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Clarion Housing Association Limited (202307014)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202307014

Clarion Housing Association Limited

17 April 2024

 

Our approach

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The Ombudsman must determine whether a complaint comes within their jurisdiction. The Ombudsman seeks to resolve disputes wherever possible but cannot investigate complaints that fall outside of this. 

In deciding whether a complaint falls within their jurisdiction, the Ombudsman will carefully consider all the evidence provided by the parties and the circumstances of the case.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about the housing association’s handling of:
    1. Defect repairs to the resident’s property.
    2. The associated complaint.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

  1. When a complaint is brought to the Ombudsman, we must consider all the circumstances of the case as there are sometimes reasons why a complaint will not be investigated.
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, I have determined that the complaint, as set out above, is not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Summary of events

  1. The resident purchased the property in October 2020 from a subsidiary of the housing association. Therefore, the resident is a freeholder of the property. The property purchased was a detached house.
  2. The resident submitted a complaint to the housing association on 23 January 2022 about the handling of defect repairs and lack of communication.
  3. The housing association provided the resident with a stage one complaint response on 30 November 2022. The housing association acknowledged in its response that there were several service failures, including delays in completing the defect repair, poor communication, and delay in responding to the complaint. It offered the resident £2018 compensation to recognise the service failures.
  1. The resident was dissatisfied with the response and escalated her complaint to stage 2 of the complaints process on 30 November 2022. She expressed she was unhappy with the compensation amount and that there were 3 defect repairs still outstanding. The housing association acknowledged that there were further delays in completing some of the defect repairs and offered the resident additional compensation of £1187.50.
  2. The housing association recognised that there were further delays in it replacing the resident’s letter box and carried out a review of its previous complaint responses and offered her an additional £600 compensation to recognise the failures.
  3. The resident remained dissatisfied with the housing association’s response and submitted her complaint to the Ombudsman.
  4. The housing association provided documents to the service in October 2023, including the resident’s property purchase agreement. The service has also reviewed information on the land registry website. The information shows the resident is a freeholder, and she holds absolute title jointly with another individual. There is no information to show a landlord/tenant relationship existed from the outset of the complaint.

Reasons

  1. Paragraph 25(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme) states the following people can make complaints to the Ombudsman about members: A person who is or has been in a landlord/tenant relationship with a member. This includes people who have a lease, tenancy, licence to occupy, service agreement or other arrangement to occupy premises owned or managed by a member. If the complaint is made by an ex-occupier, they must have had a legal relationship with the member at the time that the matter complained about occurred.
  2. The documents provided to the Service, as stated above, shows that the resident is a joint owner of the property with another individual. Therefore, the complaint is outside the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman, as the resident was a freeholder of the property since October 2020 and, therefore, was not in a landlord/tenant relationship with the housing association at the time of the complaint. 
  3. The Service recognises that this information should have been provided to the resident at the time she referred her complaint to the Service for investigation and apologises that this did not happen.