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Curo Places Limited (202326904)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202326904

Curo Places Limited

28 May 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 handling of the resident’s allegations of hate crimes.

Background

  1. At the time of the events complained about the resident was an assured tenant of a flat owned by the landlord. She resided at the property with her adult son. She stated she is disabled and requires the use of a wheelchair and mobility scooter to mobilise.
  2. On 17 July 2023 the resident complained to the landlord about how it had responded to a subject access request (SAR) she had made. As part of her complaint she also stated she and her son had been victims of hate crimes whilst living at the property.
  3. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 26 July 2023 explaining how it had handled the SAR. Regarding the resident’s statement that she had been a victim of hate crimes the landlord said it was unable to respond as it was unclear what complaint she was making about it or what she was seeking as an outcome. The landlord offered the resident £10 for its delay in acknowledging her complaint.
  4. On 10 August 2023 the resident escalated her complaint. She reiterated that she and her son had been victims of hate crimes and that her wheelchair had been stolen. She said she wanted her and her son to be moved from the property and was unhappy with the landlord’s offer of financial remedy.
  5. The landlord issued its stage 2 response on 18 October 2023. It said that it did not have sufficient information from the resident to investigate the hate crimes she had reported or take further action. It reiterated that the £10 it offered was for the delay in acknowledging her original complaint, not for how it handled her reports of hate crimes.
  6. The resident escalated her complaint to this Service to investigate on 7 November 2023. The landlord moved her to another property on 12 March 2024 however she told us she remained dissatisfied with its response. She wanted it to apologise and provide a financial remedy for how it handled her reports of hate crimes.

Assessment and findings

Scope

  1. As part of the resident’s contact with this Service she stated she has experienced further hate crime at the property she moved to on 12 March 2024. As this is a separate issue to the complaint raised with us, this is not something that we can investigate at this stage. The landlord needs to be provided with the opportunity to investigate and respond to this later issue. She will need to contact it and, if she remains dissatisfied, raise a separate complaint to get this matter resolved.
  2. The resident also raised concerns about the landlord’s ongoing handling of her personal data. We cannot consider whether it breached data protection regulations in its handling of her personal information. Breaches of data protection regulations fall under the remit of the Information Commissioner’s Office. We therefore advise that she contacts the Information Commissioner’s Office for further information if she wishes to pursue this issue.

Allegations of hate crime

  1. The landlord’s tenancy compliance policy defines hate crime as any criminal offence motivated by hostility to the victim’s protected characteristics, including disability. The policy says that it will investigate all reports of hate crime thoroughly and promptly. It said it would involve victims of hate crime in its response and work in partnership with other organisations, such as support agencies, to tackle reported hate crime.
  2. From the available evidence in the resident’s complaint on 17 July 2023 she gave the landlord a list of reference numbers she said related to hate crime incidents that happened to her and her son at the property. She did not provide any specific information about the nature of the alleged crimes, when these occurred or who was involved.
  3. On 31 July 2023 the resident reiterated she wanted the landlord to move her to a different property due to experiencing hate crime. She said one of the hate crime incidents was that her wheelchair had been stolen. However, she gave no further information about this or the other hate crimes she had reported. It acknowledged her request for a managed move and said it would create a case to investigate the theft of her wheelchair.
  4. The landlord phoned the resident on 10 August 2023 to discuss the theft of her wheelchair. It recorded she refused to give further details of this, or the other hate crimes she had referred to on 31 July 2023, as she considered its staff were involved. She confirmed that she had reported the hate crimes to the police but did not consent to it discussing the matter with them.
  5. In the same call the landlord told the resident it could make a welfare panel application for a managed move but would need further information about the hate crimes she had reported. It suggested it could make a referral on her behalf to the local authority’s service for reporting hate crime, to provide her with support if she was not willing to discuss the matter with it. She consented to this, and it made this referral the following day. This approach was consistent with its policy to work in partnership to tackle hate crime.
  6. On 14 August 2023 the landlord decided it could not open a hate crime case into the resident’s report of the theft of her wheelchair. Its decision to take no further action was reasonable in line with its policy. It attempted to work with her to investigate but she refused to provide further details. It also did not have any information about which of its tenants, if any, was responsible for the reported theft.
  7. The landlord phoned the resident on 13 October 2023 in relation to her complaint escalation. She accused it of allowing third parties to enter the property but refused to give it further information about this allegation or the hate crimes she reported. In its stage 2 response of 18 October 2023, it said it had no reason to believe that someone had entered the property unlawfully. In response to her reports of hate crimes it said it would open a support case to review the incidents if she consented to this.
  8. The resident responded on the same day reiterating that she wanted to be moved due to experiencing hate crime at the property. She described this as someone stealing her wheelchair and vandalising her mobility scooter. She provided it with a redacted copy of the report she had sent to the police about someone vandalising her mobility scooter. This recorded that the incident happened on 17 October 2023, she had redacted the section about who the suspects were.
  9. The landlord recorded internally on 24 October 2023 it could open another support case. It noted it needed to manage the resident’s expectations that if she did not know who was responsible, or did not give it further information to investigate the case, it would close this without taking any action.
  10. The landlord told the resident on 1 November 2023 that its tenancy compliance team had contacted her about the hate crime she had reported. It said it would open a case to investigate the vandalisation of her mobility scooter if she engaged with this. From the available records there is no evidence she responded to provide further information.
  11. The landlord told the resident it would not provide her with a financial remedy for how it had handled her reports of hate crimes. It said there was not a service failure on its part as she had not reported the hate crimes before her complaint, and she did not give it an opportunity to work with her to resolve the issue.
  12. From the available evidence and our guidance on remedies we consider the landlord’s decision was reasonable. Though its response offered her £10 it clearly explained this was for the separate issue that it delayed acknowledging her complaint for 4 working days. We find that its recognition of the delay and offer of compensation was adequate for the delay.  
  13. Overall, we find the landlord took reasonable action in line with its policy to respond to the resident’s reports of hate crimes.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was no maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s allegations of hate crimes.