Southern Housing (202216116)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202216116

Southern Housing

19 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

The complaint is about the landlord’s:
1. Handling of the resident’s query about the communal garden.
2. Complaint handling.

Background

The resident has an assured tenancy at the property, which is a flat. The property has a communal garden for use by the resident and her neighbours. She has lived there since 2015. Around 2020 the resident and the neighbours agreed to fence the communal garden so they had their own section.
The resident made a complaint to the landlord in March 2022 about “unsightly changes” in the garden. She said she had removed the dividing fence as the neighbours had “violated their verbal agreement”.
The landlord responded at stage 1 of its complaints procedure on 5 December 2022. It said it would take action to address garden “structures”. The resident escalated her complaint in September 2023 as she was unhappy with the condition of the garden.
The landlord responded at stage 2 of its complaints procedure on 20 December 2023. It said it had removed the structures and had formally divided the garden. The resident referred her case to us on 2 January 2024 as she was unhappy with the division of the garden.

Assessment and findings

Handling of the resident’s query about the communal garden

The exact date of the resident’s complaint to the landlord is not clear from the correspondence we have been provided with. However, from the information we have seen, this was in March 2022. Within her complaint she told the landlord about structures put up in the garden by the neighbour’s. She asked the landlord to put the garden back to how it originally was or divide it equally.
The resident chased the landlord for an update on 9 May 2022. It took the landlord around a month and a half, to respond from her original complaint. It told her on 30 June 2022 that it had not given permission for the garden to be split by fences.
The resident’s tenancy agreement says the resident must obtain the landlord’s written permission before removing or putting up fences.
As such, It was reasonable for the landlord to state the fences were erected outside the tenancy agreement. We have not seen any evidence that the landlord addressed the structures complained about at this time.
The resident chased the landlord about her complaint about the garden “cabins” on 26 September 2022. She subsequently involved her MP on 20 October 2022. The landlord responded to the MP on 31 October 2022. It said as follows:
1. It acknowledged the structures in the garden were causing a nuisance to the resident. It would inspect the garden and would do as follows:
  1. Photograph any structures and find out who they belong to.
  2. Check if it had given permission for the structures to be put up.
  3. If it had not given permission, it would serve notice on the owners to remove them.
  4. If the structures were not removed, it would liaise with its legal team. It would send the owners a formal letter of its intention to remove them.
2. It confirmed it did not maintain the garden. However, it would consult the resident and neighbours about putting a maintenance service in place. This would ensure the garden was maintained and inspected to prevent such a situation again.
The resident’s tenancy agreement says that unless she pays a service charge for garden maintenance, the resident is responsible for its upkeep. This confirms the appropriateness of the landlord’s position that at the time of the complaint it was not responsible for garden maintenance as no service charge was in place.
The resident’s tenancy agreement also enables the landlord to take on the additional services. It says as follows:
1. The landlord may, after consultation with the resident and tenants affected, add services via a service charge.
2. The landlord may change the conditions of the tenancy agreement by agreeing them or giving the resident 28 days written notice. Before doing so, it will consult with the resident about proposed changes.
As such, its offer of a consultation with a view to provide garden maintenance was in line with the tenancy agreement. This also demonstrated the landlord was taking appropriate steps to consider management of the issue to prevent a reoccurrence of the issues that led to the complaint.
The landlord inspected the garden on 3 November 2022. It subsequently wrote to the resident and neighbours on 16 November 2022. It said it had found a number of items including sheds and dividing fences at the property. If said if these items were not cleared by 30 November 2022, it would remove them.
Analysis of the landlord’s proposed actions show they were in line with the tenancy agreement. That being This says that although the landlord was not responsible for the garden maintenance, if it was not done by the tenants, it could carry out work and re-charge the tenants.
The landlord responded at stage 1 of its complaints procedure on 5 December 2022. It said as follows:
1. It had inspected the garden. It clarified it had not given permission for it to be divided or for the structures to be put up.
2. It had issued a notice to the resident and neighbours on 16 November 2022 asking for items to be removed.
3. Once the garden was clear of unauthorised items, it would consult with tenants about putting a maintenance service in place.
The evidence shows the landlord’s complaint response was in line with the commitment it had made in its response to the resident’s MP. It demonstrated the landlord had investigated the issue of whether permission had been granted and it committed to an action plan to resolve the complaint.
The resident chased the landlord on 24 January 2023 as it had not removed the structures. She said there was more “junk” in the garden. The landlord explained on 3 February 2023 that one of the neighbours had disputed not having permission for the structure. As such, it needed to investigate this further. It said it would provide an update by 3 March 2023.
The evidence shows the landlord’s further investigation was reasonable, given the challenge to its previous findings by a neighbour. However, we have not seen any evidence the landlord had made the resident aware of this or that this would delay it taking enforcement action prior to the resident having to chase a response on 24 January 2023. The lack of proactive communication from the landlord caused frustration to the resident and was a missed opportunity to maintain good communication with her.
The landlord told the resident on 9 March 2023 that it had inspected the garden on 1 March 2023. It had found the garden to be in a “poor state of repair”. This included hanging live electrical cables, “trip hazards” and 2 large outbuildings, which had been put up without permission. It said it would make the garden safe and asked for the buildings to be taken down.
The evidence shows the landlord’s commitment to take action to clear the garden of the identified hazards following its most recent inspection was in line with its obligations under the tenancy agreement.
