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Hyde Housing Association Limited (202204116)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202204116

Hyde Housing Association Limited

10 November 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

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of outstanding repairs to the garden.

Background

  1. The resident, who is an assured tenant, submitted a formal complaint on 20 April 2021. She advised that there was piled refuse, overgrown plants and a broken boundary fence at the back of her garden as a result of works done by a neighbour. She also advised that there were overgrown trees that blocked a communal pathway, which was a potential health and safety hazard should anybody need to use the pathway in case of an emergency.
  2. The landlord provided its stage one complaint response on 13 September 2021, in which it acknowledged there had been delays in providing the repairs. It offered £100 in recognition of the delay in arranging the clearance of the overgrown plants and fence repair and said that the issues had been resolved on 3 August 2021. It also said that one of its agents would be in contact to oversee the clearance of trees from the communal pathway. However, the resident explained that the work was not completed as the fence had not been repaired and the garden had not been cleared.
  3. The landlord provided its final complaint response on 22 October 2021, in which it apologised for not arranging repairs and staying in contact as agreed. The landlord increased the offer of compensation to £175 in recognition of its complaint handling and the resident’s time and trouble in pursuing the complaint. It again reassured the resident that its agent would maintain contact with her in order to oversee the clearance of the garden, fence repair, and clearance of the pathway.
  4. Following this, the resident contacted the landlord once again on 11 April 2022 to advise that the fencing work had not yet been completed and that she had received no contact from the landlord’s agent as promised. The landlord provided a revised final response on 9 August 2022. It confirmed that the repairs were due to take place on 1 and 2 September 2022. It agreed that it had contributed to the delay to the repairs and apologised for taking so long for the repairs to be finalised. It also increased the compensation offer to £300 (£150 for complaints handling, £100 for the delay in arranging repairs and £50 for the time and trouble in pursuing the complaint). It also acknowledged that both its internal and external communication had not been to the required standard.
  5. On 2 September 2022, the resident notified the landlord that the contractors had not arrived and that she had not been informed as to why. The works were rearranged for the beginning of October; however, this was brought forward to 15 and 16 September 2022. The resident advised this Service that she was unhappy with the compensation that had been offered, and had asked to be awarded £600 during the mediation process. Additionally, it is not clear from the information provided to the Ombudsman whether the work remains outstanding.

Assessment and findings

Policies & Procedures

  1. The landlord’s Complaints and Compensation Policy statement advises that “Compensation payments may be offered where: [the landlord has] failed to deliver a service to the advertised standard”.

Scope of Investigation

  1. It was not disputed by the landlord that there had been failures in regard to the landlord investigation into the resident’s complaint. This was reflected in its compensation offer, as part of the compensation award was in recognition of these failures. However, this aspect of the complaint was not brought to this Service as a concern by the resident. Instead, the resident highlighted that her concerns were to do with the outstanding repairs and the landlord’s communication during its handling of the issues. As such, complaint handling has not been included in this investigation as the resident has indicated that she was satisfied with the landlord’s offer for complaint handling failures at that point. However it is noted that the resident continued to be dissatisfied after the landlord’s final response to the complaint because of further delays to the repairs.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of outstanding repairs to the garden

