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Sanctuary Housing Association (202120877)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202120877

Sanctuary Housing Association

21 July 2023

 

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:
    1. The resident’s reports of tiling repairs in her kitchen and bathroom.
    2. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of the landlord.
  2. On 29 June 2021, the resident reported that tiling in her property had been damaged. The landlord attended the property on 12 July 2021 to inspect the tiling, but further work was required. The landlord scheduled these additional works for 31 August 2021 and 1 September 2021.
  3. The resident contacted the landlord on 26 August 2021 requesting to install tiles of her own choice. The landlord informed the resident that she would need to seek approval for any improvements, and this would be at a cost to herself as it would not install her own choice of tiles. The landlord received no further communication from the resident until 4 October 2021. The resident subsequently agreed on 18 October 2021 for the landlord to install the tiles.
  4. The resident complained about the landlord’s handling of the repairs on 3 November 2021. The resident was dissatisfied with the length of time taken to complete the tiling repairs and that the repairs were still outstanding. She was also dissatisfied that appointments had not been attended to, and the landlord had not contacted the resident when it said it would. The resident also requested for the landlord’s personal injury insurance details, because, due to the missing tiles in the bathroom, she said her son had suffered an injury in the bath.
  5. The landlord’s complaint response stated that, after reviewing the repairs process and its communication, its service was below expected. The landlord acknowledged that there had been delays in the repairs process due to a number of reasons including no access, requiring an external contractor to complete the tiling, and delays in the approval process of the requested improvement due to a missing signature. However, it acknowledged that some of the delays had been as a result of the resident’s own actions; namely, the refusal to install standard tiles in the kitchen and bathroom. Overall, it acknowledged that it had acted below its standards and not in line with its repairs and complaints policy. As such, it offered the resident £700 compensation and details of its personal injury insurance. This was comprised of:
    1. £150 for it handling of the complaint and subsequent delays.
    2. £400 for the time, trouble and inconvenience caused.
    3. £150 for its delays in completing the repairs and the missed appointments.
  6. On 21 February 2022, the landlord installed the new tiles in the resident’s property.
  7. Records indicate the resident contacted the landlord to advise it that the tiles in the kitchen were not repaired on 22 February 2022. The same day, the landlord emailed the contractor for an update but there is no record of what happened following this.
  8. The resident referred her complaint to this Service on 29 June 2022. The resident remains unhappy with the outcome of her complaint stating her son suffers mentally and physically from the incident that occurred in the bathroom. She further stated that the incident had caused her stress and depression. As a resolution the resident would like to be relocated as her family is unsettled in the property due to the incidents that have occurred.

Assessment and findings

Policies and procedures

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy states that non-emergency repairs should be completed within 28 days.
  2. The landlord’s complaints procedure states that a stage one response should be provided within ten working days.
  3. The landlord’s compensation guidance states that payments of up to £400 can be made for time, trouble and inconvenience for cases where the resident has had to make a high effort and the failure has had a high impact.
  4. It further states that compensation of £150 for poor complaint handling is appropriate in circumstances where the resident has had significant difficulties in raising a complaint, delayed responses and poor quality communication.

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident reported to this Service that an incident occurred whereby a board fell and hit her young son on the head whilst in the bath which subsequently impacted his health. However, this Service is unable to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. The resident may be able to make a personal injury claim against the landlord if she considers that her son’s health has been affected by its actions. This is a legal process and the resident should seek independent legal advice if she wants to pursue this option. This is an accordance with paragraph 42(g) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme which says the Ombudsman may not investigate complaints which concern matters where the Ombudsman considers it quicker, fairer, more reasonable or more effective to seek a remedy through the courts, a designated person, other tribunal or procedure. However, this Service can look at the landlord’s response to the incident and the subsequent complaint.
  2. In addition, the resident has referenced how the outstanding repairs and her son’s incident, and his medical conditions had impacted her mental health, namely exacerbating her stress and anxiety. The Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s comments regarding her mental health, but this Service is unable to draw conclusions on the causation of, or liability for, impacts on health and wellbeing. However, this report has considered the general distress and inconvenience which the situation has caused the resident.

