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The Guinness Partnership Limited (202208335)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202208335

The Guinness Partnership Limited

6 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 replacement of the resident’s kitchen and its communication about this.
    2. The associated complaint.

Background

  1. The resident is a tenant of the landlord. The landlord has advised that it has no recorded vulnerabilities for the resident’s household. However, the resident has advised that her husband has a medical condition which is affected by stress.
  2. The resident’s kitchen was inspected in February 2021. The landlord initially raised a work order on 3 March 2021 for the replacement of the kitchen. The resident advised that the target date for completion was 1 June 2021. The resident continued to pursue updates on the replacement between April 2021 and July 2021. A formal complaint was raised in August 2021 as she was dissatisfied with the delay in completing the replacement and the lack of communication from the landlord and its contractors.
  3. The kitchen replacement was approved in September 2021. Works began on 13 December 2021 and were reported as completed on 2 January 2022. The resident raised additional dissatisfaction with the length of time the replacement took and the disturbances caused over the Christmas period. She added that she had been informed that the delays had been due to the subcontractors not being paid by the landlord’s contractors and noted that only one operative had been present on a number of days meaning that the process was further delayed. She added that the stress and inconvenience and time and trouble she had spent pursuing the matter had impacted her and her husband’s health. She expressed dissatisfaction that the complaint had not yet been resolved.
  4. In response to the resident’s complaint, the landlord acknowledged that there had been an unreasonable delay between March 2021 and December 2021 in arranging for the kitchen to be replaced. It explained that this had been partly due to a backlog of works following Covid-19 restrictions where its repairs service had been suspended and apologised for the unreasonable delay. It apologised that it had failed to achieve its expected timescale of five working days for a kitchen replacement to be completed, especially given that the replacement was over the Christmas period which was likely to have been inconvenient. It also acknowledged that the resident had made contact on multiple occasions and that it had failed to complete call-backs or handle complaints formally. It offered £450 compensation, comprised of £200 for the delay in completing the kitchen replacement, £100 as an apology for its poor communication, £50 for the stress and inconvenience caused and £100 in recognition of the time and trouble the resident had spent pursuing the complaint.
  5. The resident referred her complaint to this Service as she remained dissatisfied that the complaint responses had focused on the delays and not the time and trouble or inconvenience caused to her. She did not feel that the complaint had been properly investigated by the landlord and she was dissatisfied with the delayed complaint handling. She also advised that the issues had impacted her mental health and her husband’s medical condition as well as causing her dog to have behavioural issues.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident has said she considers that the issues affecting her property have impacted her and her family’s health. The Ombudsman does not doubt the resident’s comments about hers and her family’s house. It is beyond the remit of the Ombudsman to determine whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and inaction and the health of the resident’s family and her dog’s behaviour. Whilst we cannot consider the aspects above, consideration has been given to the landlord’s response to the resident’s health concerns and any general distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced as a result of errors by the landlord.

The landlord’s handling of the replacement of the resident’s kitchen and its communication.

  1. The landlord has an obligation in line with the Decent Homes Standard to ensure that a property has reasonably modern facilities and services, including a reasonably modern kitchen (20 years old or less) and a kitchen with adequate space and layout. The landlord’s repairs policy states that the landlord is responsible for replacing items such as kitchens and bathrooms through its planned maintenance programme to be carried out over a given financial year. These can also be raised on an ad-hoc basis if the item needs to be replaced more urgently. The landlord would be expected to communicate effectively with a resident; where there are delays, it would be expected to contact the resident, explain the reason for the delay, and provide a new expected timeframe for any works required.
  2. In this case, it is not disputed that there was a significant delay in arranging and completing the resident’s kitchen replacement between March 2021 and January 2022 as well as communication failures which had an impact on the resident. The landlord has acted appropriately by acknowledging that there were significant avoidable delays in its handling of the matter and that it had failed to achieve its five–working–day timescale once the kitchen works began. It also identified that the resident had repeatedly made contact and it had failed to complete call-backs to the resident on a number of occasions as agreed.
  3. Where there are admitted failings by a landlord, the Ombudsman’s role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily in the circumstances. In considering this the Ombudsman considers whether the landlord’s offer of redress was in line with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles: be fair, put things right and learn from outcomes.
  4. The landlord has explained that the initial delay in arranging the kitchen replacement was largely due to a backlog of repairs due to the impact of Covid-19 which was somewhat outside of its control. However, this does not account for the lack of update or communication from the landlord regarding the works, especially following the expected completion date of 1 June 2021. The evidence shows that the resident sought updates from the landlord on at least six occasions prior to the complaint being raised in August 2021. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to have acted proactively and provided updates to the resident on the status of the replacement, explained the reason for the delay at the time, and provided an expected timescale for the works in order to adequately manage her expectations. There is no evidence to suggest that the reason for any delay was explained to the resident or an expected timescale was provided which was likely to have caused inconvenience to the resident, who was awaiting a resolution.
  5. Whilst the landlord advised that it would seek updates and ask the contractors to contact the resident on multiple occasions, this did not happen, meaning that the resident needed to spend additional time and trouble pursuing her concerns. Ultimately, the resident had a contractual relationship with the landlord, not its contractors. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to have taken ownership of updating the resident accordingly once it was aware that its requests that the contractor update the resident had been unsuccessful, to prevent any additional inconvenience to the resident. The communication failures were likely to have a cumulative impact on the resident considering that she needed to spend additional time and trouble pursuing updates in September and October 2021 to gain an understanding of when the works would take place. In addition, she needed to make repeated phone calls once the replacement began in December 2021 to raise additional concerns about the progress of the works which had been delayed. 
  6. Whilst the landlord has somewhat acknowledged its communication failures, its offer of £350 compensation is not considered proportionate given the impact on the resident, specifically in relation to its communication and the significant time and trouble the resident spent pursuing the replacement and completion of works in this case. In view of this, the landlord should offer an additional £100 compensation, bringing the total offer to £450. This amount is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance (available on our website), which states that amounts between £100-£600 are considered proportionate where there has been considerable service failure or maladministration but where there may be no permanent impact on the resident. Examples include a complainant repeatedly having to chase responses and seek correction of mistakes, necessitating an unreasonable level of involvement by that complainant.

