Peabody Trust (202007321)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202007321

Peabody Trust

15 October 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 concerns how the landlord handled:
1. The resident’s concerns that her personal information had been shared with a third party.
2. The resident’s request to be rehoused.
3. The resident’s reports of antisocial behaviour (ASB) and noise nuisance.
4. The resident’s reports of poor service from its staff member.
5. The resident’s formal complaint.

Jurisdiction

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by 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. After carefully considering all the evidence, the following aspects of the complaint are outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.
After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraphs 39(m) and (a) respectively, of the Scheme, the following aspects of the complaint are outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction:
1. How the landlord handled the resident’s concerns that her personal information had been shared with a third party.
2. How the landlord handled the resident’s request to be rehoused.

How the landlord handled the resident’s concerns that her personal information had been shared with a third party

The resident has repeatedly highlighted her dissatisfaction with how her personal information had been handled by the landlord and her concerns that it had shared this information with a third party in breach of data protection legislation.
Under Paragraph 39(m) of the Scheme, the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion “fall properly within the jurisdiction of another Ombudsman, regulator, or complaints-handling body”.
Matters relating to data protection fall properly within the jurisdiction of the Information Commissioner’s Office and not this Service. Therefore, a determination will not be made on this aspect of the resident’s complaint.

How the landlord handled the resident’s request to be rehoused.

In the resident’s complaint to this Service, she described her dissatisfaction with how the landlord had responded to her requests to be rehoused as a result of the ASB that she had experienced. However, this element of the complaint was not raised by her with it in her original stage one complaint, nor in her request for the complaint to be escalated to the final stage of its complaints procedure, and so this was not responded to by it at either stage of the procedure.
Paragraph 39(a) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion “are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure”.
The landlord needed to have been provided with the opportunity to investigate and respond to the resident’s request to be rehoused under its complaints procedure by her complaining about its handling of this and exhausting the procedure, but there is no evidence that she has done so yet. Therefore, a determination will not be made on this aspect of her complaint.

Background and summary of events

Background

The resident is an assured shorthold tenant of the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is a flat in a communal building.

Policies and procedures

The landlord’s ASB policy defines ASB as:
1. Conduct that has caused, or is likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to any person.
2. Conduct capable of causing nuisance or annoyance to a person in relation to that person’s occupation of residential premises.
3. Conduct capable of causing housing-related nuisance or annoyance to any person.
The ASB policy goes on to state that the landlord will respond to high risk ASB within one working day and to low risk ASB within five working days. In regard to how it will handle reports of noise nuisance, the policy states that it “will only investigate noise nuisance where the noise is frequently excessive in volume and duration or occurs at unreasonable hours”. The Environmental Protection Act 1990 and Noise Act 1996 give landlords the power to act where there is “excessive” noise between the hours of 11pm and 7am in domestic premises. “Excessive” is not defined within either Act.
The landlord operates a two-stage complaints process. When a complaint is received, an investigation will be undertaken by a manager from the relevant department and a stage one response will be sent. If the resident is dissatisfied with the response, they can request an escalation of the complaint. A review of the complaint will then be undertaken, and a stage two response will be sent to the resident. This will be the landlord’s final response to the complaint.
The landlord’s complaints policy does not provide timescales for when it will provide its complaint responses. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code requires for complaint response timescales in landlords’ complaints procedure to be for the landlord to respond at the first stage of the complaint process within ten working days of receiving a complaint, and to respond at the second and final stage of the complaint process within 20 working days of the complaint being escalated.

