there were ‘no other concerns’ identified in the report, and that as ‘the slab is dry and the construction is sound’, it believed that the damp the resident reported was ‘related to saturated blockwork during construction that is drying out’. It advised that it was confident its contractors would be able to remedy ‘this inconvenience’.
5. Acknowledged that the resident had had four dehumidifiers running ‘that have failed to suitably dry out the property’ but that they had been provided as a ‘temporary / preventative’ measure to prevent the issue from worsening. It acknowledged that the dehumidifiers caused additional heat and noise and it apologised for the inconvenience.
6. Regarding the reported poor communication, the landlord advised it was aware of one incident where ‘the wrong tradespeople attended’ the property but was not able to identify any further instances. It also advised that it considered its response to the resident’s previous complaint in July 2020 to be ‘polite and factual although (it) could have provided more detail in terms of a response’. It noted that, in its previous response, it had offered to provide the resident with a weekly update and now also offered to provide a particular member of staff as a main point of contact for further communications.
7. It noted the resident’s request for a significant amount of money as compensation, specifically related to him being notified of a price reduction for other properties on the estate after he had completed. The landlord noted that the resident was correct that he ‘should not have been notified of this’ and acknowledged that this was ‘an error on our part’. However, it went on to clarify that it could not award compensation for this as, ‘due to the nature of property sales…the price that one person pays compared to another could always be different’. It noted that it sold its Shared Ownership properties in accordance with Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) reports and that this provides protection for residents, whereby they have not paid more than the property is worth at the point of purchase.
8. Regarding compensation related to the damp issue, the landlord stated it wanted to resolve the issue first and ‘only at the point that this is resolved to the satisfactions of all of us will (we) then be able to calculate a fair compensation settlement’.
On 2 December 2020, the resident emailed the landlord to chase its compensation offer. The landlord responded and advised it would get back to him with an offer by the end of the week. It contacted the resident two days later and advised him it had now calculated the amount of compensation it would offer him. It offered a total of £650 as a ‘full and final settlement’. This consisted of £500 compensation for the ‘expense of numerous dehumidifiers running constantly since 28 August 2020’ and a further £150 as a goodwill gesture to recognise his ‘inconvenience’, which it noted included his home ‘not being fully habitable’ while it investigated and rectified a leak and the fact he had had to make himself available ‘a number of times’ to allow access so the issue could be investigated. The landlord also apologised for the fact that it had ‘failed to carry out the due repairs in line with our targets’.
The resident responded on 7 December 2020 and declined the landlord’s financial offer, stating that its goodwill gesture of £150 did not adequately reflect the inconvenience he had endured and the time the landlord had taken to complete various works. Within his response he also cited the ‘amount of stress’ the problems had caused and that he had had to take two weeks off work ‘because it was all too much. He also noted he had had to, in total, take more than three days off work to allow access to various trades, as well as asking family members to sit in at home for him ‘at least five times’.
On 22 December 2020, the landlord issued its Stage Two complaint response. It advised that it had completed a review ‘of all the issues which you have raised’ and was ‘pleased to hear that all the oustanding works have now been completed’. It stated that, having reviewed its ‘comprehensive’ Stage One response, it accepted that the resident had ‘received a poor service’ and it offered a further apology for the inconvenience he had been caused. The landlord further advsied that it had revised its compensation offer to £1,500 in light of the ‘increased electricify cost incurred in relation to the running of the…dehumidifiers, the time required for you to be present during the rectification works, and the increase in water usage’. It advised this was its final response and advised the resident on how to escalate his complaint to this Service if he remained unhappy.
The resident contacted the landlord again on 19 January 2021 to chase a £200 payment he had been advised would be paid towards the cost of running the dehumidifiers. Internal landlord correspondence from the same day enquired if the payment could be made to him directly despite the fact the compensation he had been awarded ‘is being taken off his (service charge) account due to his arrears’. Further internal correspondence seen, along with landlord records, show that the £1500 compensation payment was not made until March 2021, although this was then paid to him directly, rather than being offset against any arrears.
