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Optima Community Association (201905768)

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REPORT­

COMPLAINT 201905768

Optima Community Association

29 January 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 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 concerns the landlord’s responses to the resident’s complaints about the quality and management of the estate car park and parking facilities.

Jurisdiction

  1. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (The Scheme). 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.

Timescales

  1. The landlord’s records show that it was first contacted by the resident’s mother regarding problems with car parking in August 2017. However, a complaint was not raised until September 2019.
  2. This Service encourages residents to raise complaints with their landlords in a timely manner, so that the landlord has a reasonable opportunity to consider the issues whilst they are still ‘live’, and whilst the evidence is available to reach an informed conclusion on the events which occurred. As the substantive issues become historical, it is increasingly difficult for either the landlord, or an independent body such as the Ombudsman, to conduct an effective review of the actions taken to address those issues.
  3. This is in accordance with paragraph 39(e) of the Scheme, which states that the Ombudsman will not consider complaints that were not brought to the attention of the landlord as a formal complaint within a reasonable period, which would normally be within six months of the matters arising. In view of the time periods involved in this case, taking into account the availability and reliability of evidence, this investigation does not consider any specific events prior to 2019. The historical issues provide contextual background to the current complaint, but the assessment is focused on the landlord’s actions in responding to the more recent events and, specifically, to the formal complaint made in September 2019.

