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Sheffield City Council (202108956)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202108956

Sheffield City Council

9 December 2022


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 noise nuisance from neighbouring properties.
    2. The resident’s concerns about its housing officers.

Jurisdiction

  1. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the Housing Ombudsman 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.
  2. After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 42(a) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the following aspect of the complaint is outside of the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction:
    1. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of noise nuisance from neighbouring properties.
  3. Paragraph 42(a) of the Scheme states that the Ombudsman will not investigate complaints which “are made prior to having exhausted a member’s complaints procedure, unless there is evidence of a complaint handling failure and the Ombudsman is satisfied that the member has not taken action within a reasonable timescale.”
  4. The complaint the resident brought to this Service was stated to also concern the landlord’s handling of her noise reports, however the noise issue was not the main subject of the resident’s complaint or the landlord’s responses, although there was opportunity to request for the noise issue to be considered, including when escalating the complaint to the landlord’s final stage. Where a complaint has not exhausted a landlord’s complaints procedure, it will not normally be considered by the Ombudsman, and the resident has the option to complain about this issue to her landlord in the first instance and progress it in the landlord’s complaints procedure.

Background

  1. The resident is a secure tenant of the landlord, and lives in a one-bedroom flat which is in a block of flats.
  2. In July 2021, the landlord carried out an annual visit with the resident.
  3. The resident later contacted the landlord and complained about two of its housing officers, as she thought they were “harassing” her. The landlord called the resident to discuss her concerns.
  4. The resident then contacted this Service to provide further information about her complaint. She outlined several issues she had with her property and the landlord. This Service forwarded this information to the landlord, and it issued its response to the resident’s complaint. The landlord addressed issues the resident raised, but did not address a noise complaint.
  5. The resident escalated her complaint within the landlord’s complaints process. She clarified that her original complaint was about the two housing officers, as she thought they had been harassing her about her hedge.
  6. The landlord responded to the resident’s concerns under its stage two complaint response. It said it had received an email from its leasehold team about overgrown trees on her property, and had looked into this. It said it could find no evidence of harassment or misconduct by its housing officers, but apologised if its contact with the resident had made her feel uncomfortable.
  7. The resident brought her complaint to this Service. She confirmed that her complaint was about two issues – the landlord’s handling of her noise complaint, and the alleged harassment by the landlord’s housing officers.

Assessment and findings

  1. The resident has said she was subject to harassment from the landlord’s housing officers. She has also alleged that a member of the landlord’s staff was aggressive towards her. The Ombudsman cannot establish whether harassment or intimidation has occurred. These are legal matters that would need to be determined by a court, and so these concerns are beyond the scope of this assessment. The resident could contact Citizens Advice if she needs assistance pursuing these concerns.
  2. However, the Ombudsman is satisfied that the landlord looked into the resident’s concerns, as it ought to have done. The landlord said it had found no evidence of harassment, but apologised if the resident was unhappy with the level of contact from its officers. There can be different interpretations of events, and where there are different accounts of an incident, it is hard for this Service to make a definitive decision and decide one is more true than is the other. Taking this into account and the evidence available, this was a reasonable response.
  3. The resident has also expressed concerns that the landlord’s staff were in some way affiliated with a private landlord who owns some of the properties in the block of flats where the resident lives. The landlord confirmed in its stage two response to the resident’s complaint that its staff members are not agents for the private landlord. It also confirmed that no personal information about her had been shared with any employee working for the private landlord. The landlord’s response was appropriate and adequately addressed the resident’s concerns.

Determination

  1. In accordance with Paragraph 42(a) of the Scheme, the complaint about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of noise nuisance from neighbouring properties was outside jurisdiction.
  2. In accordance with Paragraph 52 of the Scheme, there was no maladministration in respect of the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about its housing officers.