Southern Housing Group Limited (201907709)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 201907709

Southern Housing Group Limited

10 March 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

1. The resident has complained that the landlord has failed to resolve their reports of noise nuisance from a neighbour

Background

2. The resident has explained that soon after moving into the property in August 2017 they experienced noise nuisance from the neighbour below. They have explained the noise nuisance was ongoing through to their contact with the Housing Ombudsman Service in December 2020.
3. The resident has explained that the warnings issued by the landlord and local Environmental Health Department have failed to stop the noise. They have explained the impact the disturbance is having on their sleep and in turn their work.
4. The landlord has provided details of three antisocial behaviour (ASB) cases that he has had open at times over this period for the resident about their neighbour. The logs for these cases record:
   1. Returning reports of noise nuisance in September 2018
   2. That the neighbour had told the resident they had received a warning letter about noise nuisance and they weren’t happy. The resident explained to the landlord they did not think the noise nuisance was malicious.
   3. That in December the resident did feel the noise was on purpose however, and that they felt recent noise recording equipment had been faulty.
   4. That the resident had (unspecified) difficulties with the noise recording equipment in June 2019.

5. The resident made a complaint to the landlord through the Housing Ombudsman in January 2020. When contacting the Ombudsman the tenant explained:
   1. They felt the landlord had not taken their reports seriously
   2. That the landlord had not dealt with the sound insulation issue
   3. They wanted an (unspecified) solution to the ongoing noise nuisance
6. The landlord’s responses to the formal complaint explain that:
   1. It agreed it had received reports about banging, including late at night and early in the morning, consistently during 2018-2020.
   2. Informal noise recording was attempted in October 2018 with a Dictaphone.
   3. Formal noise recording with professional equipment as completed in November 2018, January 2019 and June 2019.
   4. A professional witness from an outside agency made three visits at times agreed with the resident in March, April and May 2019.
   5. No noise related to banging or similar was recorded or witness during any of these investigations. Therefore the landlord explained in July 2019 that it would close the ASB case due to a lack of evidence.
7.  

Assessment and findings

8. One of the Housing Ombudsman Service Dispute Resolution Principles asks that landlords ‘be fair.’ To ensure a fair service a landlord must base its actions on the appropriate evidence that it has available to it at the time.
9. As set out in the landlord’s ASB policy, the first step on receiving  report is to assess the nature of the alleged ASB to then plan how best to investigate whether any supporting evidence can be identified.
10. In this case the landlord took a proportional response by first discussing the case with the resident and the neighbour. The landlord then escalated the investigation with the use of informal formal noise monitoring equipment. The equipment was used over a wide period of time.
11. There are notes of the resident’s concerns about the recording equipment. However the landlord has also arranged the involvement of a third party professional witness. It is not specifically stated that this was a result of the feedback about the recording equipment, however regardless it is a further effort to secure the required evidence by the landlord.
12. The resident has also explained how the local council Environmental Health Department’s involvement did not go beyond its initial investigation to see if any evidence was available.
13. The resident has not provided any evidence to contradict the landlord’s summary of its efforts to collect evidence. Furthermore the resident has not provided any alternative, independent third party evidence to support their reports about their neighbour.
14. The Housing Ombudsman Service cannot say whether there was any noise nuisance or not. This report does not dispute the reports that the resident has made. However the role of the Housing Ombudsman Service is to assess whether the landlord has met its obligations by taking appropriate action based on the information it had available to it at the time.
15. In this case the landlord did not have sufficient supporting evidence to take any action in response to the reports of noise nuisance. It notified the neighbour that the resident had been disturbed by noise, which is an appropriate informal technique to try and resolve the situation.
16. However it would not be fair for the landlord to take formal action against on resident on the unsupported information of another resident.
17. Landlord’s have very limited options to respond to reports of ASB where it has made significant efforts to secure evidence, but not has been identified. Under the ASB policy, or general good practice, there are no further proportionate actions that the landlord could have taken to investigate whether any supporting evidence was available.

Determination (decision)

18. I can confirm in accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Service Scheme there was no maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the reports of noise nuisance.

Reasons

19. The landlord must provide a fair service to all its residents. A key part of this is to take an evidenced based approach, particularly where one resident has complained about another. Neither party has provided independent evidence of the reported noise nuisance. Therefore landlord only had limited options available to it as to how it could respond to the reports of noise nuisance.