Homes Plus Limited (202212549)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202212549

The Housing Plus Group Limited

16 August 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 internal and external repairs.
   2. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.
   3. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s record keeping.

Scope of investigation

2. The Ombudsman has exercised discretion to consider events nine months prior to the resident raising her formal complaint. Paragraph 42(c) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme states that the Ombudsman may not consider complaints which were not made within a reasonable period after the events arising. This would ordinarily be within six months. Given part of the complaint arises from an issue which the resident was in regular contact with the landlord about since September 2021, consideration had been to paid to events from this point onwards.

Background

3. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. She experienced a leak from above her kitchen in September 2021, which required an access hole being created in the ceiling to fix the leak. The repair appointment to fix the hole was rescheduled on two occasions by the resident and an appointment for 16 November 2021 was unsuccessful as the landlord had not raised the job on its system correctly.
4. The resident reported to the landlord on, 18 November 2021, that her front steps, exterior handrail and fencing required repairs, which the resident referred to as being dangerous. The landlord responded on 2 December 2021 with a stage one complaint response to various repairs. On 21 April 2022, resident contacted the landlord to request a new front door, saying that its inspection had confirmed this. On 8 June 2022, she reported that the front fence and gate had collapsed.
5. The resident raised a complaint with the landlord on 30 June 2022 as she was unhappy that it had not checked electrics in the property, and that the ceiling had yet to be repaired, following the leak. She said that an exterior handrail had yet to be replaced, causing her mother to have a fall. In addition, the resident relayed that she had been told by the landlord’s inspector that her front door was a fire hazard and required replacement.
6. The landlord’s stage one response to the resident, on 27 July 2022, confirmed that it had carried out an electrical check on 11 July 2022 which showed that a new fuse board was required. The landlord also confirmed that it had inspected the property on 12 July 2022 and raised follow-on repairs for the kitchen and hall ceilings. It said external repairs to the handrail, balustrade, steps and gate would be completed by 28 July 2022. It confirmed that it would disconnect and reconnect her cooker when it did the ceiling repairs. The following day, the resident told the landlord that she was unhappy with the standard of the external work completed by the landlord, highlighting that it had unnecessarily installed a new handrail.
7. The complaint was escalated by the landlord and it issued its final response to the resident on 26 August 2022 which partially upheld the complaint. It noted the resident’s dissatisfaction with its repair work and that she was now reluctant to provide it with access to complete the repairs. The landlord offered £200 in decoration vouchers and requested that she provide it with access to complete the repairs. It confirmed that the ceiling repair would be done on 8 and 9 September 2022, when it would disconnect and reconnect her cooker to allow the works to go ahead.
8. The landlord carried out repairs on 8 and 9 September 2022 to the kitchen ceiling but it did not reconnect the resident’s cooker. The landlord contacted the resident on 2 November 2022 and increased its compensation offer to £350, acknowledging that it should not have agreed to reconnect the cooker.
9. The resident informed the Ombudsman on 25 November 2022 that she remained dissatisfied with the landlord’s handling of repairs to her ceiling and it reneging on its agreement to reconnect her cooker. To resolve her complaint, she wanted an increase in compensation and for the landlord to improve its communication.
10. On 26 May 2023, the landlord confirmed to the Ombudsman that it had since increased its offer of compensation to the resident to a total of £950 to resolve the complaint. It also confirmed that it had:
    1. Replaced the door on 3 November 2022.
    2. Replaced the electrical board on 13 December 2022.
    3. Completed external gate and fencing work on 6 September 2022.

Assessment and findings

11. The landlord had an obligation, in accordance with the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, to keep the structure and exterior of the property in good repair; this includes the walls and ceilings. In addition to this, it also had an obligation to keep in repair and proper working order the installations in the property for the supply of electricity. The landlord’s repairs policy confirms its responsibility for maintaining the structure of the property and “elements of the exterior”. Its “my repairs and maintenance” webpage confirms that it is also responsible for external maintenance of the property.
12. The landlord’s “request a repair” webpage states that it will attend emergency repairs within four hours. This also confirms that it will complete routine repairs within 17 days and major repairs, those which will take over a day to complete, will be completed within 60 days.
13. The resident’s complaint encompasses several issues reported to the landlord at different times. They will be discussed separately below.