Background and summary of events

  1. The resident is a shared owner of the property with the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is three-bedroom end-terrace house. In moving into the property in May 2015, the resident filled out a customer profile form for the landlord. The resident’s mother has represented him in correspondence with both the landlord and this Service. They are collectively referred to as ‘the residents’ in this report, except where a specific distinction is necessary for clarity.
  2. The landlord’s records show that it first received a report from the residents on 11 August 2017 relating to a dispute with a neighbour over a parking space. The residents continued to correspond with the landlord and raised further issues regarding how neighbours were using the parking facilities, broken glass in the car park, damage to the car park gates, and noise nuisance.
  3. On 8 August 2019 the residents contacted this Service and stated their dissatisfaction with how the landlord had handled their reports about the carpark and parking. They described their outstanding issues as:
    1. The landlord had not responded to requests to clean up broken glass in the car park.
    2. The parking space allocated to the property had been used by other tenants.
    3. The car park gate had been largely not operational for several months.
    4. The landlord had recorded their reports of disputes with neighbours as antisocial behaviour (ASB), but had taken no action.
  4. This Service wrote to the landlord on 30 August 2019, passing on the resident’s concerns.
  5. The landlord opened a formal complaint. A stage one response was sent to the resident on 17 September 2019. It explained that:
    1. There had been a delay in responding to reports of broken glass in the car park. It apologised to the resident, and confirmed that its grounds maintenance team had now inspected the car park areas, to ensure it was free of broken glass.
    2. It had introduced a new car parking management scheme, and installed CCTV cameras to monitor the gates, in response to reports from the resident and other tenants regarding issues about car parking and damage to the electronic gates.
    3. All reports of ASB had been actioned, and updates were provided while investigations were undertaken. It advised the resident to contact it if they felt any issues had not been addressed.
  6. On 12 February 2020 the residents wrote to the landlord. They said that:
    1. Notices identifying which parking bay belonged to which property had been removed and should be replaced.
    2. The landlord had not notified the residents of changes in its car parking policy nor had there been any kind of consultation regarding the changes.
    3. The residents had not been notified that their reserved parking space had been removed which had resulted in parking fines.
    4. The electronic gates were not repaired until after she had raised a complaint.
  7. The landlord wrote to the resident on the same day and said it had escalated the complaint to stage two of its complaint process.
  8. Between 22 March 2020 and 15 June, the residents and the landlord corresponded by email about parking fines and permits. The resident’s mother was unhappy that she had been fined by the car park management company. The landlord said it would chase this matter up with the company and ensure that a visitor’s permit had been sent to her.
  9. The resident’s mother said she felt harassed by the car park company and would request compensation from the landlord. She said she believed the car park fines were against the terms of the lease, and she said she had yet to receive a visitor’s permit. The resident also reported further rubbish and litter in the car park.
  10. On 19 June 2020 the landlord wrote to the resident and explained that:
    1. All but one parking charge had been cancelled. The management company had informed it that the ticket issued on 22 March 2020 remained valid as no permit was displayed on the vehicle and a permit had been provided in February.
    2. The parking space assigned to the resident was not purchased as part of the lease of the property and the land was owned by the landlord. The car park management scheme introduced by the landlord gave a permit to all properties who had use of the car park, and fines had been issued to vehicles who should not be using it.
    3. It had arranged for a new set of visitor permits to be provided to the resident, and it would make arrangements to have these hand delivered.
  11. The resident remained dissatisfied, and, via this Service, the landlord was asked to consider the complaint again.
  12. The landlord sent a stage two response on 9 July 2020. It explained that:
    1. During the winter months, the grounds maintenance team visit the site monthly and that may have caused litter to accumulate in the car park. It noted that site visits were now made every two weeks. The last site visit occurred on 6 July 2020, where very little rubbish was observed. However, large bags of debris and soil had been left in the car park by a tenant. The landlord said it would remove the rubbish and write to tenants reminding them to keep the car park clear of rubbish.
    2. In response to tenants’ concerns, a car parking management scheme was introduced in 2018 and a company contracted to monitor the scheme. This had seen an end to reports of non-residents accessing the car park.
    3. Prior to the implementation of the car parking management scheme and the installation of CCTV cameras, non-residents forced opened the electric gates to gain access to the car park. This resulted in damage to the gates. The landlord said that while it could not guarantee whether there would be a need for future repairs, the previous level of damage had ceased.
    4. In recognition of the resident’s circumstances, three additional visitor permits had been issued and were hand delivered on 25 June 2020.
    5. All penalty charges issued had been waived. However, it said that any future non-compliance with the permit scheme could result in penalty charges, which would not be waived.
    6. It was satisfied that it had followed its equality and disability policy in this case, and that it would “reiterate the additional actions that we have taken to respond to your needs and those of your carers”.
  13. The landlord concluded the response by informing the resident that he had now exhausted its internal complaints process. It advised him on the steps to take to bring his case to this Service should he remain dissatisfied.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident’s mother first highlighted concerns with how the landlord had managed car parking facilities in August 2017. In its stage one response to the complaint, the landlord explained that as a result of the concerns, as well as similar concerns raised by other residents, it had implemented a car parking management policy in 2018. This policy included the installation of CCTV and the introduction of a permit scheme management by a contractor which issued penalty notices to vehicles not displaying a parking permit.
  2. This was an appropriate approach for the landlord to take to the issue. It recognised that there had been prior problems with both the condition of the parking area and that it had been used by non-residents. The landlord installed CCTV cameras to record any damage to the gates and implemented a permit scheme so only available to residents and their visitors.
  3. The resident raised the issue of litter and rubbish in the car park and said it had been an ongoing issue. This Service has been provided with the estate inspection forms which cover the period from January 2020 to September 2020.
  4. These reports show that the car park was regularly inspected, cleared of rubbish, and that suspect vehicles parked in the area had been highlighted and passed on to the appropriate team. The landlord accepted that litter and rubbish had sometimes accumulated in the car park between inspections, but that it had always been cleared and any issues highlighted in the inspection (such as the bags of soil mentioned by the landlord in the stage two response) had always been raised with the tenant responsible.
  5. From when the resident’s mother first contacted the landlord in 2017, up to when she contacted this Service on 4 August 2019, this Service has seen no evidence that she had requested that the landlord open a formal complaint into the matter. It was not until the intervention of this Service that the landlord opened a formal complaint and sent a stage one response.
  6. Likewise, although the resident’s mother disputed the contents of the stage one response, she did not request an escalation of the complaint. The residents and the landlord continued to correspond about car parking issues after the response was sent, and, following intervention from this Service, the landlord escalated the complaint to stage two. It then sent a full final response which addressed all the elements from the stage one response and also those which had been raised during the subsequent correspondence. Overall, the landlord’s responses to the residents were reasonable.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of the complaint.

Reasons

  1. On being informed of issues with the car park by the resident’s mother and other tenants, the landlord installed CCTV cameras and implemented a new car parking management policy. This resulted in a reduction of non-residents using the car park. The landlord also provided inspection reports which showed it was regularly clearing rubbish and litter from the car park and any issues, such as non-residents parking without permits or suspected abandoned vehicles, had been passed on to the appropriate team to deal with.