Summary of events

On 8 January 2020, the resident called the landlord about noise nuisance she had experienced from a neighbour. Following the telephone call, the resident wrote to the landlord, provided diary notes from 9 November 2019 to 5 January 2020, and explained the effect that the noise had on her health.
The landlord opened an ASB case and visited the resident at her property on 28 January 2020 to discuss the issues she had raised. It then wrote to her on 18 March 2020 and informed her that it was closing the case. The landlord explained the reasons for closing the case, as during the 28 January 2020 meeting it had agreed to install noise recording equipment in the property, and that it would not speak to her neighbour until this had been completed, but the resident had refused an appointment to have the equipment installed.
The landlord then advised the resident on how to report any further incidents and informed her that it would reopen the case if the noise nuisance persisted.
On 22 April 2020, the resident contacted the landlord and asked to raise a stage one formal complaint into how it had handled her reports of noise nuisance. A complaint was opened, and the landlord called the resident on 28 April 2020 to discuss the complaint. The landlord’s notes of the call described the elements of the complaint as being that:
1. The letter sent by the landlord on 18 March 2020 was not a “true” account of how the ASB case was handled.
2. The resident believed that the neighbour had been “tipped off” about noise recording equipment being installed, as the landlord’s staff member had a relationship with the neighbour. The resident had also been informed that the neighbour was a current or former employee of the landlord.
3. Delays to repairs had been caused by the neighbour’s refusal to allow access.
4. On receipt of the 18 March 2020 letter, the resident had attempted to call the contractor responsible for the noise recording equipment to arrange an appointment. She was informed that no appointments would be available during the Covid-19 lockdown, and her further calls had not been responded to.
The landlord’s notes of the above call also stated that it advised the resident to install a noise app, and that it suggested mediation as a method of resolving the issues she had with her neighbour.
The stage one complaint response was sent to the resident on 1 May 2020. The landlord informed her that:
1. It had found no evidence that any staff member had tipped off the neighbour about noise recording equipment being installed, and it was satisfied that it had kept to its commitment not to contact the neighbour prior to sound recordings being made.
2. Due to service restrictions as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, its contractor was currently unable to arrange an appointment to install the noise recording equipment. The landlord advised the resident to use the noise app and to submit any recording made of noise nuisance to the local authority’s noise pollution team.
3. Following their telephone conversation on 28 April 2020, it had agreed to reopen the ASB case, and an action plan had been sent along with the response.
4. It had closed the complaint, but the resident could request an escalation of the complaint if she was dissatisfied with the response.
The landlord’s ASB action plan stated that it had agreed to:
1. Not contact the neighbour until the resident had agreed it was suitable for it to do so.
2. When Government guidelines allowed it to, request the installation of noise recording equipment for one week.
3. All communication relating to the ASB case going forward being in writing, unless the landlord needed to speak with the resident on urgent matters.
The action plan also recommended mediation as a possible resolution, and that it would consider adding further recommendations once the resident had been given the chance to read the action plan.
Following a telephone conversation on 7 May 2020, the landlord wrote to the resident with a revised action plan, which stated that it would contact the neighbour about noise nuisance reported by the resident on 3 May 2020, and that it would update the resident by 15 May 2020. It would then contact the resident fortnightly by telephone to provide updates.
The resident replied to the landlord on 7 May 2020, and she confirmed the revised action plan. The resident wrote to it again on 15 May 2020 and responded to the above stage one complaint response. She apologised for the delay in her acknowledging the stage one response, and she explained that the email had gone to her spam folder. She noted that:
1. Her complaints made during the 28 April 2020 telephone call had not been taken “seriously” by the landlord.
2. She did not believe that the conversations she had with the landlord’s staff member had been kept confidential, and that this was the cause of the neighbour’s change in behaviour.
3. The noise app was not fit for purpose and did not pick up airborne or impact noise.
4. She had requested that the noise recording equipment be installed for two weeks, not one.
5. She did not think that mediation would resolve that issue due to the current lack of trust between herself and the landlord, but it may be something she would consider in the future.
6. She disagreed with the landlord’s decision to close the complaint.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 15 May 2020 and informed her that it had spoken to the neighbour regarding the noise nuisance reported by the resident on 3 May 2020. The landlord explained that the neighbour informed it that they were asleep at the time the resident said that the noise occurred, and it suggested that this may have been from another neighbour. The landlord also enquired if the resident had experienced any more noise nuisance, if she had downloaded the noise app, and it confirmed that it would call in two weeks with an update.
The resident replied to the landlord on 15 May 2020, and she confirmed that she had downloaded the noise app, but had yet to complete the setting up process. She also noted that, if the neighbour was asleep, their children could have been the cause of the noise nuisance.
The resident wrote to the landlord on 4 June 2020, and she noted that she had yet to receive a response to her email sent on 15 May 2020 disputing the stage one complaint response.