The landlord’s handling of the associated complaint.

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy states that it has a two-stage formal complaints process. It may initially define a complaint request informally as a ‘service failure’ rather than a formal complaint where it had not delivered a service it had committed to within a given timeframe. At stage one of its complaints process, the landlord should provide a response within ten working days. If a resident remains dissatisfied, they can escalate their complaint to stage two. At stage two, the landlord should respond within 20 working days. If, at any stage, there is a delay, the landlord would be expected to contact the resident, explain the reason for the delay and provide a new response timescale which should not exceed a further ten working days.
  2. In this case, the resident initially completed a complaint form through the landlord’s website following several enquiries on 5 July 2021. The landlord confirmed that this was treated informally as a ‘service failure’ at this stage. However, it would have been appropriate for the landlord to have considered this as a formal complaint in line with its policy given the resident’s ongoing dissatisfaction. Following this, the resident completed a further complaint form on 23 July 2021 due to a lack of response and progression; this was acknowledged but no response was issued which was likely to have caused inconvenience to the resident who needed to continue to pursue a response.
  3. The resident then raised a further complaint on 9 August 2021 which was formally acknowledged by the landlord. The landlord issued its stage one complaint response on 2 April 2022, which was significantly outside of its policy timescales at stage one by 159 working days. This was likely to have caused considerable inconvenience to the resident who needed to spend time and trouble pursuing a response. The resident asked for her complaint to be escalated on 12 April 2022. She then pursued the escalation on 17 May 2022 due to a lack of response and the complaint was formally escalated. The landlord issued its stage two complaint response on 28 June 2022, which was outside of the landlord’s policy timescales for stage two complaints and 51 working days from her initial request. 
  4. The landlord made some effort to manage the resident’s expectations from the outset by explaining that it was taking longer than expected to handle complaints as a result of Covid-19 which was somewhat outside of its control. However, this does not account for the entirety of the delays in this case. It would have been appropriate for the landlord to have kept the resident regularly updated on the progress of her complaint and provided an estimated timescale of when she would receive a response in order to manage her expectations effectively. There is no evidence to suggest that it made reasonable efforts to do so in line with its complaints policy.
  5. The landlord acted fairly by acknowledging the delays at each stage within its complaint responses and apologising to the resident. However, there was a lack of transparency regarding the reasons for the delays once the work had begun in December 2021. Whilst it apologised that the kitchen was not replaced within its target timeframe of five working days and for the inconvenience this may have caused during the Christmas period, it failed to demonstrate that it had fully investigated the reasons for the delays throughout the process. In addition, whilst it said that it would provide feedback to its contractors, it failed to provide clarity on the steps it would take to prevent circumstances such as these occurring in the future or identify clear points of learning from the complaint which would have been appropriate given the significant failings in this case.
  6. The landlord‘s offer of £100 compensation for the time and trouble the resident spent pursuing the complaint is disproportionately low given the extensive delays and its failure to fully explain the reasons for the delays in this case. In view of this, the landlord is to offer the resident an additional £100 compensation in recognition of the inconvenience caused as a result of its poor complaint handling. This amount is in line with the Ombudsman’s remedies guidance (as detailed above).

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of the replacement of the resident’s kitchen and its communication.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure by the landlord in respect of its handling of the associated complaint.

Orders

  1. The Ombudsman orders that the following actions are taken within four weeks:
    1. The landlord is to pay the resident an additional £200, comprised of:
      1. £100 in recognition of the time and trouble spent by the resident pursuing the kitchen replacement as a result of the landlord’s poor communication.
      2. £100 in recognition of the inconvenience caused as a result of the landlord’s poor complaint handling.

This is in addition to the landlord’s previous offer of £450 if this has not already been paid.

 Recommendations

  1. It is recommended that the landlord reviews the case, alongside its contractors if appropriate, to establish key points of learning to prevent similar failures occurring in the future.
  2. It is recommended that the landlord considers carrying out staff training for complaint handlers to ensure that residents are adequately updated on the progress of their complaint where there are likely to be delays, in line with its complaints policy.