  1. The landlord has accepted that it has made errors in its handling of the garden repairs. It acknowledged its failures in its complaint responses, and apologised as well as increasing its offers of compensation to reflect the further delays which took place. It also provided dates for the work to be completed. With this in mind, it is the purpose of this investigation to determine whether the landlord’s compensation offer was appropriate and proportional to the circumstances of the complaint.
  2. At the point of the landlord’s final response (9 August 2022), the repairs had remained outstanding for just under a year and a half. It should also be noted that following the resident’s initial complaint (20 April 2022), the landlord had identified the works as something that it could “put right [for the resident]” quickly.
  3. From the evidence provided, the landlord attempted to have the works completed within a reasonable time and repeatedly chased its contractor for a quote for the garden repairs. However, the contractor failed to do this within a reasonable timeframe. Whilst the landlord had shown proactiveness in attempting to pursue the quote, it is ultimately responsible for the actions of its contractors and sub-contractors working on its behalf, and therefore must take responsibility for the fact that the contractors failed to provide a quote within a reasonable time.
  4. As well as taking responsibility, the landlord should have investigated why its contractors and sub-contractors were taking such time to survey and provide a quote. Had it done this, it could have potentially found problems with the internal communication processes earlier and potentially have avoided such severe delays. Additionally, as it did not do this, it offered no explanation for the delay and instead simply recognised that there should not have been one. The landlord should have investigated the reason for the delay to give the resident reassurance that the problem had been resolved and would not happen again.
  5. . The landlord is expected to maintain clear lines of communication with its contractors in order to keep the resident regularly updated and informed of all developments regarding her complaint and related repairs. On several occasions, the landlord showed that it had received incorrect information from its contractors regarding the status of the completion of the works. For example, in its stage one complaint response, it advised the resident that the work had been completed on 3 August 2021 when this was not the case. Additionally, the landlord apologised to the resident on 30 May 2022 as it thought that the fencing works had been completed. These mistakes highlight a lack of communication between the landlord and its contractor. The landlord should have also taken the initiative to follow up with the resident to ensure that the works had been completed if it had believed it to be the case.
  6. The landlord failed to keep the resident updated as often as it should have. It advised that it had assigned an agent to oversee the completion of repairs, and assured the resident that the agent would be in contact to facilitate this. The landlord advised this on 22 October 2021. However, according to the evidence provided, the next piece of correspondence from the landlord to the resident was on 30 May 2022, following chasing by the resident. Not only was this a failure by the landlord to follow through with a promise, but the resident should not be required to chase the landlord for responses. This resulted in an unnecessary level of involvement by the resident in managing the repairs. The landlord did acknowledge this, and in its final response awarded £50 in recognition of the time and trouble that the had spent in chasing responses. It also advised that it had asked its senior management to review its internal processes in order to provide better communication to stop these issues from repeating.
  7. Whilst it was appropriate for the landlord to compensate for this and to recognise that processes needed to change, there were further communication issues regarding the handling of the scheduled appointments in September 2022. The resident advised that she had not been informed that operatives were unable to attend on 1 and 2 September 2022. However, the contractor advised the landlord that it had informed the resident of this. The lack of a clear communication process between all parties added to the confusion that caused a failure in managing the resident’s expectations. Additionally, due to the poor communication, it is unclear whether the resident was properly informed of the cancellation or not.
  8. Managing expectations is an important part of the landlord’s service delivery as keeping the resident informed is not only a courtesy, but also a vital part of maintaining the landlord/tenant relationship. Failure to appropriately communicate with the resident to keep her informed of bookings and cancellations can cause the resident to feel a sense of uncertainty regarding the needed repairs. Especially after there had already been a significant delay.
  9. It was appropriate for the landlord to offer compensation for its identified failures. The landlord’s Complaints and Compensation Policy statement advises that “Compensation payments may be offered where: [the landlord has] failed to deliver a service to the advertised standard”. The overall offer of compensation of £300 was reasonable at the time of its final response, taking into account that the landlord had taken responsibility for the failures, apologised, and implemented policy changes in response to the issues identified in the complaint. This is supported by this Service’s remedies guidance (published on our website) which suggests that payments of £100 to £600 may be reasonable for circumstances in which “there was a failure which adversely affected the resident” but where there was “no permanent impact”.
  10. However, the delay to repairs did not end at the landlord’s final response to the complaint. As noted, there were further delays and postponed appointments after this date. As such, it would be appropriate for the landlord to compensate up until the date of the scheduled repairs (15 and 16 September 2022) or until the date when the repairs are completed if they were not completed by 16 September 2022. In line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, as set out above, the landlord should pay a further £300 compensation for delays to the garden repairs, bringing the total compensation to £600 including the earlier landlord’s offer of £300.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its response to the resident’s reports of outstanding repairs to the garden.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident further compensation of £300 in recognition of the delays and communication failings in handling the garden repairs. This is in addition to the compensation offered by the landlord previously through its complaints process. The compensation is to be paid within four weeks of the date of this investigation.

Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that if the work was not completed on the dates given (15 and 16 September 2022), the landlord should consider an offer of compensation in recognition of the further delays.