On 12 June 2020, the resident called the landlord to report an incident where a delivery had almost failed, as a neighbour had informed the delivery driver that the resident no longer lived in the property. The landlord’s notes of the call stated that it informed the resident that, while a tenant has no obligation to accept a delivery on another tenant’s behalf, they should not turn a delivery away and that it would speak to the neighbour.
The noise recording equipment was installed in the property by the contractor on 19 June 2020. On 24 June 2020, the resident wrote to the landlord and requested that the noise recording equipment be removed, and that the second week of recording occur at a different time. She explained her reasons for this were that she believed that the neighbour had been “clearly made aware” that the equipment was due to be installed.
The landlord replied to the resident on 1 July 2020, and it explained that the noise recording equipment had yet to be picked up yet as the contractor was not available. It further informed the resident that it would still arrange an additional week of recordings, but there was currently a waiting list of six weeks for the equipment. The equipment was picked up by the contractor on 6 July 2020.
At some point prior to 13 July 2020, the resident contacted the landlord to report that some of her mail had gone missing and that she believed a neighbour was responsible. The landlord wrote to the resident on 13 July 2020 and informed her that, while it would not consider replacing the communal entrance to the building, it would consider installing an external post box for her mail.
The resident replied to the landlord on 14 July 2020. She explained that, as well as going missing, her post had been opened. She noted that she had previously raised this issue with the landlord on 2 January 2020, and during the telephone call about her complaint on 28 April 2020. The resident also confirmed that she would be interested in having an external post box fitted.
On 14 July 2020, the contractor sent the landlord their report from the sound recording taken from the resident’s property. The report described the recordings taken from a bedroom in the property between 19 June and 6 July 2020. The report concluded that there had been disturbance from noise nuisance of 23 to 56 decibels “mainly during sociable hours but there are also some taken between 23:00 and 06:00 hours as well.” This also stated that “The dBs generally are not extreme but there is penetration even at low levels and the continuity of it could cause disruption and could have an effect on the tenant’s mental wellbeing”.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 29 July 2020 about the above contractor’s report. It noted that, as part the action plan, the resident had requested that it not contact the neighbour until the recordings were complete, and it enquired if she was happy for it to contact the neighbour about the report. It explained that it would normally send a warning letter with an invitation to discuss the allegations with the landlord. The landlord also asked the resident if she had experienced any further noise nuisance.
The resident replied to the landlord on 3 August 2020. She expressed her confusion that the landlord had described the noise nuisance as allegations, as she was under the impression that it now had evidence of noise nuisance from the contractor’s report. She confirmed that she would like action taken to resolve the matter and would accept the landlord sending the neighbour a warning letter. The resident also informed the landlord that the neighbour’s behaviour had not changed, and she requested a copy of the report.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 4 August 2020. It explained that it used the term “allegation” in its letters as an alleged perpetrator was then more likely to respond and discuss the matter and that, if the alleged perpetrator disputed the allegation or had an alternative explanation, it could then point to the evidence it had gathered. The landlord also informed the resident that it would contact the contractor about providing her with a copy of their above report, as well as that it would send her neighbour a warning letter on 4 August 2020.
The resident replied to the landlord on 14 August 2020. She noted that she had previously contacted the contractor herself to request a copy of the report, and that they had referred her to the landlord. She then described noise nuisance from the neighbour as consisting of loud music being played on 12 August 2020.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 24 August 2020. It informed her that the neighbour had responded to its warning letter and had written back to it. It had then sent them back examples of noise nuisance from the contractor’s report, and the landlord also raised the issue of loud music being played on 12 August 2020. It then said it would update the resident when the neighbour responded.
The landlord then informed the resident that it had contacted the contractor about providing her with a copy of the report. It stated that it was informed by the contactor that the report was for internal use only, and was not intended for use by the parties involved in the noise nuisance. The landlord explained that this policy was put in place so one party would not have an advantage the other.
The landlord also provided the resident with an update about the installation of an external post box. It informed her that it had identified a suitable space for the box, and it was currently determining whether the work could be undertaken by the landlord or by a sub-contractor.
The resident wrote to the landlord on 18 September 2020. She informed it that the noise nuisance had recently got worse and requested that the noise recording equipment be reinstalled, noting that it was over eight weeks since this was removed. The landlord wrote to the contractor on 21 September 2020 and asked them to contact the resident to arrange the installation of the equipment.
On 16 October 2020, the resident called this Service and stated her dissatisfaction with how the landlord had been handling her reports of ASB and noise nuisance. The resident also provided us with correspondence, including the landlord’s 1 May 2020 stage one complaint response to her.