On 4 February 2021, the resident contacted this Service to escalate his complaint. He advised he had accepted the landlord’s offer of compensation but remained unhappy with it as he had calculated his expenses to be in the region of £6,500. He stated that his desired outcome was for the landlord ‘to meet him half way’ and offer compensation of £3,250. During the course of this investigation, the resident has also submitted further information to this Service which indicates that concerns regarding condensation within his property, particularly in one of the bedrooms, remain and are still being investigated by the landlord.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of defects, including the level of compensation offered

During the defect period, residents are reliant on their landlord to raise and pursue any identified issues with the developer. Landlords must therefore ensure there is effective communications between all parties and landlords need to be clear with residents at the beginning of the lease as to how they will respond both during the defects period and once this had expired.
In this case, it is understandable that, as this was a new build property, the resident would have expected any snagging issues that arose to be relatively minor and thus able to be quickly resolved. However, it is also often the case that issues cannot always be reasonably identified until after an occupancy has started, and this can be very frustrating for a resident.
The resident moved into the property on 7 April 2020. On the same day he emailed the landlord to advise that his shower screen ‘had not been finished properly’ and water did not flush away from the shower properly. He also reported that the plugs in his kitchen sink had been corroded.
Landlord records show that a defects list had been compiled with the resident from 6 April 2020 onwards and works continued to be added to the list over the coming months. While this investigation will not exhaustively list every defect noted, issues identified in April 2020 included:
1. All windows dirty, inside and out.
2. ‘Shower screen leaks, not sealed properly, doesn’t sit flush to shower tray, puddling on floor’.
3. Kitchen sink & plug insert stained.
4. Ground level too high against airbricks.
5. Mould/damp issues in various rooms.
Updates made to the landlord’s defect spreadsheet show that, while the landlord initially responded promptly and raised relevant orders within a few weeks, of the works listed above, all were then subject to significant delays:
1. The reported issue with the resident’s windows, which included dirty frames, was not resolved until 2 September 2020.
2. An issue with the leaking shower screen was raised on 7 April 2020 and though initially marked as complete on 11 May 2020, the matter was not resolved, and the landlord ultimately identified that the shower profile was not initially fitted correctly. The repair was completed by the landlord’s contractor, along with required follow-on tiling, on 14 December 2020.
3. The reported issue with a stained kitchen sink was first attended to on 2 September 2020, some five months after the issue was reported. After the landlord identified that the sink was marked due to tarnish, records show that the matter was only finally resolved on 22 April 2021, over twelve months after the resident initially raised the issue.
4. Regarding the ground level reportedly being too high, the matter was first inspected on 16 June 2020 and resolved on 2 September 2020.
5. Concerning the damp and mould reported by the resident in several rooms, records show the landlord acknowledged there were ‘issues with damp during the build’ (of the property) and it would ‘make enquiries how it can be resolved once lockdown is lifted’. However, after the resident reported the issue becoming worse in June 2020, further investigations indicated that damp in the kitchen was caused by a leak under a sink and relevant orders were raised in July 2020 to complete redecoration works once the leak had been resolved. The landlord and its contractor returned on several occasions over the coming months, carrying out damp readings and requesting further reports from plumbers, before providing the resident with dehumidifiers for each bedroom in September 2020. A further report from a damp specialist was commissioned in September 2020 and records show the landlord ‘requested a plan of action from (contractor) on 14 October 2020 and a further damp survey was confirmed for 11 November 2020. Records show dehumidifiers were collected in November and, according to landlord records, the matter was resolved in December 2020. The landlord’s contractor agreed to pay a £200 ‘refund’ to the resident regarding the cost of running the dehumidifiers.
The landlord’s spreadsheet also notes that it ‘re-ran’ the snag list on 30 April 2020 and sent it to its contractor for their ‘comments’. It apparently then re-sent the list to its contractor on 10 June 2020 and the landlord noted that some works, particularly in relation to redecoration, were carried out in July and September 2020. The list was not marked as completed until December 2020, when around 25 items were resolved.
