The Guinness Partnership Limited (201915214)

 

 

 

 

REPORT

COMPLAINT 201915214

The Guinness Partnership Limited

21 December 2020

Our approach

1. 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.
2. 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

3. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s right to acquire the property, in particular, its failure to provide him reasons for the delay and also about its subsequent handling of the complaint.

Jurisdiction

4. What we can and cannot consider is called the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction. This is governed by the 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.
5. An aspect of the complaint is the resident’s dissatisfaction with the landlord’s handling of his right to acquire application, specifically, the length of time it took to process the application and it not meeting its statutory timeframes.
6. The statutory timeframes associated with an application for the right to acquire are set out in law and as such, is a statutory process, upon which the Ombudsman does not have authority to rule.  Paragraph 39(i) of the Scheme states that “The Ombudsman will not investigate matters which, in its opinion, 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”. 
7. After carefully considering all the evidence, in accordance with paragraph 39(i), this aspect of the resident’s complaint is outside of the jurisdiction of this Service to consider. This is because the appropriate route for the resident to take, should he wish to pursue this, is by taking the matter to the Courts.
8. What the Ombudsman can investigate, however, is the way in which the landlord responded to the resident’s requests for updates as to his application and the subsequent handling of the complaint, which is done below.

Background and summary of events

Background and policies

9. The resident had been an assured tenant of the landlord, at the property, from 6 October 1997.
10. The landlord has a two stage complaints procedure whereby it aims to respond within ten working days of receipt of a complaint and similarly, ten working days at stage two, where a request for escalation is made.
11. The landlord’s compensation policy states that it may offer compensation to “recompense a customer for actual evidenced expenses or losses incurred as a result of [the landlord’s] actions or inactions”.

Summary of events

12. On 29 October 2019, the resident made an application for the right to acquire the property.
13. On 26 November 2019, the landlord emailed the resident an update in respect of his right to acquire application.  It explained that it had not yet received the executed offer notice back from its ‘Governance Team’, adding that it had advised that it was in the last stages of finalising its report before signing the offer notice.
14. On 27 November 2019 and 3 December 2019, the resident emailed and telephoned the landlord, enquiring as to an estimated timeframe in which he could expect to receive an offer.
15. On 4 December 2019, the landlord responded to the resident by email, apologizing that it had been unable to be available to speak on the phone, which it explained was because the individual member of staff concerned had been in training and on other calls.  By way of update, it said that its ‘Governance Team’ had stated that it was hoping to finalise its report by 9 December 2019.
16. On 5 December 2019, the resident has said that he telephoned the landlord and asked to speak to a manager about the situation and was advised he would receive a call back within 48 hours.
17. On 9 and 16 December 2019, the resident chased the matter again, expressing his dissatisfaction that he had not yet received an offer and the timeframe of 8 weeks, within which he should have received an offer, had passed and it was now 11 weeks.  The resident stated that his recent call had not been returned either and he wanted to make a formal complaint. 
18. The resident telephoned again on 18 December 2019 but was told he would receive a call back to discuss the matter.
19. Having not heard, on 23 December 2019, the resident chased his complaint.  The landlord responded the following day and apologised that he had not been contacted.  It added that it “agree(d) that this has taken a while and is not acceptable” and explained that it had escalated the matter further and added a service failure to the file, in respect of not having received a call back.
20. The resident chased the matter again on 30 December 2019, providing information from correspondence with the landlord’s ‘Legal team’.  On 31 December 2019, the landlord responded, thanking the resident for the information and advising that its ‘Homeownership Team’ would be in touch.
21. The landlord has said that the resident raised a formal complaint on 6 January 2020 in respect of the delays to his right to acquire application and the fact that he had not been given reasons for this.  On the same date, the landlord’s records show that it noted it acknowledged the complaint and said it would get back to him when it had an update.
22. On 8 January 2020, the landlord’s records show that it spoke to the ‘Homeownership Team’ who advised they were still looking into the resident’s application and that sometimes it can take longer if further information is needed.  The records also show that it tried to telephone the resident on this date to discuss but was unable to get through and left him a voicemail asking him to call back.
23. The landlord’s records show that on 9 January 2020, it telephoned the resident to provide him with an outcome to his complaint.  It has said that it apologised that it said that it was unable to provide an update and confirming that its ‘Homeowner Team’ had correctly followed procedure. In response, the resident requested his complaint to be escalated through the complaints process.
24. On 24 and 31 January 2020, the resident chased the landlord again.  The landlord responded on 31 January 2019, advising that his application was in progress but it was unable to provide a further update, although it was hoping to have more information the following week.
25. On 4 February 2020, the landlord sent its final response to the complaint. It confirmed that the resident’s right to acquire application was being processed but said it could not provide an exact update as to where in the process the application was.  It said its ‘Home Ownership Team’ would be in touch in due course, however.

