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Golding Homes Limited (202329384)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202329384

Golding Homes Limited

11 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. This complaint is about the landlord’s handling of a roof repair.

Background

  1. The resident is an assured tenant of a house owned by the landlord.
  2. The resident complained to the landlord on 16 July 2023. She said she moved into the property in November 2022 and found a hole in the front and back fascia. She stated it attended in June 2023 and said it needed to check if it had assessed the roof for asbestos before she moved in. Since then, the repair had not progressed despite calling the landlord several times.
  3. The landlord responded at stage 1 on 3 August 2023. It acknowledged the delay in progressing the repair and said it had scheduled this for 31 August 2023. It confirmed a supervisor would attend the property on 4 August 2023 to decide if it needed to install scaffolding beforehand. It offered the resident £75 compensation.
  4. The resident escalated her complaint to the second stage of the landlord’s complaint procedure on 8 September 2023. She explained she had no communication from the landlord, and no one attended to install scaffolding or complete the repair.
  5. On 27 October 2023, the landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response. It recognised several failings in its handling of the repair and said it had scheduled the works for 17 November 2023. It offered the resident an additional £175. Part of this was to recognise the shortcomings in its complaint handling. This resulted in a total compensation offer of £250.
  6. The resident was dissatisfied with the landlord’s final complaint response and referred her complaint to this Service. She said it did not complete the repairs on 17 November 2023. To resolve the complaint, she wants it to improve its communication with residents and complete the agreed repairs.

Assessment and findings

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident said the way the landlord managed the issues caused her stress. The Ombudsman empathises with the resident. However, the courts are the most effective place for disputes about impact to health. This is largely because it can appoint independent medical experts to give evidence. They have a duty to the court to provide unbiased insights on the diagnosis, prognosis, and cause of any medical condition. When disputes arise, the court can examine oral testimony. Therefore, concerns about the health impact of the issues are better dealt with via the court.

Repairs

  1. Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 places a statutory obligation on the landlord to keep the structure and exterior of the property in repair.
  2. Once on notice of a repair, the landlord must conduct the works it is responsible for within a reasonable period, in accordance with its obligations under the tenancy agreement and in law. The law does not specify what a reasonable amount of time is – this depends on the individual circumstances of the case.
  3. The landlord’s repairs handbook sets out that it aims to complete all repairs within 28 days. If this is not possible, it will let residents know the proposed completion date.
  4. Within the resident’s initial complaint, she said she moved into the property in November 2022 and made several calls to the landlord. Its records show that it first logged the damaged fascia on 3 May 2023. We have not seen evidence of earlier communication between the parties concerning the repair.
  5. Neither party disputes that there were delays progressing the repair and poor communication throughout. After reviewing the evidence available, we are minded that the landlord acted with a lack of urgency and did not proactively manage the repair in line with the timescale set out in its policy. It failed to provide an appropriate level of service and did not put things right in a timely manner, which caused repeat appointments and had a detrimental impact on the resident. Taken altogether, these were considerable failings.
  6. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code) is applicable to all member landlords. It specifies that a stage 1 complaint should be finalised in 10 working days from the acknowledgement of the complaint, with no more than a further extension of 10 days. A stage 2 complaint should be finalised within 20 working days from the acknowledgement of the complaint, with a further extension of 20 days if required. A landlord should not exceed these timescales without good reason.
  7. The resident initially complained on 17 July 2023. The landlord issued its stage 1 response 13 working days later. She escalated her complaint to stage 2 on 8 September 2023. The landlord initially said it would respond by 5 October 2023, which it later extended to 13 October 2023. Following a call with the resident, it further extended its response date to 20 October 2023. She chased again for a response, and it issued its stage 2 response on 27 October 2023. It is evident it failed to appropriately manage her expectations concerning its response times. However, we recognise it apologised and compensated for its shortcomings within its final complaint response. This was fair and reasonable.
  8. Under our dispute resolution principles, it is good practice for a landlord to identify clear learning points and outline actions to ensure similar service failures will not occur in the future. In this case, the landlord referenced specific learning from the resident’s experience within its complaint response to improve its service provision. This was appropriate in the circumstances.
  9. The stage 2 response was the landlord’s opportunity to put matters right for the resident. The Code states that, when responding to a complaint, the “remedy offer must clearly set out what will happen and by when, in agreement with the resident where appropriate.” A landlord should follow its proposed remedy through to completion.
  10. At stage 2, the landlord apologised to the resident and offered £250 compensation. This was comprised of £75 for missed appointments and the resident’s time and trouble, and £175 for her continued chasing for the repair post-stage 1 and the shortcomings in its complaint handling. In addition to financial redress, it said it would replace the soffit and clear the guttering on 17 November 2023. A senior member of staff promised to monitor the repair through to completion.
  11. On 17 November 2023, the resident said the contractor was unable to complete the work as it was larger than expected and required scaffolding. She was frustrated that after completing the complaint procedure and having a scheduled date, the repair did not go ahead. The landlord has not evidenced that it considered the further impact to the resident, learnt from the situation, or offered compensation for the additional repair delay. This is the basis of a failure finding instead of reasonable redress.
  12. Our remedies guidance suggests compensation awards of £100 to £600 are appropriate where there was a failure that adversely affected a resident. While the landlord offered redress within this region, it is a concern that it failed to honour its commitment to complete the repair on the date agreed within its final complaint response and did not communicate with her effectively. This indicates a lack of management and oversight in the landlord’s repairs service delivery.
  13. The landlord informed us that it completed the repair on 21 December 2023. We have ordered additional compensation to reflect the distress and inconvenience caused to the resident in view of the further delay.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of a roof repair.

Orders and Recommendations

Order

  1. Within 4 weeks of the date of this report, we order the landlord to pay the resident £300 compensation to recognise the distress and inconvenience caused by its handling of the issue. This is inclusive of the £250 offered within its complaint procedure.
  2. The landlord must provide evidence of compliance with the above order.

Recommendation

  1. We recommend that when offering compensation in future complaints, the landlord provides a more detailed breakdown of how much is for each shortcoming.