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Poplar Housing And Regeneration Community Association Limited (202008662)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202008662

Poplar Housing And Regeneration Community Association Limited

30 April 2021


Our approach

What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction and is governed by the Housing Ombudsman Scheme. The Ombudsman must determine whether a complaint comes within their jurisdiction. The Ombudsman seeks to resolve disputes wherever possible but cannot investigate complaints that fall outside of this. 

In deciding whether a complaint falls within their jurisdiction, the Ombudsman will carefully consider all the evidence provided by the parties and the circumstances of the case.

The complaint

  1. The resident complains about:
    1. How the landlord handled her request for rehousing on medical grounds, including its communication and the time taken for her to be rehoused.
    2. How the landlord responded to her reports that dust from a neighbouring development was entering the property and affecting the health of her and her family.

Determination (jurisdictional decision)

  1. 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.
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, I have determined that the complaints, as set out above, are not within the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction.

Summary of events

  1. The resident is an assured shorthold tenant of a two-bedroom flat on the first floor (the property).
  2. From at least August 2018, the resident raised concerns with the landlord about the level of dust entering the property from a nearby development. She reported that this was affecting her family’s health, including her young children. She referred to suffering from a dust allergy and asthma herself, and that her young children also need to use inhalers. This development is being built by a private developer in partnership with the landlord.
  3. On approximately 17 September 2018, the resident made an application to the landlord for additional priority for her transfer request on medical grounds. This was initially rejected and the resident appealed the decision. Applications for transfers on medical grounds are considered through the Local Authority’s common housing register of which the landlord is a partner.
  4. On 25 April 2019, the resident wrote to the landlord about her appeal and referred to the impact on her family’s health of the dust from the development. She enclosed various letters, including:
    1. From her son’s paediatrician;
    2. A letter from the family’s health visitor which referred to one of her son’s developmental delay;
    3. From the family’s support worker requesting a door be put on the entrance to the kitchen due to a risk to her son with additional needs.
  5. In June 2019, the landlord instructed an Occupational Therapist (OT) assessment for the resident’s son. On or around 22 July 2019, the OT assessed the resident’s application and said that the resident’s son met the threshold for medical priority for a property with four-bedrooms, on the ground floor and with a separate kitchen.
  6. In 2019 and 2020, the resident raised complaints with the landlord, including:
    1. About the landlord’s communication in relation to whether she could be rehoused in a particular estate. She referred to the landlord’s communication in relation to the change in her assessed need from three to four bedrooms, the availability of four-bedroom properties in that estate and whether outdoor space was required. The resident has informed the Ombudsman that due to the landlord giving incorrect advice about the OT’s recommendation, she missed out on bidding on some properties.
    2. The time taken for her to be rehoused given her children’s medical issues and the dust from a nearby development affecting her and her family’s health.
  7. On 13 August 2020, the landlord provided a final response to the complaint. The landlord said it had followed the correct lettings process. The landlord acknowledged that its explanation of the process could have been clearer, but it did not agree that its understanding of the OT report had led to her missing out on an offer of a new home. In relation to the dust issue, the landlord said that it could not consider this complaint as it was not the developer of the scheme.
  8. During the Ombudsman’s mediation process, the landlord offered £100 in acknowledgement of the fact that it did not properly understand or explain the OT report and it could have been clearer to the resident in respect of her prospects of being re-housed. However, it did not agree that she had missed an opportunity to be rehoused.

 

Reasons

How the landlord handled her request for rehousing on medical grounds, including its communication and the time taken for her to be rehoused

  1. Paragraph 39(m) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme) states that “the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion: fall properly within the jurisdiction of another Ombudsman, regulator or complaint-handling body”.
  2. Complaints about applications for re-housing on the basis of a reasonable preference criteria (which includes a need to move on medical grounds) and which are dealt with by a housing association on behalf of the Local Authority fall under the remit of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, not the Housing Ombudsman.
  3. In this complaint, the resident has applied for rehousing to the Local Authority’s Common Housing Register of which the landlord is a partner. While the landlord handled the application, this was carried out on behalf of the Local Authority and therefore falls under the remit of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

How the landlord responded to her reports that dust from a neighbouring development was entering the property and affecting the health of her and her family

  1. Paragraphs 35 and 36 of the Scheme set out what can be complained about to the Housing Ombudsman. They state, respectively:
    1. “The Ombudsman will consider complaints about the actions or omissions of a member.
    2. The person complaining, or on whose behalf a complaint is made must have been, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, adversely affected by those actions or omissions in respect of their application for, or occupation of, property.”
  2. The resident complained about the landlord’s response to her reports of dust entering the property from a neighbouring development. She complained the level of dust was affecting her family’s health and not enough was being done on the site to prevent dust from reaching her home.
  3. While the resident complained that she was being adversely affected by the dust, this was in connection with the landlord’s role in the development of the neighbouring buildings. This complaint is about the actions of the landlord in its role as partner to the development rather the actions of the landlord in its role as landlord to the property (and therefore in respect of her occupation of the property). 
  4. While the resident has complained about the actions of the landlord and she may have been adversely affected, she was not adversely affected “by those actions or omissions in respect of her “occupation of property”; the complaint was in respect of the landlord’s actions as partner to the development. For these reasons, this aspect of the complaint is also outside of the jurisdiction of the Housing Ombudsman.