Although the landlord had identified hazards and committed to make the garden safe, we have not seen any evidence it provided a timeframe to the resident of when it would do so. We have also not seen any evidence it took any interim steps to minimise the risk of the hazards to the resident, or to expediate the work to do so in the meantime. This was a failing by the landlord.
Although we have seen that the landlord considered taking on the garden maintenance, we have not seen any evidence it did so. This is in spite of the resident saying to the landlord that she had been paying for maintenance of the garden since April 2023.
The landlord told the resident on 10 July 2023 it had given legal notice to the neighbour that the structure should be removed by 21 July 2023. If not, the landlord would remove it. We have not seen any evidence the landlord explained the reason for this delay to this point for it to take steps to remove the structure.
On 2 August 2023 the landlord asked a contractor, to divide the garden into 3 sections.
The tenancy agreement permits the landlord to make changes to the tenancy, however, it says the landlord should consult with the resident about proposed changes before doing so. It should also ask the resident’s agreement or give 28 days’ written notice of such a change.
We have not seen any evidence the landlord consulted with the resident about its plan to formally divide the garden. We have also not seen any evidence of it having given her 28 written notice of this or any option to challenge its decision. This was not in line with the conditions set out in the tenancy agreement.
It is not clear when the landlord cleared the garden, however, it had done so by 10 October 2023. The resident queried the decision to divide the garden into 3 and said it contradicted “legal agreements”. She asked if the tenancy agreement would be updated. The landlord confirmed the tenancy agreement would be updated to reflect the resident’s sole use of part of the garden allocated for her sole use.
The landlord responded at stage 2 of its complaints procedure on 20 December 2023. It said as follows:
1. It had formally divided the garden in August 2023 and had cleared the area in October 2023. It apologised the clearance had been delayed.
2. The resident and neighbour’s had previously taken informal responsibility for parts of the garden. It had not changed the tenancy agreements to reflect this at the time, which had caused confusion. It would subsequently amend the tenancy agreement to reflect the division by 26 January 2024.
3. It apologised for the delay in removing the garden structure. It clarified this was due to a dispute with a neighbour over claims permission had been granted. It apologised tit had not kept the resident up to date with the progress of this.
4. It offered £600 compensation for the inconvenience, time, trouble and delays in resolving the matter.
Analysis of the landlord’s stage 2 response shows the landlord acknowledged some of its failures and its delay in taking action in respect of the garden structure. The landlord’s decision to divide the garden formally and update this in the tenancy agreement, reflected the informal agreement the resident and the neighbour’s previously had prior to her complaint. The response clarified the resident had always been responsible for garden maintenance. As such, there was no new responsibility placed on her by the landlord in respect to maintenance. The structures the resident had objected to had been removed.
The evidence shows the landlord’s decision to formally divide the garden was one option available to it to resolve the situation.
However, we have not seen evidence the landlord carried out a consultation with the resident over the proposed change as was required by the tenancy agreement. We have also not seen evidence of its decision making to revert from it taking over the garden maintenance to this being placed back on the tenants. This demonstrated a lack of transparency in how it chose to resolve the decision, despite its outcome being reasonable in the circumstances.
In summary, our investigation has identified some of the steps taken by the landlord were reasonable. These were as follows:
1. The landlord set out a plan of action to outline the steps it would take to resolve the complaint.
2. It suggested options available to it to prevent a re-occurrence of the events that led to the complaint.
3. It acknowledged it had taken too long to remove the structure from the garden.
4. It acknowledged that its previous failure to update tenancy agreements had caused confusion.
5. It upheld the complaint, considered the impact of its failures on the resident and offered redress.
However, the following failures of the landlord were identified:
1. The delay of 7 months to respond to the resident was inappropriate. This took place only after the resident had involved her MP.
2. It took 8 months to inspect the garden.
3. It was slow to take enforcement action to remove the structure. It was not proactive in its communication with the resident about delays.
4. We have not seen any evidence to show that the landlord consulted the resident about it taking over maintenance of the garden. The resident told us, the landlord took over the maintenance of the garden in April 2023. We have seen no correspondence from the landlord about this.
5. We have not seen evidence of action the landlord took in respect of the hazards it had identified. We have not seen any evidence of the landlord taking steps to minimise the hazards in the meantime.
6. There was a further delay of 7 months, from 1 March 2023 to 10 October 2023 to clear the garden.
7. We have not seen any evidence that the landlord consulted the resident about its subsequent decision to divide the garden or the reasons for this.
When failures are identified, as in this case, our role is to consider whether the redress offered by the landlord put things right and resolved the resident’s complaint satisfactorily. In considering this, we take into account whether the offer of redress was in line with our Dispute Resolution Principles: Be Fair, Put Things Right and Learn from Outcomes as well as our guidance on remedies.
The amount of compensation offered in respect of the garden issue by the landlord was £600. This is within a range recommended by our remedies guidance where there were failures which had a significant physical or emotional impact on a resident.
The landlord acknowledged some failings and made an attempt to put things right, both by compensation and the action it has taken in the garden. However, it failed to demonstrate that it had followed the tenancy agreement or responded appropriately to the identified hazards. As such, its offer of compensation was not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation. This leads to a determination of maladministration.
To acknowledge the effect of the failures on the resident, we have ordered additional compensation of £200. This brings the total compensation for the landlord’s handling of the resident’s query about the communal garden to £800. This is in line with the range recommended in our remedies guidance where the landlord has acknowledged failings and made some attempt to put things right but failed to address the detriment to the resident.

