Newcastle City Council (202408433)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202408433

Newcastle City Council

23 July 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 reports of repairs.
2. We have also investigated the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

3. The resident has been an assured tenant of the landlord, a local authority, since March 2024 (with a starter tenancy for the year before). The property is a 3-bedroom terraced house. The landlord has recorded vulnerabilities for the resident due to her mental health.
4. Between 28 August and 24 November 2023 the resident reported repairs to a damaged back gate and fence, back door, and curtain bearing rail. On 9 February 2024 she asked the landlord to log a complaint about the lack of progress with these repairs, which she said were outside of agreed timescales, and fell under the right to repair scheme. She requested compensation, and said:
   1. There was a gaping hole in the back door which meant she could not adequately heat the property.
   2. The lack of curtains combined with the hole were causing a draught and poor insulation.
   3. The property was at risk as the back gate and fence were not secure; this could invalidate her home insurance.
   4. The fence had been inspected by the landlord in August 2023 with the required work noted. She did not understand why it had arranged a further inspection for 20 October 2023 instead of carrying out the work.
5. In its stage 1 response of 6 August 2024 the landlord did not uphold the complaint. It said it had attended and completed the 3 jobs (setting out a timeline for each report). It said the curtain bearer was reported incorrectly by the resident via its online portal as a fascia job. A contractor attended, assessed they were fine and closed the job. A joinery job was booked after she called it to report the repair. The work was then completed on the next available appointment. It said the fence and external back door were processed through the assets team which could sometimes take longer; but these were now completed.
6. The resident escalated her complaint on 22 August 2023 as she remained unhappy with the time taken to complete the repairs. She wanted to make a claim under the right to repair scheme to be compensated for the time taken and distress caused. In its stage 2 response of 2 September 2024 the landlord said only certain repairs were covered by the scheme, known as qualifying repairs, and those she reported were not covered. It apologised for any delays and distress experienced but declined to compensate her as repairs were conducted within reasonable timeframes.
7. The resident referred her complaint to us, saying it had taken a year of chasing to complete the repairs. She said her repeated requests to log a complaint and make a claim under the right to repair scheme had been ignored. The landlord has told us that the installation of a curtain bearing rail was the resident’s responsibility; it had done this as a gesture of goodwill for the delays.

