Clarion Housing Association Limited (202215358)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202215358

Clarion Housing Association Limited

23 October 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of:
1. Repairs to the property.
2. The associated formal complaint.

Background

The resident is the secure tenant of the property, which is a flat owned by the landlord.
In February 2022, she reported various repair issues to the landlord including that a flat roof at the front of her property was leaking and causing damp and mould in the hallway of the building. She also listed concerns about rotten doors and windows, cracks in walls and ceilings in her flat and damage to the stairs leading to the property.
The landlord’s contractors came to the property in May and July 2022 but did not enter or inspect the flat roof as scaffolding was required. On 21 June 2022, the resident complained formally to the landlord that the repairs had not been carried out and she had not been given information.
The landlord issued its stage 1 response to the resident’s complaint on 5 September 2022. It said that works had already begun on the repairs which would be completed on 7 and 8 August 2022 (it seems to have meant 7 and 8 September 2022). It accepted that there had been a service failure and awarded the resident £450 in compensation. The resident was unhappy with this response and asked for a stage two review on 6 September 2022.
There were two missed appointments to complete the internal works at the property in September 2022. The internal works were completed in October 2022. The landlord signed off the work to the flat roof which was leaking into the hallway on 21 April 2023. The internal works to remove blown plaster and redecorate remain outstanding.
At stage 2 of the landlord’s complaint’s process, it awarded the resident a further £65 in compensation: £15 for a missed appointment and £50 for additional inconvenience, thus a total of £515. The resident remains dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of the issue and states that the works have not been completed.

Assessment and findings

Scope of Investigation

The resident says that she has been reporting issues of damp and mould in the common parts of the property for some years. There is evidence to support this in the landlord’s files. However, these are historical matters which provide some contextual background to the issues in this case but have not been assessed as part of this investigation. This report has only considered events from approximately a year leading up to the resident’s formal complaint of February 2022. This is because there was a significant gap between her previous reports and the eventual complaint, and the earlier events cannot reasonably be investigated by this Service.
Our position is in accordance with paragraph 42(c) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme which provides that the Ombudsman would not consider matters not raised as a formal complaint with the landlord within a reasonable timescale of the matter occurring.