Ceiling repairs

14. The landlord was aware of the kitchen ceiling repair from 6 September 2021 onwards when its operative recorded, after visiting the property to investigate the resident’s report of a leak, that an access hole needed to be created in the kitchen ceiling, which was bowing from the leak. The access hole was made on 9 September 2021 when the leak repair was completed. However, the repair of the access hole in the ceiling was not completed until 8 September 2022, a year later. This was an excessive delay.
15. The landlord should have completed the repair within 17 days in accordance with the timeframe for a routine repair specified in its webpage above. If the repair amounted to a major repair, which there was no evidence to confirm it was, then it should have completed the repair within 60 days. The repair was completed over a year later.
16. The landlord provided no explanation of why this excessive delay occurred and the resident chased this repair on several occasions between September 2021 and 30 June 2022, when she raised her stage one complaint. During this time, she sought the intervention of her MP, experienced a failed appointment on 16 November 2021, as the job had not been raised correctly by the landlord, and she did not receive clear and consistent advice from the landlord on whether it would be disconnecting and reconnecting her cooker to allow for the repair to be completed.
17. The Ombudsman recognises that repairs may be delayed on occasion, such as when specialist parts or equipment are required. There was no evidence that this was the case here. In any event, when a delay occurs, the landlord would be expected to keep the resident informed of progress and provide regular updates to manage their expectations and minimise any inconvenience caused by the delay. The landlord’s final response to the resident said that there had “been difficulty scheduling the internal works due to [her] availability]; however, there was no evidence of this since her initial rescheduling of two appointments on 2 and 10 November 2021.
18. Further, the landlord’s stage one complaint response on 27 July 2022 confirmed that it would disconnect and then reconnect her cooker when it carried out the ceiling repair. However, contrary to this, it did not reconnect her cooker. In addition to the excessively long delay in completing the repair, the landlord failed to provide consistent and accurate information to the resident. This resulted in distress and inconvenience for her and expenditure of excess time and effort in pursuing the resolution of the repair.

External repairs

19. The resident first reported repairs to her front steps, exterior handrail and fencing to the landlord on 18 November 2021. On 8 June 2022, she reported that her front fence and gate were collapsing, to which the landlord responded that these repairs would be addressed as part of its planned maintenance unless there was a health and safety concern. The resident subsequently raised these issues as part of her complaint on 30 June 2022.
20. There was no evidence that the landlord inspected the reported exterior repairs until 12 July 2022 and work was completed on 28 July 2022. The resident subsequently informed the landlord that she was unhappy with the standard of the exterior work and on 4 August 2022 expressed reluctance to provide further access to the landlord as she was unhappy with the standard of its work.
21. Given that the resident had reported that the front steps, handrail and fencing were “dangerous” on 18 November 2021, there was an unreasonable delay in the landlord addressing the issue, when it eventually inspected the property on 12 July 2022 and raised works. A landlord would be expected to identify and mitigate any hazards present in a property, in accordance with the Housing Act 2004.
22. The landlord confirmed to the Ombudsman that it completed the exterior repairs on 6 September 2022. The delay between 28 July and this date was outside of its control given that the resident was unwilling to provide it with access; a landlord would be reliant on a resident giving it access to a property to fulfil its repairing obligation. Notwithstanding this period, the landlord nevertheless delayed unreasonably between 18 November 2021 and 12 July 2022. This represents a failure to address and remedy a reported hazard, in line with its obligations.

Electrical repair

23. A landlord is reliant on a resident reporting repairs to it before it can act to resolve the issue. There was no evidence of the resident reporting any issue with her electrics during or immediately after the leak; the electrics were not raised as a concern to the landlord until her stage one complaint on 30 June 2022. Before this date there would have been no reason for the landlord to carry out a check outside of its normal periodic electrical safety checks.
24. When the resident raised the issue of the electrics in her stage one complaint on 30 June 2022, the landlord responded within a reasonable time to inspect on 11 July 2022. This was within its timeframe for a routine repair, specified above. This inspection found that a replacement fuse board was required “to bring the circuitry up to standard”. The landlord confirmed to the Ombudsman that this was completed on 13 December 2022. While the landlord confirmed to the resident that the “property [was] entirely safe in the meantime”, this was a period of 110 days, significantly in excess of its specified timeframe of 17 days for a routine repair.
25. There was no evidence of communication from the landlord to the resident to manage her expectations or explain why there was such a delay. As such, there was a communication failure by the landlord and an excessive delay in completing the replacement of the electrical fuse board.

Door replacement

26. The resident first raised the issue of her door requiring replacement on 21 April 2022. She reported that this was found to be necessary during an inspection, although there was no evidence to confirm this. Nevertheless, the landlord acknowledged the resident’s report in both of its complaint responses and contacted her on 6 July 2022 to request more information.
27. There was no evidence of a response from the resident about this; however, the landlord’s complaint responses did not propose any resolution to this issue. It did not confirm or deny that the door required replacement, propose a confirmatory inspection, or confirm when or if the door would be replaced. The landlord would be expected to investigate all issues raised in a resident’s complaint and set out its position on the matter.
28. The landlord confirmed to the Ombudsman that the door was replaced on 3 November 2022. This was after more than four months had elapsed since the resident’s initial request and was in excess of the timeframe specified on its webpage, as mentioned above. In the absence of any evidence of the landlord encountering any difficulty in addressing this repair, or communicated appropriately with the resident to manage her expectations, it can only be assumed that it delayed unreasonably in completing this repair.

