Thames Valley Housing Association Limited (202009548)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202009548

Thames Valley Housing Association Limited

27 May 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 complaint concerns the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint relating to the condition of the roof.

Background and summary of events

Background

2. The resident is a leaseholder of the landlord, which is a housing association. The property is a flat in a communal building.
3. The landlord operates a two-stage complaints policy. When a complaint is raised, the landlord aims to send an acknowledgement within five working days and a stage one response within ten working days. If a complainant is dissatisfied with the response, they can request an escalation to the next stage. The landlord will acknowledge the request within five working days and provide a stage two response within 20 working days. This will be the landlord’s final response to the complaint.
4. Under Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, a landlord must consult leaseholders before it does the following:
   1. Carry out work which will cost any one leaseholder more than £250.
   2. Enter into a long-term agreement (for more than 12 months) with outside contractors for work, supplies or services which will cost any one leaseholder more than £100 a year.
   3. Carry out work under a long-term agreement where the work will cost any one leaseholder more than £250
5. When one of these conditions is met, the landlord will send a Section 20 notice to the affected leaseholders and a consultation period will begin where leaseholders will be able to submit comments and suggestions on the planned work, the tendering of the work, and the nomination of a contractor or contactors.

Summary of events

6. On 6 October 2020 the resident wrote to the landlord and requested to raise a complaint. He expressed concern that his calls regarding the condition of the building’s roof had been ignored, no remedial work seemed to be going on to repair the roof and that sections of the roof had fallen into the street below.
7. The landlord acknowledged the complaint on 6 October 2020. It informed the resident that it would provide a response within ten working days but, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, delays may be possible. The landlord added that it would keep the resident updated on any potential delays.
8. On 2 December 2020 the resident called this Service to express his dissatisfaction with how the landlord was progressing his complaint. This Service passed on the resident’s concerns to the landlord, who replied on 4 December 2020 and stated that an ongoing complaint was open at stage one of its complaint process.
9. The landlord sent a stage one complaint response to the resident on 7 January 2021. It informed the resident that:
   1. The roof of the building was damaged which had caused a water leak into several properties.
   2. An action plan had been put in place to repair the roof and a Section 20 notice had been issued. The landlord anticipated that the Section 20 consultation process would be completed by Spring 2021 and work to repair the roof would then commence.
   3. While the Section 20 process was ongoing, work would begin in January 2021 to make safe the roof and prevent water leaks into the properties. An appointment had been made to visit the resident on 12 January 2021 to evaluate his property and outline the action plan the landlord had put in place to fully repair the roof.
   4. It apologised for the delay in providing the stage one response.
10. The resident wrote to the landlord on 12 January 2020. He informed it that that the meeting it had arranged for that day had not occurred and that he had not observed any work starting on the roof. He stated that he did not consider his complaint resolved.
11. A stage two complaint response was sent to the resident on 22 January 2021. The landlord informed the resident that it had undertaken a review of the stage one complaint and that:
    1. It was satisfied with its position as described in the stage one response.
    2. The dates provided to the resident related to communal works to address water leaks into individual properties. The proposed work to fully repair the roof was currently undergoing a Section 20 consultation process.
    3. Although it appreciated the delay and inconvenience that this caused, the landlord was legally obligated to undertake the Section 20 process.
    4. It might be more beneficial for the resident to raise a new complaint once all the work to the roof had been completed as the landlord would then be in a position to fully investigate the matter.
12. During a telephone a conversation between the resident and this Service on 4 March 2021, the resident accepted that he may have to raise a new complaint following the end of the Section 20 consultation process and when the roof repairs had been completed.
13. The resident noted that:
    1. The landlord did not take the complaint seriously until the intervention from the Ombudsman.
    2. The resident received a stage two response despite never requesting an escalation.
    3. The landlord did not follow its own procedures during the complaint.

Assessment and findings

14. The landlord did not follow its policy at stage one of the complaints process. Upon receipt of the complaint on 6 October 2020, the landlord sent an acknowledgement email. There is no evidence that shows any further contact between the landlord and resident until the stage one complaint response was sent on 7 January 2021, three months later.
15. Furthermore, there is confusion as to how the complaint was escalated to stage two. The resident wrote to the landlord on 12 January 2020 and stated his unhappiness that the appointment failed to happen, no work seemed to have started on the roof, and that he was not happy with the stage one complaint response.
16. On receipt of this email, the landlord escalated the complaint and sent a stage two response. However, no evidence has been provided that the landlord sent an acknowledgment to the resident that it had escalated its complaint in line with its complaints policy.
17. The landlord’s complaint policy also states that a complainant is required to specify what action it would like the landlord to take to resolve a complaint. The correspondence on 12 January 2020 did not provide that information.
18. As a result of this confusion, the stage two response did not address the outstanding issues as described by the resident; namely, how the complaint was handled by the landlord prior to it being contacted by this Service on 2 December 2020.
19. Therefore, there was service failure by the landlord in how it handled the complaint. It did not follow its timescales, nor properly follow its escalation process. This resulted in it not considering all the outstanding issues at stage two and missing an opportunity to resolve the complaint prior to it being referred to this Service.
20. Although the landlord apologised to the resident for delays in its stage one response, in order to fully resolve the complaint, a compensation payment is warranted.
21. The landlord’s compensation guidance describes ‘Medium Failure’ as ‘cases where there is considerable service failure or total lack of ownership, but there may be no permanent impact on the complainant’. As an example of medium failure, the landlord states as follows:

“Repeated failure to meaningfully engage with the substance of the complaint, or failing to address all relevant aspects of complaint, leading to considerable delay in resolving complaint – Particularly when managing a stage 2 complaint because of failings at stage 1.”

22. The guidance suggests medium failure should be compensated at between £51 and £160. Taking into account that the landlord also failed to address all relevant aspects of the complaint both at stage one and stage two, a compensation award of £160 as the maximum amount within this range would be an appropriate level of redress that recognised the landlord’s service failure.

Determination (decision)

23. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of how it handled the resident’s complaint relating to the condition of the roof. 

Reasons

24. The landlord did not follow its complaint policy at stage one.
25. The complaint was not properly escalated to stage two and the resident was not given the opportunity to explain the outstanding issues he had.
26. Due to these failures, the landlord did not properly consider all of the elements of the resident’s complaint during it internal complaints process.

Orders

27. For the service failure and reasons set out above, the landlord is ordered to pay to the resident £160. This payment should be made within four weeks of the date of this report. The landlord should update this Service when payment has been made.