Landlord records provided to this investigation show internal correspondence from 14 July 2020 which acknowledged that the resident was ‘unhappy and was going to make a formal complaint’. It acknowledged that, since completing on 3 April 2020, the resident had ‘noted damp issues (due to moisture rising from the slab)’ and that an independent snag list he arranged had found 109 defects in the property. It further noted that its contractor had not been able to attend the property for a home demonstration ‘due to Covid-19’ but that it had been in ‘regular contact with (the resident)…and managed to complete a couple of urgent defects’. The landlord noted that its contractor was ‘now starting to book in routine defects’ and it had arranged for a joint visit with its contractor to take place on 27 July 2020 ‘to complete a damp meter reading and go through (the resident’s) entire snag list to agree what works will be completed’.
The landlord relayed this information to the resident in its initial response to his complaint, which it sent the same day. It acknowledged that defects were ‘normally expected’ to be resolved within a month and apologised that this was not the case but stressed that, since March 2020 (when coronavirus restrictions came into effect) it had offered a ‘virtual’ aftercare service and that the developer had only been able to respond to emergency or essential defects. It advised that now the developer was able to complete ‘routine defects’ it would resolve the issues within ‘reasonable given timeframes’, although it did not provide any guidance on what those timeframes were, or when the resident could expect the outstanding defects to be resolved. It also acknowledged that it would carry out further investigations regarding the damp ‘once restrictions have been lifted’.
In its Stage One complaint response, issued in October 2020, the landlord also referred to the fact that defects had not been ‘resolved in a timely manner’ but that this had been affected by ‘the added complications of Covid-19’. While this Service acknowledged the significant extra challenges faced by landlords, developers and contractors, and the additional pressures on their service caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, it is noted that updated Government guidance issued to social housing residents on 11 May 2020 stated that ‘landlords should (now) be able to carry out routine as well as essential repairs for most households’. This guidance was further updated on 1 June 2020, stating that landlords can ‘now take steps to address wider issues of repairs and safety inspections, provided these are undertaken with public health advice’.
Whilst this Service appreciates that services may have had backlogs as a result of the pandemic and lockdown restrictions, and they may have subsequently needed to prioritise urgent works once restrictions were gradually lifted, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, this does not fully account for the significant delays the resident experienced while awaiting a number of his reported defects to be resolved. While it is appreciated that some of the work was due to be carried out by contractors and the developer, there is no evidence within the landlord’s defects spreadsheet regarding whether it had introduced any specific policies regarding how its services had been altered due to Covid-19 or whether it had put in place any revised procedures regarding home visits and inspections. It was not appropriate that the landlord, in a response sent to the resident in July 2020, advised him it would carry out further investigations into the reported damp ‘once restrictions have been lifted’ as there did not appear to be any reason why the landlord would not have been able to visit the property at this time.
In the Ombudsman’s opinion, there was therefore an avoidable delay in the landlord responding reasonably to the reported damp issue. While it is noted that it can be difficult to identify the cause of damp problems, the notes on the landlord’s defects list indicate that the matter was not thoroughly investigated until September 2020, over six months after the resident raised the issue. It is also noted that the matter was only apparently resolved in December 2020, almost eight months after the resident’s original report. This is not appropriate and amounts to a significant delay which would have caused the resident a considerable amount of inconvenience and distress, as he has relayed to the landlord and this Service in his correspondence. It is also noted that in one of its responses to the resident, the landlord acknowledged that the property was ‘uninhabitable’ for a period and that he had asked to be accommodated in a hotel. This indicates that the landlord accepted this was a serious issue, likely to be affecting the resident to a considerable degree, but in the Ombudsman’s opinion, the landlord’s actions in response to the issue do not reflect this.