Communication about an appointment

29. The resident escalated her complaint on 26 August 2022, citing her dissatisfaction with the landlord not attending an arranged inspection of the property to carry out the external works and the ceiling work. Its final response said that it could not find evidence of a failure in communication as its staff’s and the resident’s accounts of the arrangement of the appointment differed. While the resident asserted that the appointment was to inspect both internal and external work, the landlord relayed that access was not sought to inspect the interior of the property.
30. Given that recollections vary, and there was no contemporaneous evidence such as an email or call log to show what was discussed when the landlord arranged access, it is not possible to determine whether a failure occurred. In the absence of documentary evidence, the landlord responded reasonably in stating that, after speaking to its staff, it could not determine whether a communication failure had occurred. It was reasonable for it to assure the resident that it had taken steps to ensure that its staff communicate clearly with resident to prevent future miscommunication.

Compensation

31. The resident said, in her stage one complaint, that the landlord had damaged her cooker during its repair of her kitchen ceiling on 9 September 2021.This was not addressed in either its stage one or final stage complaint responses.
32. The landlord’s compensation policy states that it may pay compensation when damage to a resident’s possessions results from a failure in its service. It should, therefore, have investigated whether it did in fact cause damage to the resident’s cooker as, in accordance with its policy, it should have considered whether compensation was due to the resident for any damage to her cooker. Where a resident has experienced a quantifiable financial loss resulting from a failure by the landlord, it would be expected to take steps to restore them to their prior position, whether this is by paying compensation or facilitating a claim on its liability insurance.
33. On 6 July 2022, the landlord requested information from the resident on why she considered that it had damaged her cooker and the extent of her mother’s injuries from the reported fall. It recorded that she informed it the damage to the cooker was from it not using dust sheets during the leak repair and the cooker becoming waterlogged by the leak. There was no record of the resident providing information about the fall. There was no further clarification from the landlord in either of its complaints responses about whether it considered that it had caused the damage to the cooker. This was a failure by the landlord to clearly set out its position on the matter.
34. The landlord offered the resident £200 in decoration vouchers in its final complaint response to enable her to decorate after the kitchen ceiling repair had been completed. It subsequently increased its offer to £350 cash compensation after acknowledging that it had not reconnected her cooker, as it stated in its stage one response. The landlord confirmed to the Ombudsman on 26 May 2023 that it had increased its offer of compensation to the resident to £950 to resolve the issues raised in her complaint.
35. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, available to view online, provides for awards of compensation between £600 to £1,000 for instances of failure which had a significant impact on the resident. In light of the multiple delays and failings discussed above, the landlord’s offer of £950 was reasonable to recognise the level of detriment experienced by the resident as a result.
36. However, it was unreasonable that it did not fully recognise the appropriate level of redress to address these failings until significantly after the conclusion of the complaint process. Therefore, this amounts to service failure and the landlord will be ordered to pay the £950 it offered to the resident, if it has not done so already.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

