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Midland Heart Limited (201916075)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 201916075

Midland Heart Limited

8 March 2021


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 handling of the resident’s concerns about brick dust left at the property following work to the fire alarm in the communal area.

Background and summary of events

  1. On 6 December 2020 the landlord’s contractor carried out work to the fire alarm system in the communal hallway, which involved drilling into walls. On 9 December 2020, the resident telephoned the landlord to advise that the contractor had not cleaned up the brick dust on completion of the work. He submits that the call handler said ‘you don’t pay a service charge so our cleaning company …. would recharge you for any cleaning they would do’.
  2. The resident raised an informal complaint on 13 December 2019, and the landlord said it had arranged for the contractor to clean up the dust. On 8 January 2020, the landlord emailed the resident to let him know that it had advised its contractor that ‘leaving a mess was unacceptable’.
  3. In the resident’s email of 9 January 2020, he informed the landlord that the dust had still not been cleared up and expressed his concern that he would be recharged for the cleaning.
  4. Also on 9 January 2020, the landlord listened to the original call of 9 December 2019 and advised the resident that it was unable to find that he had been told he would have to pay for the cleaning. However, it noted that the call was not to its usual standard and that wrong information had been given to the resident. It confirmed that this was a training issue which would be addressed. It went on to say that it had asked the contractor to clear up the dust.
  5. The resident asked to escalate his complaint but, on 10 January 2020, the landlord declined to do so on the basis that it could not agree that he had been advised he would have to pay for the cleaning. The landlord closed the complaint, without confirming whether the dust had been cleared up and, if so, on what date.
  6. On 20 January 2020, the resident contacted the landlord again to advise that the dust had still not been cleaned up. According to the resident, he received no response to this email.
  7. Following the resident’s contact with the Ombudsman in March 2020, this Service asked him to clarify the status of his complaint and to provide a copy of the complaint correspondence. On 13 July 2020, the Ombudsman received a copy of the landlord’s correspondence of 10 January 2020 (see paragraph 6 above).
  8. Following the Ombudsman’s intervention in August 2020, the landlord re-investigated the complaint and provided a final response to the resident on 11 August 2020. It upheld the complaint and accepted that errors were made when providing advice to him and that when listening to the telephone call on 9 December 2019 it had missed that he was, in fact, advised that he would be recharged. 
  9. The landlord acknowledged that its contractor should have cleaned up the dust and that there was further delay in getting it to do so. It had addressed this with the contractor and the contractor would be monitored in the future. The landlord also stated that it had addressed its failings with its management team and that further training was provided to staff as a result. It apologised and offered £70 compensation (£35 for delays and the contractor’s failure to clean up; £10 for misinformation provided during the telephone call; £15 for providing the wrong outcome after listening again to the telephone call; and £10 for not allowing the complaint to be escalated).
  10. It is understood that the resident then contacted the landlord asking for his complaint to be escalated to the formal review stage (no copy provided to the Ombudsman) and providing photographs showing that the dust had still not been cleaned up. In the landlord’s response of 29 September 2020, it advised that the contractor had now cleaned up the dust and it declined to escalate the complaint.