Tiling repairs

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy states that all non-urgent repairs should be completed within 28 days of being reported. As the resident reported the damaged tiling on 29 June 2021, the landlord should have completed the repairs by 6 August 2021. However, the repairs were not fully completed until 21 February 2022, which is approximately six months after the expected completion date, as per its repairs policy. Therefore, the landlord failed in its obligation to repair the resident’s tiling within 28 days.
  2. In this case, it is acknowledged that the delay in completing the repairs between August 2021 to October 2021 was due to the resident requesting to complete an improvement to the property and awaiting confirmation. Whilst it is a fundamental part of the Ombudsman’s role to consider whether a landlord has acted appropriately in response to a resident’s repairs request, this will often necessitate an assessment of how the resident’s own actions may have contributed to the situation. Rather than demonstrating bias in favour of the landlord, this is an example of our independent and impartial role in practice, as we consider the conduct of both parties equally. Therefore, the landlord is not solely responsible for the delays during this period of time. However, the landlord has acknowledged that it could have completed the improvement request sooner than what it did, as it did not inform the resident that a signature on the documentation was missing. It is acknowledged that the landlord also contributed to the continued delays of the repairs during this period.
  3. The resident emailed the landlord to advise that repairs to the kitchen tiles were not completed as it had advised within its finale response, on 22 February 2022. The Service contacted the landlord to request an update as to why the kitchen tile repairs were not completed however it has not responded to the information request. It is unreasonable that the landlord has not arranged for this repair as it was part of the original complaint, and its final response advised the works were taking place at the time in February 2022. This aspect was not considered within the landlords final response or in the compensation that was offered and ultimately means that the issues the resident complained about were not fully resolved.
  4. To remedy these failures in its service, the landlord offered the resident £550 compensation in recognition of the impact its failings had. This compensation is in line with the Ombudsman’s Remedies guidance (published on our website). The guidance suggests amounts of £100 to £600 for cases where there has been service failure which adversely affected the resident, but no permanent impact. In addition, the landlord’s compensation guidance states that payments of up to £400 can be made for time, trouble and inconvenience for cases where the resident has had to make a high effort and the failure has had a high impact. As explained above, this compensation did not take into consideration the fact that the repairs to the kitchen tiles were not actually done in February 2022 as stated within the final response letter. I have considered additional compensation for the period that the landlord has failed to complete the repair, at £75 per month in recognition of the inconvenience caused to the resident and its overall failings in handling the matter.  The landlord is ordered to pay the resident an additional £1200 compensation, and this should be made to the resident’s bank account.
  5. It is noted that the resident requested to be moved into a different property as she no longer feels comfortable in the property in view of what has happened. The Ombudsman can understand the resident’s reasons for wanting to move. However, the Ombudsman would not order the landlord to move a resident immediately as part of our investigation. This is because we do not have access to information regarding the availability of suitable vacant properties owned by the landlord at any one time and we do not have details of any other prospective tenants waiting to move who may have higher priority than the resident for rehousing, such as people facing homelessness or fleeing domestic violence. It is recommended that the landlord should continue to support the resident with her request to transfer from her current property and discuss her options with her, if it has not done so already.

Associated complaint

  1. The landlord’s complaint handling policy states that a stage one response should be provided within ten working days of receiving a complaint. In this case, the landlord did not provide the resident with a response until 37 working days after its expected response date. Therefore, the landlord did not act in accordance with its repairs policy.
  2. It is acknowledged that the landlord did not provide the resident with an initial stage one response due to wanting to gather confirmation of an appointment date. It is the established view of this Service that landlords should respond to complaints in a timely manner and it is not necessary to wait for repairs to be completed before responding to a complaint. A complaint response can be issued whilst repairs are outstanding and compensation can be awarded for any delays which have taken place and which are expected, based on the proposed completion date for any outstanding repairs. If there are further delays after the landlord has issued its final complaint response, the landlord can issue a further response and consider whether to offer additional compensation for the further delays. The significant delays in responding to the complaint would have been inconvenient for the resident as this prevented him from being able to refer his complaint to the Ombudsman sooner for independent review. This has been considered when assessing the landlord’s overall offer of compensation.
  3. The landlord offered the resident £150 compensation in recognition of its poor complaint handling. This compensation is in line with the Ombudsman’s Remedies guidance (published on our website). In addition, as per the landlord’s compensation guidance compensation of £150 for poor complaint handling is appropriate in circumstances where the resident has had significant difficulties in raising a complaint, delayed responses and poor-quality communication. Therefore, this compensation is appropriate and in-line with the landlord’s and this Service’s compensation guidance.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of it’s handling of the resident’s reports of tiling repairs in her kitchen and bathroom.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 53 (b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord has made an offer of redress prior to investigation which, in the Ombudsman’s opinion, resolves the complaint regarding the landlord’s poor complaint handling satisfactorily.

Order

  1. The landlord is ordered to compensate the resident £1900 in recognition of its failings to complete the repairs to the kitchen tiles in a timely manner, and for the time, trouble and inconvenience caused to the resident. This is inclusive of the £700 compensation offered by the landlord. As the £700 has already been paid, the remaining £1200 should be paid within four weeks and should be paid directly to the resident and not offset against any arrears.
  2. The landlord is ordered to arrange for the necessary repairs to the kitchen tiles to be carried out within the next four weeks.

Recommendations

  1. Going forward, it is recommended that the landlord review its compensation guidance to ensure this aligns with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance with regards to the way compensation payments are paid to residents.
  2. The landlord is recommended to continue to support the resident with her transfer request.