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Tamil Community Housing Association Limited (202109528)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202109528

Tamil Community Housing Association Limited

28 March 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:
    1. The landlord’s response to the resident’s request for an adaptation of the communal front door.
    2. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is the assured tenant of the landlord. She requested on 6 December 2020 that it alter the communal front door as she felt it was unsuitable for use by a person with disabilities. She informed it that she currently had difficulty using the door and she was to shortly undergo surgery which would exacerbate this difficulty. The landlord responded to the resident on 11 December 2020 to advise it would look into the door’s locking mechanism. On 11 February 2021, it had the locking system adjusted on the door to make it easier to open. The landlord relayed this to the resident after she chased it for an update on 23 February 2021.
  2. The resident raised a stage one complaint with the landlord on 5 May 2021 in which she insisted that it address the communal front door which continued to pose a difficulty to her. It responded to her on 17 May 2021 to advise that it had arranged for its fire consultant to inspect the door, apologising for the delay in arranging this, noting that she had emailed it on 7 and 17 March 2021. The landlord explained that if the resident was requesting an adaptation for the front communal door, it would need the opinion of an occupational therapist (OT) before it could proceed. On 21 May 2021, the landlord’s fire consultant carried out some work to ease the front communal door.
  3. On 11 June 2021, the resident escalated her complaint to the final stage of the landlord’s process. She felt that the landlord had done no work to the door and informed it that she refused to arrange an assessment by an OT herself. She stated she expected the landlord to take the necessary steps to contact her GP or the local authority.
  4. The landlord issued its final complaint response to the resident on 8 July 2021 after speaking to her about her complaint on 2 July 2021. In this it confirmed that it had made a referral to the local authority’s OT service on her behalf. The landlord noted from its conversation with the resident that she continued to have difficulties using the door and proposed to arrange, within seven days, for the pressure to be released to make the door easier to use and to carry out a health and safety inspection to assess if any minor adaptations could be implemented to assist her.
  5. The landlord noted that the resident had suggested that an entry fob system would be more suitable for her and said that this would need to be demonstrated that this would address her issues, and that an OT assessment could verify this. It said that such work would have service charge implications for other residents so it would also have to carry out a consultation with them. The landlord also noted that the resident had rejected its offer of alternative accommodation. It recognised that there had been a delay in addressing her concerns and it could have completed an OT referral for her at stage one of the complaint process. The landlord therefore offered £150 compensation for the delay and her distress and inconvenience, and £50 for poor complaint handling.

Assessment and findings

  1. The landlord’s tenancy agreement confirms that it is responsible the maintenance and repair of the structure of the property. It should be clarified that there was no evidence that the communal front door was defective or malfunctioning; therefore, the resident’s report of having difficulty with the front was not a repair issue and it was appropriate for the landlord to consider this as a request for an aid or adaptation to assist the resident, taking into account her medical circumstances.
  2. The landlord’s maintenance policy states that, when an aid or adaptation is requested, it will assess these on an individual basis in conjunction with the local authority. It was therefore reasonable and appropriate for a landlord to seek a professional opinion from an OT before proceeding with carrying out adaptations. This is because the specific adaptation requested by a resident may not always be most effective, and an OT assessment may identify the most appropriate adaptations to assist the resident the most with her occupation of the property. Furthermore it is appropriate that a landlord’s resources be focused on those works that are either required by repairs, or by independent medical assessment.
  3. The resident complained that the landlord should have sought medical information. As this was a request for an adaptation by a resident (ie for non standard works/repairs) it was reasonable for the landlord to advise the resident to contact the OT service. Ultimately that service would need to asses the property and the resident’s needs by liaising with the resident directly. As such suggesting direct contact is not unreasonable. Equally, when the resident stated they would not contact the OT service, the landlord acted on this information by referring the matter to the OT service itself. This was a reasonable response to the situation.
  4. The landlord attended to adjust the front communal door on 11 February 2021, 45 working days after the report of difficulty. The landlord’s maintenance policy provides for routine repairs to be completed within 20 working days. While this was not a repair, it took an unreasonable length of time to address the resident’s report of the door being unsuitable for her. The landlord acknowledged, in its final complaint response to her on 8 July 2021, that it had caused distress and inconvenience by its delay and offered £150 compensation for this.
  5. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance suggests compensation of between £50 and £250 for instances of service failure which had an impact on the complainant but was of short duration and may not have significantly affected the overall outcome for the complainant. Therefore, as the delay in initially addressing the communal front door was not excessive and adaptation works would have hinged on the resident’s willingness to undergo an OT assessment, the landlord’s offer of £150 was reasonable and broadly in line with this Service’s remedies guidance.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy provides for a two-stage internal complaints process where complaints at stage one are to be responded to within ten working days and within 20 working days at the final stage.
  2. Both of the landlord’s complaint response were delivered within the timescales specified in its policy. However, its initial response did not acknowledge that it initially had taken an extended period to investigate the resident’s difficulty with the door, taking 45 working days to do so from her report on 6 December 2020.
  3. It was appropriate, therefore, for it to acknowledge this as poor complaint handling in its final complaint response and provide compensation. The compensation offer of £50 was a reasonable offer which was broadly in line with this Service’s remedies guidance above, as the matter was addressed in its final complaint response and there was no evidence that this failure led to any significant detriment to the resident.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 55(b) of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, the landlord made an offer of redress to the resident prior to investigation which, in the opinion of the Ombudsman, resolves the complaints satisfactorily concerning:
    1. The landlord’s response to the resident’s request for adaptation of the communal front door.
    2. The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.