The Guinness Partnership Limited (202326682)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202326682

The Guinness Partnership Limited

12 June 2025

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:
   1. Handling of the resident’s reports of noise from the flat above.
   2. Complaint handling.

Background

2. The property is a 3 bedroom, midrise flat. The resident became a tenant in 1980. He lives in the property with his wife and adult child. The resident’s representative, his adult child, helped bring his complaint to us. For clarity, throughout this report we will refer to correspondence from both the resident and his representative as being from ‘the resident’.
3. The resident saw the landlord on the estate on 6 February 2023. He reported that the children in the flat above were running up and down, disturbing him. The landlord spoke with the neighbour on 9 February 2023 and called the resident on 14 February 2023. It said it could not take further action as the noise was being caused by children. It provided the resident with information about the Noise App for him to submit recordings.
4. The resident raised a complaint with the landlord on 4 July 2023. He believed the neighbours above had laminate flooring and this was contributing to the disturbance. He had asked if the neighbour had permission for this but had not received a response. The landlord told the resident it would raise a case to the enforcement team, but he had not heard anything. The landlord sent its stage 1 response on 31 July 2023. It did not uphold his complaint. It said the neighbour had permission to have laminate flooring and they were using rugs to soften the noise. The landlord provided the contact details for the local authority so that the resident could obtain noise recording equipment. The landlord awarded £25 compensation for its delay in issuing its response.
5. The resident escalated his complaint on 12 August 2023, he said he did not think putting a rug down would resolve the issue. He asked why he was not consulted when the landlord gave the neighbour permission for laminate. He wanted the neighbour to put carpets down.
6. The landlord responded on 7 September 2023. It upheld his complaint after finding it had given him conflicting information. It could see there had been occasions when it had not responded to the resident as it should. Once the landlord asked the neighbour to get rugs, it should have visited to ensure they had got them. The landlord will organise a visit and update the resident afterwards. It awarded him £250 compensation.
7. The landlord contacted the resident with a review letter on 12 July 2024 after we accepted the case for investigation. The landlord identified failings with its case management, and that it did not update the resident after visiting his neighbour. It identified failings in its stage 1 acknowledgement and response. The landlord concluded it failed to be proactive, did not update when it should, and its communications were extremely poor. It awarded an additional £350 in compensation, bringing the total offered to £600.
8. The resident confirmed to us the neighbour has moved out. He is anxious about whether the flat above still has laminate. He remains unhappy with the landlord’s handling of his complaint and asked us to investigate further.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of noise from the flat above