Complaint handling

The landlord’s complaints policy says, at stage 1 it will acknowledge a complaint within 5 working days and will respond within 10 working days of the acknowledgement. The stage 1 response will provide information on how to escalate the complaint. At stage 2 it will acknowledge the escalation request within 5 working days. It will respond within 20 working days of the acknowledgement. If additional time is need at either stage it will let the resident know.
The date of the resident’s complaint is not clear. However, from other correspondence we can conclude she submitted it in March 2022. We have not seen any evidence the landlord acknowledged or responded to the complaint at the time. As such, the resident chased a response in May and again in September 2022.
As the landlord had not responded, the resident asked her MP for help with her complaint in October 2022. The landlord subsequently responded to the MP on 31 October 2022. Although this response addressed the concerns the resident had raised, it did not say it was a stage 1 response. It also did not contain any details of how to escalate the complaint, should the resident remain dissatisfied. This was not in line with its complaints procedure.
The resident contacted us for assistance and we asked the landlord to respond at stage 1 by 22 November 2022. The landlord failed to meet this timeframe and instead sent its stage 1 response on 5 December 2022. This was around 9 months after the resident had first made her complaint. Within the stage 1 response the landlord offered £10 for the delayed response. It did not explain how it had determined that £10 was appropriate to acknowledge the 9 month delay. It also did not apologise for the delay or explain the reasons for this.
The resident declined the compensation and said it was “insulting”. She made a request to us on 23 October 2023 to escalate her complaint. We asked the landlord to respond at stage 2 by 27 November 2023.
The landlord acknowledged the escalation request on 28 November 2023. This was after the date we had asked it to respond by. It provided no explanation for this delay. It subsequently responded at stage 2 on 20 December 2023. This was around 2 months after we had asked the landlord to escalate the complaint. This was around double the timeframe stated in its policy. The landlord did not acknowledge the stage 2 response was delayed nor did it offer any further compensation for its complaint handling failures.
Overall, the landlord’s complaint handling was poor. It failed to respond to the resident’s initial complaint and only did so after involvement from the resident’s MP and us. Both of its complaint responses were outside of its complaints policy timeframes. Its offer of £10 to acknowledge the effect of this on the resident was not reasonable in the circumstances. The landlord’s complaint handling failures in this case, amount to maladministration.
To acknowledge the effect of the failures on the resident, we have ordered £200 compensation. This is in line with our remedies guidance where the landlord had made some attempt to put things but the offer was not proportionate to the failings identified by our investigation.

Determination (decision)

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s query about the communal garden.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders and recommendations

Order

The landlord is ordered to take the following action within 4 weeks of this report and provide evidence of compliance to the Ombudsman:
1. Pay a total of £1,000 compensation to the resident. This amount includes the landlord’s previous offer of £610 compensation. The landlord can deduct this amount if it can provide evidence this has already been paid. The compensation is made up as follows:
  1. £800 to acknowledge the effect on the resident of the landlord’s failures in its handling of the resident’s query about the communal garden.
  2. £200 to acknowledge the effect on the resident of the landlord’s complaint handling failures.

Recommendation

It is recommended that the landlord investigate the resident’s concerns about paying for garden maintenance, which she feels was not carried out. If the landlord does not investigate this, it should signpost the resident to its complaints department for her to make a complaint to have this matter investigated.