This Service called the resident on 23 October 2020 to inform her that her case could only be considered once she had exhausted the landlord’s internal complaint process, it was advised that she contact the landlord and request an escalation of the complaint to stage two, which was the final stage of the process.
The resident called the landlord on 6 November 2020 to report noise nuisance from the neighbour. The resident called it again on 12 November 2020 to report further incidents of ASB and noise nuisance from the neighbour. She also informed the landlord that she had yet to be contacted by the contractor with an appointment date for reinstalling the noise recording equipment.
The landlord wrote to the resident on 18 November 2020 and informed her that:
1. It could provide a copy of the contractor’s sound recordings report with all personal information redacted.
2. It could find no evidence that the neighbour had been warned about noise recording equipment being installed in the resident’s property. The landlord noted that the cost of the installation of the equipment was “very expensive”, and that it would not waste both time and money by giving an alleged perpetrator prior warning.
3. The report would only evidence noise nuisance that occurred during unsocial hours, or was above 70 decibels and was consistent.
4. It would only consider removing a staff member from a case following a formal investigation which found a serious service failure. This had not happened in the resident’s ASB case.
5. It would contact the neighbour regarding the ongoing noise nuisance. The landlord also advised the resident to continue completing diary sheets and to use the noise app to gather evidence.
On 6 January 2021, the resident wrote to the landlord and asked to escalate her complaint to stage two, i.e. the final stage, of its complaints process on the grounds that:
1. The installation of an external post box remained outstanding.
2. Her personal information had been improperly handled by the landlord’s staff members.
3. Despite the ongoing noise nuisance and the evidence already collected, the landlord had yet to take any action against the neighbour.
The landlord acknowledged the resident’s above complaint escalation request on 7 January 2021. It wrote to her again on 13 January 2021 and requested more information from the resident for her reasons for the escalation request.
The resident replied to the landlord on 5 February 2021 and provided it with more information for her complaint escalation request. She explained that the landlord’s staff member had breached her confidentiality by informing the neighbour of her complaints and as a result there had been an increase in ASB, including noise nuisance and tampering with her mail.
The landlord acknowledged the resident’s email on 8 February 2020 and informed her that the matter had been passed on to its complaints team.
On 17 February 2021 the landlord wrote to the resident about the noise recording equipment. It informed her that the equipment may be available in March and gave her the contact details of the contractor in order to arrange an appointment.
The resident replied on 17 February 2021 and asked why she had yet to receive an update on the status of her complaint. This email was also passed on to this Service. This Service then wrote to the landlord on 8 March 2021 and asked it to provide a complaint response to the resident within five working days.
The landlord acknowledged the Ombudsman’s request and following further correspondence it was agreed that a stage two final complaint response would be sent to the resident on 8 April 2021.
The landlord started the final complaint response by apologising for the delays in providing the response. It then informed the resident that:
1. It had received reports from the resident relating to noise nuisance from June 2019 onwards.
2. Following a telephone meeting on 28 April 2020, the landlord sent the resident an action plan on 1 May 2020, which described how it would manage the ASB case.
3. Noise recording equipment was installed in the property and a was report sent to the landlord. The report described some noise nuisance but not at a level that would constitute ASB.
4. The resident was informed that the report could not be provided to her. While this was correct, the landlord could provide her with a redacted report.
5. It understood the resident’s concerns about it approaching her neighbour. However, in order for it to take any action and to allow the neighbour the chance to respond to the allegations, it would have to make contact with them.
6. It had found no evidence of the landlord’s staff member providing evidence to her neighbour.
7. It had agreed to install an external post box for the resident. However, due to restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, its contractor had been unable to complete the work. The landlord hoped to be able to arrange the fitting of the box within the next six weeks.
8. It apologised for the complaint not being progressed alongside the ASB case. The landlord explained that this was the result of a lack of communication between its different teams. It further informed the resident that it had raised the matter internally in order to improve its service going forward.
9. It had awarded the resident £200 compensation, which it broke down as:
  1. £50 for poor communication.
  2. £100 for delays in escalating the complaint.
  3. £50 for the time and trouble caused to the resident in pursuing the matter.
10. It informed the resident that it would continue to monitor any reported ASB. It requested that she continue to send in diary sheets, and it advised her to contact the contractor in order to arrange an appointment to have the noise recording equipment reinstalled.
The landlord concluded the final complaint response by informing the resident that she had exhausted its internal complaints process and advised her on the steps to take to bring her case to this Service should she remain dissatisfied.
The resident wrote to this Service on 28 April 2021 and described the outstanding issues of the complaint as being that:
1. She had dealt with ongoing ASB from neighbours in the building for two years, which had a significant impact on her health.
2. She had experienced poor service from the landlord’s staff members handling her ASB case.
3. Her requests to be moved from the property had been ignored.
4. The level of compensation offered by the landlord was inadequate.