37. The landlord’s “How to make a complaint and provide feedback” webpage confirms that it has a two-stage internal complaints process. At stage one of this, it should provide its formal response to the resident within ten working days; at the final stage it should respond within 20 working days. These timeframes mirror those set out in the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code), which all member landlords are required to adhere to.
38. The Code states that when a complaint response may be delayed, the landlord should explain why to the resident and provide a clear timeframe for when they may expect its response. Any extension taken by the landlord should not exceed ten days without good reason. A landlord also does not need to wait until proposed work to resolve a complaint are complete before issuing a response; it should provide its response once it has sufficient information to answer the complaint.
39. The Code defines a complaint as “an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual resident or group of residents”. A resident should not need to use the word ‘complaint’ for the landlord to recognise that they are making a complaint; it should recognise that a complaint is being made about its provision of service and progress the complaint in accordance with its policy.
40. The resident called the landlord on 18 November 2021 to make a complaint about dangerous front steps, the fence, the exterior handrail and the hole in her kitchen ceiling which had not been repaired after two months. There was no evidence that she had reported the front steps, fence and handrail previously. Therefore, it was reasonable for the landlord not to raise a complaint about these issues as a landlord must be provided an opportunity to address a first report of a repair before considering the matter as a complaint. However, it did provide a stage one complaint response dated 2 December 2021 in response to the complaint raised about ceiling repairs.
41. The resident subsequently raised a further stage one complaint on 30 June 2022 but the landlord did not provide a complaint response to this until 27 July 2022, 19 working days later. Whilst there is evidence of contact with the resident between this period, on 12 July 2022, requesting further time to investigate the complaint, there was no reasoning provided as to why this was needed. A landlord does not need to wait until proposed work to resolve a complaint are complete before issuing a response, it should provide its response once it has sufficient information to answer the complaint. Following this the landlord can then review its response if it believes there is further information to add, or any additional redress due. In this instance the time taken to issue the response, was in excess of the landlord’s specified timeframes. Given the delay the resident had experienced in seeking resolution of her repairs, this delay was likely to have caused her uncertainty and frustration.
42. The landlord’s final response was issued within timescale as the stage two escalation was evidenced as 29 July 2022; the casefile provided by the landlord confirmed email correspondence received from the resident to escalate the complaint on 28 July 2022 at 17:29PM. As the working day had concluded at this time, the Ombudsman accepts that the escalation of the resident’s stage one concerns would be dated as 29 July 2022 and therefore its stage two response dated 26 August 2022 was within the 20 day timescale set in its complaint policy and in line with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code.
43. The landlord’s complaints response at stage two apologised for its late complaint response at stage one, however its final offer of compensation did not include an acknowledgement of a failure in its complaint handling. This, therefore, amounts to service failure and the landlord should pay £50 compensation to the resident in recognition of this.

The landlord’s record keeping.

44. The Ombudsman accepted that a complaint reference was raised on 18 November 2021 following the resident’s reports of various repairs. Therefore, as a result of this, the landlord’s complaint response dated 2 December 2021 was within the 10 working day timescale set within its complaint procedure and in line with the Housing Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code. However this complaint response was not provided in the initial information request.
45. The Ombudsman acknowledges that the provision of the new evidence came as the landlord believed that the focus of the investigation surrounded the concerns raised in June 2022. It is also accepted that given 6 months had passed since the stage one response dated 2 December 2021, it was reasonable for it to open a new stage one complaint for the concerns raised in June 2022, under a new case reference. However, it should be noted that the information request made by the Ombudsman required the provision of all complaint correspondence relating to the leak.
46. Furthermore, it is evident that the resident had been complaining for over 12 months and as the complaint was raised with the Ombudsman in December 2022, the Ombudsman’s information request was clear in stating the landlord needed to provide information relevant to the complaint. This expressly included all responses to the resident’s reports of the leak affecting her property, as well as damages, copies of correspondence sent or received to/from the resident concerning this, copies of correspondence between contractors and the landlord, repair logs, inspection reports and such correspondence. Thus, although the Ombudsman accepts that it may not have been the intention of the landlord to omit this evidence, the request was clear. The delay in the landlord providing this would no doubt have caused further inconvenience to the resident.
47. Taking the above into consideration, the concern of the Ombudsman is that all documentation, contact notes, correspondence, internal emails or call records relating to the landlord’s handling of the complaint were not reasonably provided to the Ombudsman or the landlord’s record keeping is inadequate.
48. The Ombudsman would expect a landlord to keep a robust record of contact and evidence relating to each casefile and provide the correct information. It is vital that landlords keep clear, accurate and easily accessible records to provide an audit trail. In this case, as evidence was omitted which should have been provided earlier, thus an order will be made to the landlord to reflect the findings.

Determination

49. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was:
    1. Service failure by the landlord in its handling of internal and external repairs.
    2. Service failure by the landlord in its handling of the associated complaint.
    3. Service failure in the landlord’s record keeping

Orders

50. Within four weeks, the landlord should:
    1. Pay the resident the £950 compensation it offered her for its handling of the repairs, if it has not done so already.
    2. Pay the resident £50 compensation for its handling of the complaint.
    3. Confirm to the Ombudsman what learning it has taken from the complaint and what steps it will take to ensure that repairs are completed within an appropriate timeframe and residents are advised correctly about what work it can or cannot do.
    4. Confirm to the Ombudsman what steps it will take to ensure that complaints will be handled in accordance with its policy and that customers are kept updated appropriately.
    5. Contact the resident to investigate whether it had caused damage to her cooker and offer compensation or facilitate a liability insurance claim if appropriate.
    6. Confirm to the Ombudsman which repairs have been completed regarding the concerns above and any outstanding works.
    7. Ensure a full casefile is provided to the Ombudsman in case of any future complaints. This would include any contact notes, correspondence, internal email correspondence, surveying reports and call records which are linked not only to the particular complaint but also within a reasonable time period prior to the complaint.
    8. Confirm to this service that it has complied with the above orders.