Assessment and findings

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of repairs

8. The resident has told us that the matters complained of have negatively affected her health. We do not doubt her comments, but it is beyond our remit to decide whether there was a direct link between the landlord’s actions and the resident’s ill-health. She may wish to seek independent advice on making a personal injury claim if she considers that her health was affected by any action or failure by the landlord. While we cannot consider the effect on health, consideration has been given to any general distress and inconvenience which the resident experienced as a result of any service failure by the landlord.
9. The landlord’s repair policy categorises repairs and gives associated response times as; emergency (4 hours), urgent (1, 3, or 7 working days), routine (15 working days), and planned repairs (40 working days). The policy defines planned repairs as replacement programmes where the landlord invests in the properties it manages to maintain the quality of homes. The resident’s report met the definition of routine repairs.
10. The landlord’s repair log shows the resident first reported the back gate and fence repair on 28 August 2023. A job was booked for 20 September 2023, 17 working days after the report. As the policy timeframe for this was 15 working days, the initial appointment was already outside of stipulated timeframes. No explanation was provided for the delayed appointment. An operative attended as scheduled and closed the job. The repair log does not show what action was taken during the appointment, or if any follow up work was noted or ordered. The resident said in an email of 23 July 2024 that the operative informed her the fence needed to be replaced and a job request had been sent to repairs to book an appointment to carry out the work.
11. In the absence of any further action, the resident chased the landlord on 20 and 29 December 2023. On 5 January 2024 the landlord said an inspection was conducted on 20 October 2023 and it was passed over for follow on work that still needed to be done. There was no explanation for why a second inspection was carried out, the work that was identified, who this was passed to, the reason for the delay beyond the policy timeframe, or the timescales within which the work would be done. Instead, the repair log shows a further job was logged on 18 January 2024, to ‘assess and book in works asap.’
12. In an email of 9 February 2024, the landlord told the resident it worked on jobs in 2 stages. At the first stage a job was marked complete after an inspection where photos were taken and materials ordered. A second job was then logged to carry out the work. The landlord has not explained to the resident or us what happened during the 20 September 2023 appointment or why the job was closed without ordering the work.
13. The resident directly asked why a second inspection was booked for 20 October 2023 when one had already taken place. We have not seen evidence of an answer being provided. This fence job was then logged again on 26 April 2024 for a survey to diagnose and arrange an agent for required repairs. This was cancelled, as it was recognised as a duplicate. The fence was ultimately repaired in July 2024, nearly 11 months after it was first reported. This was outside the policy timeframe.
14. The resident first logged the back door repair on 15 October 2023. This was attended on 16 October 2023, and the hole was boarded up with the job referred internally. The attendance was within the policy timeframes and the landlord acted correctly in addressing the immediate issue. However, we have not seen evidence that the resident was then informed of the next steps or given a timeframe for the full repair to be conducted.
15. Following chasers from the resident in December 2023, she was told in January 2024 that a job was booked for 6 March 2024. An explanation for the delay was not provided. In its 9 February 2024 email, the landlord told her that the March 2024 appointment was ‘most likely’ to take measurements for a replacement door unless it could be repaired. There was no explanation for why the initial inspection did not determine if the hole was repairable or if it should be replaced. Therefore, even when it gave the resident an appointment, the landlord was unable to confirm if the job would be completed that day.
16. The resident replied the same day to reiterate that an inspection was done in October 2023, when the operative had said the door needed to be replaced. The landlord then made internal enquiries and established that the door was referred to the assets team for replacement. It informed the resident of this on 29 February 2024 and said it could not provide a timescale. It said the door was on a long list of one-off replacements and was awaiting a slot on a scheme; its contractor would be in touch ‘in due course’. The landlord did not address the resident’s concerns that a child lived in the property and the damaged door made it less secure and was allowing cold and insects/vermin to enter. It did not explain why the door had to be replaced within the scheme.
17. The resident continued to express her concerns about the time taken. On 6 April 2024 she sent a photograph of the back door showing the gaping hole which she said had been there since October 2023. It is not clear if the repair the landlord noted for 16 October 2023 failed or if it deteriorated over the following months. In any event, the hole was boarded on 8 April 2024 before the door was ultimately replaced on 19 May 2024, 7 months after the initial report. This was outside the policy timeframe.
18. The resident first reported the issue with installing a curtain bearing rail on 24 November 2023. She said, due to the design of the property, there was no room to hang a rail. The landlord initially explained that the curtain rail may need to be connected to the wall but when she remained unhappy it logged jobs to investigate. The rail was installed in July 2024.
19. The landlord told us that the installation of a curtain bearing rail was the resident’s responsibility. However, we have not seen any evidence that it told her this following her report. It would have been helpful to direct her to the occupancy agreement or handbook which set this out, so that her expectations could be managed and she could take action to resolve it herself sooner. She had repeatedly mentioned that the lack of curtains combined with the damaged back door was leading to draughts and cold in the property.
20. There has been a deal of confusion in the landlord’s records and handling of these repairs. Explanations that should have been provided to the resident with timescales were not. The resident had to chase for updates, and even when the landlord responded it did not always give meaningful answers or deadlines. The resident was candid in her communications about the effect the lack of repairs was having on her health, and the distress and inconvenience being caused.
21. The resident referred several times to the right to repair scheme, but the landlord did not address this properly. When it did finally offer an explanation, it simply told her that her reports were not covered as qualifying repairs, while at the same time saying that doors were included. It should have explained to her why it did not think the resident’s door repair qualified under the scheme.
22. The landlord apologised in its stage 2 response for any delays and distress experienced but then said the repairs were attended within reasonable timeframes. The reason provided for its conclusion was that the fence and back door were repaired through its assets team and planned programmes can take longer to complete. There was no explanation as to why what should have been routine repairs, were passed to the assets team to include within a programme/scheme.
23. Even if the fence and back door could be considered as jobs better suited to a planned programme of works, which at the very least the back door was not, the policy stipulated a timeframe of 40 working days. The repairs were completed far outside this timescale. 
24. We have identified maladministration in the landlord’s actions. It is, therefore, ordered to write to the resident with an apology and to pay £500 compensation for the distress, upset, and inconvenience caused by its failures. This is in line with our remedies guidance, considering the duration the repairs remained outstanding, the poor communication, the lack of explanations and clear timeframes, and the ongoing impact on the resident who was vulnerable with a child in the property.
25. We encourage landlords to self-assess against our Spotlight reports following publication. In March 2019 we published our Spotlight on complaints about repairs. The evidence gathered during this investigation shows the landlord’s practice was not in line with the recommendations made in that report. We encourage the landlord to consider the findings and recommendations of our Spotlight report unless it can provide evidence it has self-assessed already.