Assessment and findings

How the landlord handled the resident’s reports of ASB and noise nuisance

The role of the Ombudsman is not to establish whether the ASB and noise nuisance reported by the resident in this case was occurring or not because we do not have the authority or expertise to do so. Our role is to instead establish whether the landlord’s response to the resident’s ASB reports was in line with its legal and policy obligations, and whether its response was fair in all the circumstances of the case.
In its email sent to the resident on 18 November 2020, the landlord explained that it considered consistent noise at a level above 70 decibels during unsociable hours to be excessive. The report it received from the contractor on 14 July 2020 after examining the sound recordings at her property from 19 June to 6 July 2020 described noise in the range of 23 to 56 decibels. However, the report did conclude that, although the decibels were not extreme, noise nuisance at a level that would cause disruption to the resident had been observed.
In response to the contractor’s report, the landlord sent a warning letter to the neighbour on 4 August 2020 about the noise experienced by the resident, and it informed them of the findings of the report.
Overall, the landlord has followed its above ASB policy and procedures in responding to the resident’s reports of noise nuisance from her neighbour. It opened an ASB case, agreed an action plan with the resident ,and arranged to have noise recording equipment installed at her property, which was in accordance with the policy’s requirement for it to investigate her ASB reports.
When the contractor’s sound recordings report highlighted some recordings which had caused disturbance to the resident, the landlord wrote a warning letter to the neighbour. It also advised the resident to continue to provide it with diary sheets, and it recommended that she use the noise app to provide further evidence of ASB to it.
For the landlord to take formal action against an alleged perpetrator of ASB, it requires sufficient supporting evidence that the behaviour is causing significant nuisance and/or harm to others and has occurred over a prolonged of time, as described in its ASB policy above. Furthermore, the landlord cannot reasonably be expected to take actions against tenants for noise that is considered everyday household noise. However, if a noise is confirmed as being statutory noise nuisance, then both the landlord and the local authority’s environmental health department may be able to take formal action against the perpetrator, such as by issuing a tenancy warning or an acceptable behaviour agreement.
In this case, the evidence gathered during the period of the complaint did not support this course of action. Although noise nuisance had been detected, the evidence had not shown statutory noise nuisance that could be deemed excessive. Therefore, the landlord’s actions in sending a warning letter while working with the resident to gather more evidence was the appropriate action to take in the circumstances.
Therefore, there is no evidence of failure in how the landlord responded to the resident’s reports of ASB and noise nuisance.
In her email to this Service sent on 28 April 2021, the resident described the adverse effect on her health caused by the ongoing ASB and noise nuisance she had experienced.
The Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s comments regarding her health, but this Service is unable to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing in the way that a court or insurer might because we do not have the authority or expertise to do so. However, consideration has been given to the general distress and inconvenience which the situation has caused her, which are of concern but were not shown to have been caused by failings on the part of the landlord that it was obliged to put right.

How the landlord handled the resident’s reports of poor service from its staff member