9. It was positive the landlord was on the estate and had the time to interact with the resident. It is important the landlord is available for this type of informal interaction.
10. The landlord’s Noise App procedure states after receiving a report, it will send out a noise pack. This requests the resident submits Noise App recordings and diary sheets to the landlord to gather details of the issues. The landlord will check for support needs. It allows the resident 10 days to submit recordings, if the landlord does not receive any recordings, it will send a closure letter out. If the resident submits recordings, it will allocate it to the tenancy enforcement team.
11. The landlord sent the resident a noise pack on 14 February 2023. Following this the resident chased the landlord on 27 April 2023 and said he sent in recordings. We have not seen evidence in the landlord’s file that it received or assessed these. We have not seen that the landlord assessed whether there were any support needs or that it closed/reallocated the case after 10 days. Therefore, the landlord did not evidence it fully acted in line with its Noise App procedure.
12. The landlord sent out another noise pack on 27 April 2023. The landlord told the resident it would raise a tenancy enforcement case on 3 May 2023. We can see it did this, but it was referred back to the local team the following week. The resident submitted noise recordings on 9 May 2023. The local officer noted on 30 May 2023 they were waiting for the recordings to be allocated to them. The following day the landlord contacted the neighbour and asked her to get rugs. We have not seen evidence the landlord communicated further with the resident until he submitted his complaint the following month. The landlord’s lack of communication about its actions are likely to have contributed to the resident feeling the need to complain. The landlord appropriately recognised this in its final response and later in its review letter, awarding compensation for this.
13. In its stage 1 response the landlord advised it gave permission for the neighbour to have laminate flooring. The landlord had previously told the resident it could not advise on this due to data protection. The resident complained about not receiving call backs from the landlord on this and other topics. The landlord correctly identified in its final response letter, there were occasions when it had not updated or called the resident back. This is likely to have made the resident think this was not important for the landlord.
14. In its stage 1 response the landlord said the resident had rugs to soften the noise. Yet we can see from the final response letter the landlord had not checked this. This would have been appropriate given the ongoing reports that the resident made about disturbances. The landlord said it would organise a visit to ensure the rugs were down and would update the resident afterwards. This was positive, however the landlord in its review letter identified that it had not updated the resident. This is likely to have further diminished the resident’s confidence in the landlord and its ability to manage the situation.
15. It was appropriate for the landlord to ask the resident for Noise App recordings. As the landlord had permitted laminate flooring to be installed, it should have given due consideration to how this would impact the resident.
16. In the landlord’s final review letter, it increased its compensation offer to £400 for the resident’s time, trouble, and inconvenience. This was within the compensation range that this service would award for maladministration cases such as this, where a landlord has acknowledged that its service failures adversely affected the resident but had no permanent impact.
17. In our view, however, the landlord should have undertaken a full review of the circumstances of the case on 7 September 2023, when it issued its final response letter. It is inappropriate that it was only once it began compiling the evidence for our investigation, that it recognised its failings and took steps to put things right for the resident. The landlord’s decision to apologise and offer further compensation at this time was satisfactory, and so we have not ordered the landlord to increase this. We have, however, still determined that there was a failure in service as this should have been given to the resident at an earlier time and without the need for our intervention.

The landlord’s complaint handling

18. Paragraph 1.13 of the Complaint Handling Code (the Code) states residents must be able to raise their complaints in any way and with any member of staff. All staff must be aware of the complaints process and be able to pass details of the complaint to the appropriate person within the landlord. In a telephone call with the resident on 27 April 2023, however, the landlord said the resident needed to call its customer service number if he needs to make a complaint. This was likely to have been frustrating for the resident as it created an unnecessary obstacle and was not in line with the code.
19. To act in line with its complaints policy the landlord should acknowledge a complaint in 2 working days and provide the resident with a stage 1 response in 10 working days. The landlord did not acknowledge the complaint in time. It should have provided its response by 21 July, but it did this 6 working days later. This is likely to have been frustrating for the resident. The landlord recognised this in its stage 1 response and awarded £25 which was appropriate given the short delay.
20. The landlord provided its final response letter in line with the timeframes as set out in its complaints policy. However as evidenced in its review of the complaint dated 12 July 2024 it did not adequately assess its performance. This also allowed the landlord to identify that it had not updated the resident after the neighbour’s visit. We further found the landlord did not take the resident’s initial complaint on 27 April 2023. The landlord awarded £200 in total for its poor communications and complaint handling. This is slightly above what we would have awarded. Therefore, we have concluded that the compensation offer was appropriate in satisfactorily resolving this element of the complaint.
21. As previously stated, the landlord’s opportunity to review the case is the final response stage, the reassessment of this was inappropriate. The landlord’s review letter awarded fair and proportionate compensation amounts and adequately assessed its failings. As such we have not ordered the landlord to take any further action. However, we have found service failure as this should have been offered to the resident through its complaints process, without our intervention.

Determination

22. In accordance with paragraph 52. of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of noise from the flat above.
23. In accordance with paragraph 52. of the Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

24. If the landlord has not already done so, it is to pay the resident the £600 compensation it previously offered. This is comprised of:
    1. £400 for the resident’s time, trouble, and inconvenience following the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of noise from the flat above.
    2. £200 for the poor communication and landlord’s complaint handling.
25. The landlord is to provide us with evidence of this within 4 weeks of the date of this report.