Midland Heart Limited (202015754)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202015754

Midland Heart Limited

23 December 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of anti-social behaviour (ASB) in 2020.

Background and summary of events

The occupancy agreement was not provided to the Ombudsman. It has not been disputed that the resident and landlord are in a resident and landlord relationship for the purpose of this investigation. It is unclear when the tenancy commenced.
The landlord’s ASB policy sets out the kinds of behaviours which it considers to be ASB, for example, “verbally abusive, threatening or intimidating behaviour”. It also sets out its approach for responding to reports. This includes conducting an initial risk assessment, allocating the ASB report to an officer and then determining the priority of the ASB. The policy also sets out the various actions that the landlord can take to address the ASB. This includes taking reasonable and proportional steps to use legal and non legal intervention, working with other agencies, issuing advisory letters and warnings, arranging acceptable behaviour agreements, carrying out immediate legal intervention, facilitating restorative justice meetings, reviewing and amending risk management and taking enforcement action. The landlord’s approach centres around prevention, early intervention, enforcement and support.
The records and the communication between the resident and landlord contain reference to various kinds of ASB, such as noise from a tumble dryer late at night, parking across access to the drive way, guitar and amplifier, motoring activities (such as revving and fixing cars in the car park) and noise from visitors. The landlord provided details of these reports dating back to 2017 although it is not clear that all of these were subject to a formal complaint.
Regarding the complaint which brought to the Ombudsman, this was raised to the landlord in May 2020 and concluded in July 2020. This was about the landlord’s response to the resident’s request that a member of staff was not to work on the case and also about the landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of ASB (threats) towards him.