Throughout the complaint process and her ASB case, the resident had stated her belief that information had been shared with her neighbour by the landlord’s staff member, who was her point of contact when reporting ASB.
The resident noted the neighbour’s change of behaviour following a visit by the landlord’s staff member and, as there was a reduction in the level of noise when the noise recording equipment was installed, this suggested to the resident that the neighbour had been “tipped off” by the staff member.
The landlord disputed this and informed the resident on 1 May 2020 and 8 April 2021 that, following an internal investigation, no evidence had been found that the above staff member had acted improperly or provided any information to the neighbour.
Due to a lack of corroborating evidence supporting the resident’s claims, it was reasonable for the landlord not to consider taking action against its staff member. Therefore, there is no evidence of failure in how it responded to this aspect of the complaint.
The Ombudsman has not disregarded the resident’s concerns about the conduct of the landlord’s staff member. However, the resident has not provided any supporting evidence of this to either the landlord or this Service. Without supporting evidence of the staff member’s conduct, it is not possible for the Ombudsman as an impartial and independent organisation to say that the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports about their conduct was incorrect.
Moreover, it is outside the Ombudsman’s role to investigate complaints about individual members of staff rather than about member landlords or to investigate employment matters concerning landlords’ staff members. Therefore, we would not assess any specific action which the landlord may have taken regarding the employment of the individual staff member concerned, or comment on this as part of our assessment of this complaint.
As previously stated in the above jurisdiction section of this report, it is not within the remit of this Service to investigate how the resident’s personal information was handled by the landlord and whether this had been improperly shared with a third party.

How the landlord handled the resident’s formal complaint

The landlord accepted on 8 April 2021 that there was failure in how it handled the resident’s formal complaint about the above matters. It therefore apologised to the resident for not progressing her complaint alongside her ASB case, and it awarded her £200 compensation for its poor communication, delays in escalating the complaint, and the time and trouble caused to her in pursuing the matter. The landlord explained that this was the result of a lack of communication between its different teams, and that it had raised the matter internally in order to improve its service going forward.
The Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord in respect of its acknowledged failings put things right and resolved this aspect of the complaint satisfactorily in all the circumstances of the resident’s case. In considering this, we take into account whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles to be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
The landlord acted fairly in acknowledging its mistakes and apologising to the resident for them. It put things right by internally raising the issues it had identified of poor communication between its ASB and complaint teams, and in awarding appropriate compensation to the resident for this.
The £200 compensation award made by the landlord to the resident was in line with this Service’s own remedies guidance. This suggests a payment of £50 to £250 in cases where failure resulting in some impact on the resident had been found.
As examples for when this level of payment should be considered, the remedies guidance suggests “repeated failures to reply to letters or return phone calls” or “failure to meet service standards for actions and responses but where the failure had no significant impact”.
This is the situation in the resident’s case as, while there were considerable delays between the complaint escalation request that she made to the landlord on 6 January 2021 and its stage two final complaint response on 8 April 2021, this did not impact the ASB case opened by the landlord on 1 May 2020. Nevertheless, this lengthy delay was far in excess of the Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code’s above requirement for it to respond to final stage complaints within 20 working days, as its final response was 44 working days later than this, and so it was appropriate that it provided her with the above remedies for this. The landlord also replied to the resident’s stage one complaint of 22 April 2020 within the ten working days required by the Code on 1 May 2020.
Therefore, for the reasons set out above, the landlord has made an offer of redress to the resident which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves this aspect of the complaint satisfactorily. The measures taken by the landlord to remedy what went wrong were proportionate to the impact that its failures had on the resident.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration by the landlord in respect of how it handled:
1. The resident’s reports of ASB and noise nuisance.
2. The resident’s reports of poor service from its staff member.
In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Scheme, the landlord has offered redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint in respect of how it handled her formal complaint satisfactorily.
This decision is dependent on the below recommendation being followed by the landlord.

Reasons

The landlord responded to the reports of ASB made by the resident in line with its obligations, acknowledging her reports and undertaking an investigation.
When incidents of noise nuisance were found, the landlord wrote a warning letter to the resident’s neighbour. Given the lack of evidence of statutory noise nuisance, it was reasonable that the landlord had not pursed formal action against the neighbour.
The landlord remained engaged with the resident and looked to gather more evidence in support of her ASB reports to enable it to take further action for these.
As there was no corroborating evidence to show that its staff member had acted inappropriately during the ASB case, it was appropriate for the landlord not to have taken action against them or to have removed them from the case.
The landlord recognised the delays in providing a stage two final complaint response to the resident. It apologised, explained what action it would take to improve its service going forward, and awarded compensation which was proportionate to the service failures it had identified.

Recommendation

It is recommended that the landlord re-offer the resident the £200 compensation that it previously awarded her, if she has not received this already.
The landlord should contact this Service within four weeks to confirm whether it will follow the above recommendation.
The Ombudsman accepts that, because of the present restrictions due to the corona virus pandemic, the timing of the above actions will depend on what is reasonable in the light of Government guidance regarding the health of the resident and of the landlord’s staff.