Other issues included on the resident’s snag list and reported when he moved in were not resolved until September 2020 (the dirty windows and frames and the ground level air bricks), December 2020 (the shower screen and subsequent refitting of the shower profile) and April 2021 (an issue with a stained kitchen sink). While the dirty windows and stained sink were likely to be less serious issues than the damp and leaking shower, the length of time taken to resolve them was not appropriate and also amounted to significant delays, over a year in the case of the stained and tarnished sink. The landlord has not provided a reasonable explanation as to why these issues took so long to resolve and, from evidence seen by this Service, the resident was caused significant time and trouble in regularly chasing for updates. The landlord’s response to these issues was not reasonable and meant that some defects were still outstanding over a year after the resident had moved into the property.
In terms of the compensation the landlord offered the resident, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, the £150 it offered the resident for the ‘inconvenience’ he had been caused was wholly inadequate and did not reflect the delays he had experienced to date. It was therefore welcome that the landlord reviewed this in its Stage Two complaint response and increased its overall offer to £1500. However, it is not clear how much of this award was related to ‘inconvenience’ caused to the resident, and how much was related to a reimbursement for the cost of running dehumidifiers (previously set at £500). If it is to be assumed that the amount awarded for the dehumidifiers remained the same, while a compensation award of £1000 would be closer to what this Service would expect to see in the circumstances, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, it still falls short of reflecting the significance of the delays in resolving the identified defects and the impact this had on the resident. An Order has therefore been made regarding this at the end of this report.

The landlord’s proposal to offset the compensation award against the resident’s service charge/rent account

In its Stage One complaint response, the landlord advised it would pay the resident compensation but that it would calculate the amount once the damp issue in his property had been resolved. It subsequently made an offer totalling £650 in compensation (£500 towards the cost of running dehumidifiers in the property and £150 as a ‘goodwill gesture’ due to inconvenience caused) before increasing this offer to £1500 in its Stage Two response.
From internal correspondence seen, it is not clear when the landlord first advised the resident that compensation awarded would be offset against any arrears on his service charge/rent account. However, from internal landlord correspondence seen by this investigation, it is clear it does not dispute that this was mentioned to the resident and, when the payment was chased up in March 2021, once it became clear the payment had not been made, staff discussed how it should be paid to the resident. Although it is noted that the landlord then did not process the compensation payment for another two months once the resident had accepted it, its original approach to consider offsetting the compensation award against any existing arrears was not unreasonable. The Ombudsman accepts that landlords will often seek to offset compensation awards against any debt owed and, in this case, the landlord acted in accordance with its stated policies. Its Policy and Procedure on Compensation awards notes that if ‘a customer has arrears of rent and/or service charges…the compensation payment will be credited to the customer’s account except in circumstances where they are required to leave their home’. However, internal correspondence seen by this Service also cites the policy and advised that payments will be made to accounts ‘unless it is reimbursement of an expense incurred by the customer’. It is not clear if this is an error or if this passage is from a different version of the landlord’s procedures.
However, further landlord correspondence indicated that it accepted the compensation awarded regarding the resident’s expense in running dehumidifiers should be paid to him directly and it appears to have used its discretion when deciding to pay the remaining sum to him directly as well. While there was a delay in progressing the payment to him, the landlord otherwise acted reasonably by ultimately making the compensation payment to him directly, rather than offsetting the award against any outstanding arrears.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s complaint

Records show that the resident submitted a complaint to the landlord on 11 July 2020, regarding ground floor flats on the development, including his own, being affected by damp, the landlord’s delay in responding to issues identified in a snag report and a request for compensation due to the ‘stress and grief’ he had experienced and an apparent drop in the asking price of his property.
The landlord replied on 14 July 2020, and it is noted that it advised it was ‘responding to your complaint’. While the landlord did respond promptly to the resident’s complaint, and it sent a further email in response on 16 July 2020, it was not clear whether it was responding as part of its complaints process or whether it was merely responding to the issues he had raised as part of its general service delivery. It is noted that in subsequent correspondence with the resident in September 2020, the landlord acknowledged that his initial complaint had not been recorded as a formal complaint and it had instead provided responses outside of its complaints procedure while it ‘managed (his concerns) through the defects process’. This is not appropriate and meant that the landlord did not deal with the resident’s original complaint in line with its own complaints procedure. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, there was no reason the landlord could not have responded to the concerns the resident raised in his complaint, which did not all relate to defects, while also continuing simultaneously with any necessary works. This meant that the resident was caused detriment by not having his concerns addressed formally and not being given the opportunity to escalate his complaint should he have wished to do so.