Assessment and findings

26. On contacting the landlord to request an update as to the progress of his right to acquire application, the resident had a reasonable expectation that the landlord would respond and be able to provide an update.  In turn, the landlord had a responsibility to respond appropriately to the requests. This frequently did not happen.
27. The landlord’s initial response on 26 November 2019 indicated that the process was nearing the offer stage, although this ultimately was not the case.  It is not known why the application was delayed and this Service is unable to go into the statutory provisions and delays and what this means for the conveyancing process, as set out in the jurisdictional section of this report, however, it is clear there was delay and the resident was not sufficiently informed or kept abreast as to this and his expectations were not managed.
28. The landlord’s explanations that the resident’s application was in process did not seek to reassure the resident.  It did not seek to reassure him because a number of his chasers to the landlord were not responded to and his calls not returned.  Additionally, the landlord had initially stated that things were moving and he would hear the following week, which he then did not and having chased, he was given no information or explanation as to why the process was taking time and was simply told the same thing again.  There was a consistent lack of communication and transparency on the part of the landlord; that is not to say that there is evidence of anything untoward, however, its inadequate responses to the resident’s requests for an update on a number of occasions served to undermine confidence, trust and integrity in the landlord.
29. In terms of complaints handling, the information provided to this Service evidences the resident stating that he wished to make a formal complaint in December 2019, rather than when the landlord documents that a formal complaint was made, in January 2020. The landlord failed to act appropriately in respect of the complaint made in December 2019, as it should have done in accordance with its complaints process, insofar as it did not log the matter as a formal complaint at this point.  What it did do at this time, however, was appropriately apologise to the resident for the service failure it identified in having not called him back and acknowledged that “it [was] not acceptable”.  This was not followed up or recognised in its formal response to the complaint, however.
30. The landlord’s complaints policy does not specify how a stage one complaint response may be provided, however, telephone responses to complaints are ordinarily reserved for first-line and informal complaints and not those which are being responded to as part of the formal complaints process and which could be progressed to the Ombudsman.  Verbal responses to formal complaints can give the perception of a lack of gravity or seriousness being afforded by the landlord, in respect of the complaint.  
31. Further, findings may be inadvertently miscommunicated, misheard or misunderstood and with a verbal response and the complainant does not have a chance to take time to digest the findings and outcome before deciding whether to request escalation of the complaint and on which grounds.  Indeed, the resident immediately requested escalation of the complaint in this case.  Moreover, not only does the responder to the complaint at stage two of the process not have a verbatim record of what was discussed, but nor does the Ombudsman have this information, making it difficult to make findings in respect of the handling of the complaint at this stage.
32. Regarding the landlord’s stage two response to the complaint, this was delivered late, outside of the timescale set out in the landlord’s complaints policy. The stage two complaints response was extremely brief, simply reiterating that no update could be provided and asking the resident to simply trust that his application was in process.  This was inappropriate.  The response did not convey any understanding of the resident’s concerns and frustration, or his understandable anxiety as to what was happening with his application or the reasons for delay. Nor did it provide him with any expectation as to timeframe.  Furthermore, responding to a complaint first requires investigation and there is no evidence that investigation was carried out. It is not known why the complaint response was delayed, particularly given that it appeared no investigation into the delay had been done.
33. Finally, the landlord failed to formally acknowledge the earlier service failure it itself identified, in failing to return his call/s and its poor communication generally. It did not offer compensation or an apology for this and whilst the landlord’s compensation policy states that the landlord will only consider offering compensation where there has been a tangible financial loss, the Ombudsman expects reasonable redress to be made in response to complaints.  Although this does not necessarily or always mean an offer of compensation, often an amount of compensation reflecting an identified service failure and/or a gesture of goodwill given delay and poor communication, as is the case here, for example, goes towards putting the matter right.

Determination

34. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of the complaint. 

Reasons

35. There was service failure insofar as the landlord failed to communicate effectively with the resident regarding update requests as to his right to acquire application, or to manage his expectations.  The landlord’s response to the complaint was inappropriate; it failed to log the formal complaint when it was initially made and its final response was delayed, without explanation or apology.  The landlord’s response failed to investigate the matter, did not formally recognise an earlier accepted service failure or identify the issues with communication, delay and expectation management.  Overall, the landlord did not demonstrate that it had heard and understood the concerns or attempt to put things right.

Orders and recommendation

Orders

36. The landlord to pay the resident £200 compensation, comprised of:

 

1. £100 for the service failures identified with its communications and expectation management, and;

 

2. £100 for the service failures identified in its complaints handling.

 

37. If not already done so and the issue remains ongoing, the landlord to provide the resident with a clear update as to the situation, any reason for delay and any expected timescales within which he can expect to hear.

 

38. The landlord to confirm compliance with the above orders by 25 January 2021.

Recommendation

39. The landlord to review its complaints and compensation policy, in particular, to build in a requirement to provide a formal written response to the complaint at stage one and to consider its stance on where it may make an offer compensation.