Complaint handling

26. The landlord’s complaints policy applicable at the time defined a complaint as ‘an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by it, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual resident or group of residents’. It set out timeframes; 10 working days for a full response at stage 1, and 20 working days at stage 2 (with an extension of an extra 10 working days if needed).
27. The resident first started raising concerns about the service she was receiving in January 2024, before explicitly asking the landlord to log a complaint in her email of 9 February 2024. She continued expressing her unhappiness throughout March and April 2024. She then completed an online complaint form in May 2024, and continued to contact the landlord about its failures, her dissatisfaction, and her request for compensation. Despite this, the landlord did not log a complaint until 23 July 2024, 7 months after the first expression of dissatisfaction.
28. While the landlord then issued its stage 1 and 2 responses within the target 10 and 20 working day timeframes, it had unreasonably delayed logging the complaint in the first instance. Its complaint responses then failed to address or acknowledge the delays in its complaint handling or offer any explanations (as detailed above).
29. A complaint is an opportunity for the landlord to carry out a holistic and overarching review of a situation. It can use its findings to identify areas for improvement, prevent repeated mistakes, put things right, and rebuild the relationship with its resident. None of this was done in this case. We therefore find maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the formal complaint. It is ordered to write to the resident with an apology and to pay £200 compensation for the upset, inconvenience, and confusion caused by its complaint handling failures, in line with our remedies guidance.
30. On 8 February 2024 we issued the statutory Complaint Handling Code (the Code) which sets out the requirements landlords must meet when handling complaints in policy and practice. The Code applied from 1 April 2024 and we have a duty to monitor compliance with it. We will assess landlords using our Compliance Framework and take action where there is evidence that the requirements set out in the Code are not being met. As a result, no specific order is made on this case with regard to the landlord’s compliance with the Code, and the contents of its policies and procedures in that regard.
31. However, an order is made for the landlord to review its handling of the complaint in this case, alongside the provisions of the Code in order to: understand how the failings occurred; identify areas for improvement; and note where current practices may be at odds with the requirements of the Code.

Determination

32. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Scheme there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s:
    1. Reports of repairs.
    2. Associated formal complaint.

Orders

33. Within 4 weeks of this report the landlord is ordered to provide evidence that it has:
    1. Written to the resident with an apology (with reference to our remedies guidance to ensure the apology is sincere and appropriate) for its failures in:
       1. The handling of the repair reports.
       2. Complaint handling.
    2. Paid directly to the resident (and not offset against any rent arrears) £700 compensation, as follows:
       1. £500 for its failures in the handling of the resident’s reports of repairs.
       2. £200 for its failures in the handling of the associated formal complaint.
    3. Reviewed the complaint handling failures highlighted in this investigation alongside the provisions of the Code.