However, it was reasonable that the landlord did then open a new complaint reference on 18 September 2020, following subsequent contact from the resident referred to above, and it issued a Stage One response on 2 October 2020, within its stated target time. It was appropriate that the landlord’s response acknowledged it would be ‘frustrating and upsetting’ that the property’s defects had yet to be resolved and it was also appropriate that it offered an apology for this. However, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, when advising the resident that it would ‘assure you that (the outstanding defects) would be resolved within reasonable given timeframes’, the landlord should have provided more detail regarding what those timeframes were, even if circumstances at the time dictated that these would be provisional. As laid out in the Housing Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles, when a landlord advises that it will take action on an issue, clear timeframes are essential, particularly so as to manage expectations. That the landlord provided an ‘assurance’ but not firm details as to when the, already significantly delayed, defects would be addressed was not appropriate and did not treat the resident fairly.
It was also not appropriate that the landlord, having acknowledged that compensation would be due to the resident, advised it would come back to him at a later date ‘once (we) successfully treat the cause of the damp’. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, it would have been good practice for the landlord to offer compensation at the same as issuing its complaint response as this caused an avoidable delay in progressing the complaint through its procedures. There was no reason the landlord could not have come up with an offer it deemed appropriate for the disruption caused to the resident up until the time of its response and it would have been able to revise any offer upwards, or offer further compensation, at a later date if it deemed it appropriate. It was not reasonable of the landlord to effectively leave the complaint open, without giving the resident a clear timeframe for when it would make an offer of compensation.
The landlord’s approach also caused the resident time and trouble in chasing it for its compensation offer, as records show he got in touch again in early December 2020, over two months later, having not received any further correspondence from the landlord regarding compensation. This was, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, an unreasonable delay and meant that the landlord did not progress the complaint through its procedures as it should have done. Once he received the offer of compensation, the resident declined it and requested that his complaint be escalated.
The landlord issued its Stage Two complaint response on 21 December 2020. Although this was slightly outside its stated target of 10 working days to provide a response, this was not a significant delay. It advised that it had ‘completed a review’ of its Stage One complaint letter and noted that having ‘talked this through’ with the resident (this Service has not seen notes relating to this conversation), it was pleased to note that he had advised all outstanding works had now been completed. It was appropriate that the landlord acknowledged the resident had ‘received a poor service from us’ and that it offered a further ‘sincere apology’ for ‘all the inconvenience which this has caused you’. However, the landlord’s overall response was brief and did not provide the resident with any details regarding which areas of service it had accepted were ‘poor’, which this Service would expect to see as part of a comprehensive complaint response.
It was reasonable that the landlord advised it had reviewed the original compensation offer and, having ‘considered the impact this had had on you’ and noting the resident’s increased electricity costs from running ‘numerous’ dehumidifiers and ‘time required for you to be present during the rectification works’, it revised its offer upwards to £1500, which the resident ultimately accepted while advising that he remained unhappy with the amount offered.
However, while it was a positive step that the landlord had reviewed its offer and come up with a figure that better reflected the impact the defects and associated delays had caused the resident, it did not make clear exactly what the compensation was for. Having already offered £500 towards the cost of running the dehumidifiers and a £150 goodwill gesture for ‘inconvenience’, it was not clear if the landlord was now offering £1000 for ‘inconvenience’ or if it had decided to raise both offers. It would have been best practice for the landlord to make clear what its offer specifically related to and how it had reached the figure it was offering. It would also have been helpful if it had made clear how much of the £1500 was a reimbursement of costs, and how much was compensation for inconvenience, time and trouble caused to the resident.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with Paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was:
1. Maladministration regarding the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of defects, including the level of compensation offered.