Resident’s complaint to the landlord

On 29 May 2020 the resident contacted the landlord about threats made towards him. The resident explained that he did not wish for the member of staff (‘the officer’) who he had complained about in the past to handle the case. The landlord advised the resident that the case had not been allocated to the officer, however, the officer was on duty and she took the case.
The officer then gave “standard advice” and told the resident that he would need to report threats and harassment to the police, before the landlord could re-open the case. The landlord’s records state that an email was sent to the resident to ask for evidence of the threats (4 June 2020) and that the landlord had done “all we can” to support the resident but that this was a neighbour dispute, and unless police took action, it would not uphold the complaint.
On the same day (4 June 2020) the resident’s wife emailed the landlord on behalf of the resident (the communication is referred to as the resident’s in this report).
In the complaint email of 4 June 2020:
1. The resident gave the landlord details of the perpetrators, who were the neighbours. The resident said that the neighbour had threatened to have her partner attack the resident’s husband. It is unclear if the neighbour’s partner is a tenant of the landlord or a visitor of the neighbour.
2. Following some work which the resident’s husband was doing against a fence, the neighbour became angry and said that she would get her partner to beat up the resident’s husband and that he was a “dead man walking”.
3. The resident was unhappy about the landlord’s staffing decision in respect of the complaint management (that the officer which they requested not to handle the case was allocated the case).
4. On 28 May 2020 the resident was threatened twice and telephoned the landlord twice as well as the police. They were told by the police that a pattern was forming with the behaviour as the neighbour would begin a cycle of harassment when her partner visited. The police said it would work with the landlord to “come up with a way of stopping the neighbour due to the fact that the previous warnings have not worked”.
5. The officer related concerns arose following a complaint in November 2019 after the member of staff did not log a new ASB case for him. This was about a comment on Facebook by the neighbour which “contained defamatory comments” and “a punching emoji”. The resident said that the officer said “what do you expect me to do about it?” (resident’s communication to the landlord of 4 June 2020). After the resident complained about the officer in 2019, he requested for her not to be involved in his new reports of ASB in 2020 and was told by the call operator that she was not on duty. However, she was, and she initially picked up the case and did not open a new one due to counter allegations (which he said were false).
6. The resident refused restorative justice as he was scared of the neighbour’s partner.
7. The resident was told by the officer who they complained about and who contacted them about the May 2020 ASB report that she had no knowledge of the complaint against her (contrary to the resolution of 2019 in which the landlord had said she was spoken to, following a complaint about her).
8. The resident also was unhappy that he was “lied to” about the agreement that the officer staff would not be contacting them.
9. The resident referred to police crime references and CCTV footage of ASB which it said was attached to the complaint email.
10. The resident wanted the landlord to deal with:
  1. The issue with the officer and that she did not know about their former complaint.
  2. The resident wanted to know what action the landlord was taking regarding “constant harassment and intimidation” received from the neighbour. The resident said the landlord was not responding to their reports / police report details.
  3. The resident wanted this to be looked into with the previous complaints, so that the landlord could explore the pattern which the police had identified about the neighbour’s behaviour.
On 7 June 2020 the resident’s wife sent the landlord further information about the complaint and comments about counter allegations around April 2019. On 8 June 2020 the resident emailed the landlord and highlighted the lack of contact from the case officer. The resident explained that it was two weeks since he had been abused by the neighbour. The resident also said that he wanted to know which officer would be dealing with the complaint but he had not heard back.
On 17 June 2020 the landlord responded to the resident’s complaint at stage one of the formal investigation stage of the internal complaint process.
1. It acknowledged the resident’s desired outcomes as being an apology from the officer and to know how the landlord would support the resident and his family.
2. A complaint was made in November 2019 about staff conduct (in connection with the handling of the resident’s reports of ASB at the time). This was addressed by one member of staff and then reallocated to another; they dealt with the case and closed it on 25 February (2020).
3. It could not see any agreement/evidence between the resident and itself from previous communication which said that a member of staff would not be handling the resident’s future concerns; it explained that the allocation of staff was based on workload.
4. Following a further incident reported to it on 29 May (2020) the landlord opened a case and booked an appointment for a duty case officer to contact the resident. The resident called the landlord on 1 June about a staffing query and the landlord said it incorrectly advised him about who was on duty.
5. The ASB was categorised as low level ASB when the resident called on 29 May. However, the incident which was reported was targeted behaviour towards the resident and should have been categorised as “high level personal ASB”. The landlord apologised for this.
6. The duty officer made an assessment of the case and previous cases, before contacting the complainants of such cases, and in this case the resident had said that he reported the incident to the police. The landlord said “where the Police are involved and there are counter allegations we allow to the Police to lead the investigation. Once the Police conduct their investigation and gather evidence we can then work alongside the Police to resolve the concerns”.
7. As the resident had made a number of reports about the neighbour, the tenancy manager would be reviewing the case so that they could allocate the case appropriately to a case officer. The landlord said that the resident had been contacted about the next steps on 16 June 2020.
On 18 June 2020 the resident emailed the landlord.
1. He said that he contacted the landlord several times (calls, verbally and emails) requesting that a member of staff not handle his case due to “unprofessional behaviour”.
2. He questioned why no action was taken in response to his formal complaint of November 2019 and explained what this was about (the officer’s conduct following his reports of ASB at the time).
3. He only agreed to close the case of February 2020 because he was told this was a “withdrawal” rather than closure and the resident believed that the landlord would be monitoring the complaint “in the background”. He also raised the lack of clarity about the timescale.
4. The resident queried the landlord’s focus on the staff conduct issue rather than the entirety of its handling of the ASB issue.
5. The resident asked why the landlord had not investigated why the ASB was classed as neighbour dispute/low ASB. He explained that the landlord’s policy state that the report should have been recorded as high ASB.
6. The resident asked why he was pressured into “restorative justice” when his wife had been spat by the neighbour and the other reports of ASB.
7. The resident asked about what counter allegations were against them.
On 24 July 2020 the landlord sent its final response.
1. It upheld the complaint.
2. Regarding the 2019 staff related complaint it said that it investigated this and reallocated the case to someone else but it could not share the actions taken against the officers due to data protection. It said that this was responded to at the time.
3. It acknowledged the resident’s wish not to have his reports of ASB investigated by the officer and explained that it could not provide this assurance due to the way it operated its rota. It apologised for the miscommunication and misunderstanding about this.
4. It considered that it previously sent a closure letter in February 2020 which was unclear as it suggested the case would be picked up again in future; it reminded the team of being clear of the status of cases when sending closure letters.
5. It previously categorised the ASB incorrectly (“low level ASB”). As a result, it said “we have not fully investigated your ASB complaint and we have not used all tools available to us to support you”.
6. It “identified areas for improvement” and would feed this back to the relevant teams and action plan going forward.
7. It explained the reason for its approach of “restorative justice” which it had previously applied and explained that this was where the landlord encouraged the parties to speak with each other to resolve the issues. Furthermore, it said that where this was not possible it offered to facilitate a meeting through the restorative justice service.
8. Due to the service failure, the landlord arranged for a specific member of staff to oversee the case as there could have been further action taken to investigate ASB. The landlord’s staff met with police on two occasions in July 2020.
9. The landlord said that the resident had advised that he could not attend the meeting as he found alternative accommodation; it said it would strongly encourage the resident to engage to find a solution.
In September 2020 the landlord said that resident advised that they were not going to be moving, after exploring this option. In regard to the complaint, the resident had told it that he was happy for this to be closed and would contact the landlord if issues arose again.
Following the resident’s referral to the Ombudsman and the Ombudsman’s contact with the landlord, the landlord stated that the resident did not make further contact with the landlord following the final response (July 2020) until January 2021. Nonetheless, the resident had confirmed his outstanding concerns with the Ombudsman in March 2021:
1. He remained dissatisfied with how the landlord dealt with “ASB, harassment and intimidation” towards them from the neighbours.
2. The resident said that though the landlord upheld the complaint, it had not taken steps to stop the ASB from recurring.
3. The resident said that the landlord’s final response focused on the resident’s move to a different property (which they ultimately did not do) and that it did not put things in place to stop the ASB.
4. The resident also conveyed fresh reports of ASB including threats of violence, confrontation, attempted damage to their car and said that they reported this to the police and landlord but the landlord had not taken action (March 2021).
5. The resident considered that the new issues would not be happening if the landlord did what they said in the final response letter.
6. The resident sought for the good neighbour agreement/injunction.
On 1 June 2021 the resident told the Ombudsman that the landlord had been in contact with the neighbour and he was satisfied with the outcome; he requested to close the case with the Ombudsman.
However, on 8 June 2021 the resident said that the matter was not progressing, and he had not received expected communication so he wanted the Ombudsman to look into the complaint.
In July 2021 the resident emailed the Ombudsman to let it know that he had sent over details of threats he received on Facebook to the landlord. The resident explained that the landlord was not opening new cases for him and provided both a copy of the threat and the landlord’s response. This showed that the neighbour had written that he would “iron out” whoever was “making trouble” for him and his family.
The landlord’s response was that it had not opened up a case for the resident as the incidents were being picked up by officers from the police, and the landlord was confident that action was being taken. It also advised the resident to unfriend the neighbour, so as not to see the threats, and that incidents which the landlord had taken forward had not concerned the resident so it could not see a threat towards the resident. The resident iterated that they had raised concerns about the neighbour in the past and so they were worried about being blamed and about the neighbour’s recent behaviour. He agreed to a discussion on 2 August 2021 with the landlord about it.
In December 2021 the resident explained that the issues were ongoing and there had been a new complaint with the landlord which had not yet concluded. Although the resident said that the matter may be suspended again with the Ombudsman, in all the circumstances of the case, the Ombudsman has considered the elements of the case related to the original complaint that was brought to it.
The scope of this investigation is limited to the time frame relevant to the complaint. This does not include recent events (such as the actions of July 2021) or the historic complaint of 2019.