The landlord’s handling of repairs

The landlord’s repairs policy says that it will carry out repairs to properties “in a timely and efficient manner.” It says that non-emergency internal repairs and repairs to the communal areas of properties must be completed within 28 days.
The Ombudsman expects landlords to carry out repairs within the timeframe set out in their own policies and within a reasonable period in all the circumstances.
The Ombudsman has published guidance for landlords, Spotlight on Damp and Mould. This was published in October 2021, before the events set out in this report so the Ombudsman expects the landlord to have followed it. Among the key recommendations was that landlords should adopt a zero-tolerance approach to damp and mould issues. Damp and mould, therefore, should be treated as matters of priority. In this case, they were not.
The landlord’s repair log indicates that the flat roof at the property was repaired in March 2019 due to issues with damp and mould. The records show that the resident told the landlord in 2021 that the roof was leaking into the hallway at the property. There was then a significant gap before her next contact.
As the landlord stated in its stage 1 response to the formal complaint, the resident notified it of the required works on 18 February 2022. She later complained formally to the landlord about a lack of action on 21 June 2022, four months later. She also referred the issue to the local council’s environmental protection department which wrote to the landlord before it took any action about her concerns. It asked the landlord to respond by 15 July 2022, setting out a timetable for commencement and completion of any works required at the property. It said it would impose an improvement notice on the landlord if there were any significant hazards or defects at the property.
The landlord sent a surveyor to the property on 21 July 2022 who found that there were problems at the property including those set out above. Given the fact that the resident’s concerns included damp and mould, the length of time taken by the landlord before conducting a first inspection was inappropriate. It did not adhere to its own policy and does not meet the Ombudsman’s guidance as stated in the spotlight report.
The landlord confirmed, in its stage 1 decision that the survey had shown the following problems:
1. A roof leak which had damaged ceilings.
2. Cracks in the walls and floors.
3. Rotten soffit boards in the roof.
4. Rattly window frames.
5. Loose and damaged floorboards in several areas.
6. Damaged floor tiles and floor coverings in several rooms.
7. Bath panels and silicone beading in need of repair.
8. Two staircases and a balustrade in need of repair.
9. Rotten door leading to the garden.
10. Broken electric fan in the bathroom.
The above is an indication of both the extent of repairs required at the property and the landlord’s failure to take the resident’s reports seriously up to that time.
There were also failures in communication which contributed to further delay. The resident told the landlord on 5 September 2022 that she would only be at the property on Tuesdays and Thursdays as she worked on other days. Nonetheless, two appointments were set by the landlord and/or their contractors for Wednesdays in September 2022. The resident was not present so the contractors could not access the property to complete the works. The contractors did not then attend on the Thursday when the resident was at home.
The other examples of failure of communication are evidenced by the fact that the resident had to contact the local environmental protection team before the works were done. Furthermore, the emails between the parties show the resident’s bewilderment at a lack of progress with the repairs.
The works to the interior of the resident’s property were completed by 8 October 2022, more than seven months after the original complaint. The works to the flat roof were signed off as complete on 21 April 2023. This was approximately 16 months after the initial notification. As of 8 October 2023, there is no evidence that the damp, mouldy plaster and has been removed from the hallway nor that the redecoration has been completed. The resident says that the works have not been completed.
The landlord suffered a cyber-attack in June 2022. This Service accepts that this attack caused some disruption to the landlord’s functions. However, the resident’s first contact came in February 2022, so the attack does not adequately explain the initial delay in addressing her concerns. At the time the attack occurred, the landlord should have been aware that this was now an urgent issue, involving damp and mould, which had not been addressed for several months. Therefore, this does not excuse further delays in ensuring that the repairs commissioned and completed.
The works were completed outside the landlord’s service standard set out in its policy and were not completed within a reasonable timeframe. On the evidence, these significant delays were the responsibility of the landlord. It also did not provide a schedule of works, nor did it appear to monitor its contractors to ensure that they were working to a timescale, thus there was no clear target for completion of outstanding works.
The landlord paid the resident a total of £515 for failures in this case broken down as follows:
1. £350 for delays in carrying out survey on 21 July 2022.
2. £50 for the late stage 1 complaint response.
3. £50 for the fact that a contractor visited her flat and left a note taped to her door which showed that she was not in and therefore put her at risk of burglary.
4. £15 for a missed visit on 7 September 2022.
5. £50 for distress and inconvenience.
Given the length of the delays in this case, the £350 set out in 21(a) is not adequate compensation according to the landlord’s own compensation policy, which states that it will award £50 per quarter for each of the following:
1. Repeated failures to reply to letters or return phone calls.
2. Failure to meet service standards for actions and responses but where the failure had no significant impact.
The policy also states that the landlord will make awards of between £250 and £700 for a “failure over a considerable period of time to act in accordance with policy. For example, to address repairs.”
There were, conservatively, six quarters since the resident’s initial notification that works were required. The landlord’s policy states, therefore, that it should pay the resident £600 for its failures in communication and in completing the works (£50 for each failure multiplied by six).
Overall, this Service concludes that there was maladministration in the landlord’s actions due to its repeated failure to complete the repairs within a reasonable timescale. It attempted to resolve the matter by its offer of compensation but given the severity of the delay, this Service concludes that its offer was inadequate. Thus, this report has ordered an increased amount in compensation for its failure to comply with its own policy and the Ombudsman’s guidance for over a year and a half.

Complaint handling

The Ombudsman has issued guidance on complaint handling which requires landlords to have an effective complaint process to provide a good service to their residents. An effective complaint process means that landlords can fix problems quickly, learn from their mistakes and build good relationships with residents.
The landlord delayed in responding to the stage one complaint, taking 56 working days to do so rather than the 20 days set out in its own policy. This was a failure on the landlord’s part. It, however, offered the resident £50 in compensation, in recognition of this delay.
In the Ombudsman’s view, this payment appropriately acknowledged the landlord’s failure, in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles which requires landlords to ensure that their resolve matters by being fair, putting things right and learning from the outcomes. In reaching this view, the Ombudsman recognises the impact the cyber–attack incident, of June 2022, on the landlord. It is expected that landlords should have contingency plans in place for such events so that they have alternative means of accessing their records and meeting their responsibilities. In this case, the landlord both acknowledged the delay and made an offer of compensation which this Service considers to be adequate in the circumstances.
The Ombudsman has made no orders for systems improvements about complaint handling because this Service issued a report about the landlord in October 2022, after the events underlying this complaint took place, in which it recommended the landlord revised its complaint handling policy. The landlord has done so.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme), there was maladministration in relation to the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of repairs required at the property.
In accordance with paragraph 53(b) of the Scheme, the landlord has offered the resident reasonable redress for its handling of the associated formal complaint.

Orders

Within six weeks of the date of this report, the landlord should:
1. Write to the resident and apologise for the failures identified in this investigation.
2. Pay the resident the total sum of £1000, including the amount previously offered by the landlord.
3. Contact the resident to arrange a further inspection of the property and provide her with a schedule of works, including repairs to any interior damage due to the damp and mould and redecoration of the affected areas. The schedule must provide timescales for the completion of the outstanding works.
4. Provide evidence to this Service of compliance with all the above orders.