Assessment and findings

  1. The evidence demonstrates that the landlord recognised at an early stage that the contractor was responsible for clearing up the dust and that there should be no associated recharge to the resident. Where a contractor has carried out works to a communal area resulting in the generation of dust and debris, the Ombudsman would expect the area to be left in a reasonable state of cleanliness as a matter of course. As a result, the landlord’s position on this was appropriate. However, the dispute has arisen around the information that was given to the resident at the time and the delay in the landlord actioning its acknowledgement that the contractor should clean the area.
  2. It is clear that the landlord initially provided the resident with the wrong information (by telling him that he would be recharged for any cleaning) and that this this failure was then exacerbated by it not correctly identifying the telephone call in which the resident was told he would be recharged. Further, refusing to allow the resident to escalate his complaint was an additional failure in service and it then failed to adhere to its assurances that it would monitor the contractor and ensure the necessary cleaning was completed.
  3. When the landlord became aware in July 2020 that the resident remained unhappy with its response, it acted promptly in reviewing the complaint. It upheld the complaint, provided further training to staff, communicated the error to its contractor and stated that it would be monitoring the contactor’s performance.  It has apologised to the resident and offered compensation. This shows that the landlord took the opportunity of the formal complaint procedure to properly review its actions and offer compensation in order to ‘put things right’ and ‘learn from outcomes’, in line with the Ombudsman’s own Dispute Resolution Principles.
  4. However, despite upholding the complaint at this stage, the landlord again failed to make sure the brick dust had been cleaned up. The resident provided photographic evidence that the dust was still there in September 2020, possibly a month after the complaint was upheld. Whilst the landlord’s letter of 29 September 2020 stated that the contractor had now cleaned up the dust, this Service has not been provided with any file note or other evidence to show that this had happened and on what date. There is no evidence that the landlord has checked the area to ensure it has been cleaned or recorded this in order to satisfy the resident (by, for example, taking photographs of the clean area). Given the landlord’s previous assurances that it was dealing with the matter and monitoring its contractor, it is not possible to know if, by the time of this letter, the dust had been cleaned up.  This Service has chased the landlord on more than one occasion for it to provide evidence of the date the dust was cleaned up but has received no response.
  5. The landlord again refused to escalate the resident’s complaint, despite stating that it would learn from its original error in not escalating the first stage of the complaint. This meant that the resident was paid compensation for delays and inconvenience up to 3 August 2020, but not for the month following when it appears the dust was still present. Overall, it took the landlord approximately 10 months from being told of the presence of the dust in December 2019 to, according to the landlord, having it cleaned up.  This was despite assurances in January and August 2020 that this would happen, and that it had spoken to and would monitor its contractor. Given that the landlord did not fulfil the assurances made when it upheld the complaint, it was unreasonable for it to refuse to escalate the complaint to the next stage or to consider some form of additional redress for the further period of delay.
  6. The resident has argued that the compensation is not sufficient as matters took almost a year to complete. There are several months when the resident was corresponding with this Service rather than the landlord and it is not clear if the landlord knew that the resident remained dissatisfied with its response during this period, as it had closed the complaint. However, had the landlord checked to see if the dust had been cleaned up at that time, it would have been aware that the complaint had not been resolved. This was a failure on the landlord’s part to monitor its contractor.
  7. The landlord has provided this Service with a copy of its compensation policy, but this does not give any detail in relation to the amounts of compensation it is likely to award in particular circumstances. In assessing an appropriate level of compensation, this Service takes into account a range of factors including any particular distress and inconvenience caused by the issues, the amount of time and effort expended on pursuing the matter with the landlord and the level of detriment caused by the landlord’s actions. The Ombudsman’s awards are generally moderate, taking into account the landlord’s need to make the most effective use of its limited resources as a social landlord.
  8. The Ombudsman’s own Remedies Guidance states that compensation awards of £50 to £250 may be appropriate for instances of service failure including distress and inconvenience, time and trouble, disappointment, loss of confidence, and delays in getting matters resolved. Awards at the lower end of the scale are generally for matters that were of a short duration. The substantive matter took approximately 10 months to resolve, which would not be classed as a short duration, particularly for a relatively straightforward complaint. The portion of compensation offered to the resident for the delay in cleaning up the dust was £35, which equates to £3.50 per month. This does not adequately address the inconvenience caused by the extensive delay, particularly when previous assurances had not been acted upon.
  9. In addition, the resident was awarded £10 compensation for the landlord’s refusal to escalate the complaint at the first stage. Further compensation is appropriate for its second failure to escalate, in September 2020. Had this been done, the landlord may have been in a position to consider further compensation for the additional delay in cleaning up the dust.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord.

Reasons

  1. The £35 compensation awarded for the 10-month delay in cleaning up the brick dust was insufficient to address the identified failures. The landlord failed to act on previous assurances to improve its services and monitor the contractor. In addition, it refused for a second time to escalate the complaint which meant it did not have the opportunity to consider the effect of further delay on the resident.

Orders

  1. The Ombudsman orders the landlord to pay to the resident £150 compensation, as follows:
    1. £10 per month for the 10–month period it took to clean up the dust (£100). This also takes into account the landlord’s previous assurances to resolve the matter;
    2. The original £10 for misinformation provided during the telephone call;
    3. £15 for providing the wrong outcome after listening again to the telephone call;
    4. A further £25 for refusing to escalate the complaint on two occasions.
  2. If the landlord has already paid the resident the £70 compensation it offered during the complaints process, this sum may be deducted from the above award.

Recommendations

  1. The above compensation award is made on the basis that the dust was cleaned up in September 2020, as per the landlord’s letter of 29 September 2020. If this is not the case, the resident is entitled to raise a new formal complaint in that regard, and the Ombudsman recommends that the landlord respond to, and escalate (as necessary), the complaint in accordance with its complaints process.