2. No maladministration regarding the landlord’s proposal to offset the compensation award against the resident’s service charge/rent account.
3. Service failure regarding how the landlord handled the resident’s complaint.

Reasons

There were significant and avoidable delays in resolving the defects that the resident had identified after he moved into the property. While the landlord initially acted promptly, acknowledging the ‘snags’ identified by the resident’s own report, and raising orders within a reasonable time, almost every issue was then left unresolved for a significant length of time. While the landlord fairly advised that, at the time the resident moved into the property it, and the developers, were limited in their availability to carry out visits and inspections due to coronavirus related restrictions, Government issued guidance advised that landlords were able to resume routine and non-essential repair works from May and June 2020 onwards. The coronavirus restrictions therefore do not fully explain the extent of the delays in resolving the defects and there is no evidence of the landlord providing the resident, or this Service, of other reasonable explanations as to why the identified defects remained unresolved for six months or more. The landlord therefore did not respond reasonably to the issues the resident had raised and the significant delays, even regarding defects that were largely cosmetic in nature, caused him distress and inconvenience.
The landlord’s initial offer of compensation did not appropriately recognise the extent of the delayed repairs and the impact these had on the resident. It was welcome that it reviewed its offer at Stage Two of its complaint process, but it should have been clearer regarding how much of its overall award of £1500 was related to the delays and the inconvenience these caused, and how much related to reimbursement regarding the extra cost of running dehumidifiers. By not being providing the resident with more clarity regarding the service failure it had identified, and what exactly it was awarding compensation for, the landlord did not treat the resident fairly and did not act reasonably.
The landlord’s initial proposal to offset the compensation award against arrears on the resident’s service charge/rent account was not unreasonable and was in line with its policies. It was appropriate that it took into consideration the resident’s unhappiness at this proposal and the fact that he had incurred out of pocket costs through running the dehumidifiers and it was acted reasonably when it ultimately make the payment to the resident directly.
While the landlord responded to the resident’s complaint promptly, it did not do so in accordance with its complaint procedures and the resident was ultimately unclear as to whether he had received a formal response, prompting him to take the time and trouble to subsequently contact the landlord again. It was not appropriate that the landlord did not initially treat the resident’s complaint formally and did not issue a formal response at Stage One, complete with advice regarding escalation rights, until September 2020, two months later. It was also not appropriate that, having advised the resident in its response that it was minded to award him compensation, it then advised it would wait until it had resolved some of the defect issues before calculating an offer. This caused an avoidable delay in how it progressed his complaint and left the resident in a form of limbo following its Stage One response, causing him further time and trouble in chasing the landlord for its offer.
While it was positive that the landlord’s Stage Two response concluded that it should revise its compensation award upwards, its response was brief and did not provide further information regarding the review it had undertaken of the complaint and, as above, of the specific service failures it had identified.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

The landlord should, within four weeks of the date of this letter, pay the resident:
1. £2600 in compensation, made up of:
  1. £1500 for the delays in resolving the defects identified in April 2020.
  2. £500 for the inconvenience and distress caused to the resident as a result of this.
  3. The £500 the landlord originally offered as reimbursement for the additional cost of running dehumidifiers.
  4. £100 for the poor handling of his complaint.
The landlord should also write to the resident to apologise for the delays in resolving the defects identified in the snag report. The letter should be sent by someone suitable senior such as a Director or Head of Service and the landlord should provide this Service with a copy of this letter.

Recommendations

The landlord should follow up with the resident regarding concerns raised after the complaint regarding condensation within his property, particularly withing one of the bedrooms. While the issue is still being investigated, the landlord should write to the resident to clarify the current status of its investigations and the steps it is taking to resolve the issue.
The landlord should also review the Housing Ombudsman’s Spotlight Report on Leaseholds, Shared Ownership and New Builds, particularly the recommendations made in the report regarding defects: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Housing-Ombudsman-Spotlight-report-on-leasehold-.pdf