Assessment and findings

The landlord acknowledged a service failure in the way that it handled the resident’s complaint about the reports of ASB.
There was a failure in the categorisation of the ASB, which it acknowledged. There was also a failure in the advice which it gave early on in the process (that the matter should be referred to the police before it could open the case) which resulted in a delay in its response to the ASB.
It should be noted that the police cannot carry out the landlord’s obligations and may be used as part of a mulit-agency approach when responding to reports of ASB. Furthermore, police investigation and conviction may take time and the landlord would be expected to take reasonable immediate or interim steps to ensure that the resident feels safe and that it responds to any reports of threats (or ASB).
In respect of the staff related complaint, the landlord upheld this and offered an explanation as to why it could not make assurances about who would handle the case. The landlord is entitled to manage its resources accordingly and the resident is entitled to raise new concerns about staff conduct if these should arise.
Although the landlord upheld the complaint, it did not demonstrate that it put things right in line with the dispute resolution principles. It did not provide any redress to the resident in recognition of the distress and inconvenience cause to them by its accepted failures. The landlord acknowledged this in its submission to the Ombudsman Service, however, it has not offered the resident redress. Therefore, there has been service failure and an order for proportionate compensation has been made to put right the landlord’s case handling failures.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in respect of the resident’s complaint about the landlord’s response to his reports of ASB in 2020.

Reasons

Though the landlord accepted a failure it did not offer redress. The current ASB case is ongoing and is not within the scope of this investigation.

Orders and recommendations

Within four weeks of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to pay the resident £150 for the distress and inconvenience caused by its failures in responding to his reports of ASB.