Wokingham Borough Council (202108469)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202108469

Wokingham Borough Council

5 September 2022

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 tone and content of the landlord’s warning letter to the resident, and an associated email.

Background

2. The complainant has been the landlord’s tenant in a two-bedroom house since June 2018, when the tenancy was assigned to him from his father, the previous tenant since September 2005. Both remain residents.
3. The complainant has authorised his father to deal with the landlord and HOS in making the complaint on his behalf. As both are involved in the events complained of, this report refers to them as AW (the complainant) and MW (his father and authorised representative), for clarity as required, and together as “resident(s)” only where appropriate.
4. Neighbours in the residents’ adjoining property made a series of Anti-Social Behaviour (ASB) allegations against both residents in December 2020 and January 2021, resulting in police and local councillor involvement. The landlord then issued a tenancy breach warning letter following a meeting with the residents in May 2021. The landlord refers to a longer and intermittent history of ASB allegations both against the residents by various neighbours, and by the residents against them.
5. The residents complained to the landlord on 25 May 2021 that the letter and various emails from the landlord were unjustified, threatening and abusive. MW later clarified that he meant “abusive” in the sense of “abuse of power”, and not necessarily abusive language.
6. The landlord requested copies or details of emails complained of, ultimately being directed by the residents to only one email dated the day after the letter. The landlord located and reviewed this together with the letter, before rejecting the complaint. The residents requested escalation to stage two of the landlord’s complaints procedure on the basis that they did not believe that the communications complained of, had been reviewed properly. Their stage two complaint was again rejected, the second-stage reviewer finding that the landlord had reviewed the letter and the only email identified by the residents, and had been reasonable to conclude there was no issue with their content. 
7. The resident has advised this Service that he remains unhappy with the landlord’s response. He seeks a written apology.

Assessment and findings

8. The evidence provided to the Housing Ombudsman Service includes a detailed statement by the landlord’s Localities Housing Manager describing the sequence of events from December 2020 and leading to the warning letter in May 2021. This details contents of complaints received, and the Ombudsman has been provided with copies of a number of these, which include several police report references.
9. The complaints received by the landlord and reviewed by the Ombudsman, included allegations that the residents had used violently threatening and foully abusive language to neighbours.
10. This Service has reviewed the landlord’s internal communications from which it is clear that a number different employees considered the complaints received, and evidence supporting them, before action was decided upon or taken. 
11. The Ombudsman has also seen copies of communications between the landlord and Thames Valley Police, including a reply from the police to the landlord, dated 21 December 2021, confirming that evidence provided to the police had satisfied two different officers that MW should be questioned about a suspected public order offence in relation to complaints received. 
12. Where significant ASB allegations are raised, the landlord has a right and a duty – both to accuser and accused – to make any accused resident aware of this, direct them to their tenancy obligations, and give them the opportunity to respond. Otherwise the accused resident would have no opportunity either to deny or challenge allegations made against them, or to alter their behaviour and avoid further consequences, if accepting any allegation. Not telling them and offering that chance, may in itself be deeply unfair and prejudicial to the resident who has been accused.
13. The landlord’s ASB policy and procedure provided to the Ombudsman is dated 5 June 2015 and states it is to be reviewed at least every three years. Nevertheless, it does appear to be the policy and procedure remaining in force, as it is the version currently published on the landlord’s website. At paragraph 4.1 it identifies ASB as:

‘Where a person(s) has acted in a manner that caused or was likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress to one or more persons not of the same household’

14. It is clear that the allegations received by the landlord and the police, supported by sufficient evidence to cause the police to question MW, met that description.
15. It appears that no further specific incidents were raised with the landlord between early January and April 2021, and the Ombudsman understands MW was not ultimately charged by Thames Valley Police. However, the landlord continued to liaise with Thames Valley Police, and arranged both to meet with the neighbour and visit the residents. This is in line with paragraph 7.4.1 of the policy, which requires the landlord to do so.
16. On 6 May 2021 the landlord and the police met with the neighbours, and mediation was agreed. The Ombudsman is told by the LHM that that mediation could not later proceed because of legal action taken by the resident against the neighbour over a separate dispute which is outside the scope of this report. It is not clear which party to the dispute – the resident or the neighbour – declined to mediate.
17. The landlord and the police also on 6 May 2021 visited the residents at their home. The landlord’s notes of that meeting have not been provided to the Ombudsman, but the resident’s complaint does not relate to the visit itself, and raises no dispute about what happened or was said during the visit.
18. The Ombudsman has, nonetheless, reviewed the letter sent by the landlord on 19 May 2021 regarding a potential breach in tenancy. The letter advised that there had been complaints that the resident or members of the resident’s household had been the perpetrator of ASB, most noticeably by using foul and threatening language during an incident on 20 December 2020.
19. Evidence seen by the Ombudsman confirms that such complaints had been received. The landlord’s letter subsequently referred to the relevant tenancy provisions about considerateness, respect, nuisance and annoyance, correctly quoting these from terms 44 and 45 of the resident’s tenancy agreement. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, having received the complaints, it was appropriate for the landlord to do this.
20. The letter went on to mention the resident’s use of CCTV, which it noted had also been complained of by neighbours. It said that neighbours reported concerns that the cameras were positioned to look beyond the residents’ own property and into the neighbour’s. The LHM reports having viewed the CCTV picture with the residents during the visit, which confirmed this as true. It also transpired that the CCTV was recording audio, though it is not clear to the Ombudsman, whether this was known and reported by the neighbours, or discovered by the landlord at the visit.
21. The landlord’s letter therefore quoted relevant lines from the Information Commissioner’s Office guide, ‘Domestic CCTV systems – guidance for people using CCTV’, which appears on the ICO website, and summarises rules about private CCTV use. The landlord then, again, set out the tenancy provisions (again at tenancy terms 44 and 45) to highlight how the behaviour could result in a breach. Although the landlord did acknowledge that the cameras were repositioned following its visit, it was reasonable to mention this.
22. Paragraph 7.4.6 of the landlord’s ASB policy requires it to write such a letter to the alleged perpetrator of ASB after a meeting has taken place, confirming the outcome. It was therefore appropriate for the landlord to issue this letter, which this Service has been unable to conclude was abusive or threatening.
23. As it was alleged that there was further examples of abuse (or misuse of landlord powers), the residents were invited by the landlord to provide proof. They were also invited, as seen in the landlord’s email dated 11 June 2021, to provide dates and times so that the landlord could itself attempt to locate correspondence. This Service notes, however, that the residents were only able to provide one date – 20 May 2021 – which the landlord subsequently reviewed.
24. While this email made reference to the possibility of seeking resolution through proper legal routes for any issue which could not be resolved between landlord and resident, it was neither abusive nor threatening and, notably, concluded by offering a route to amicable resolution. It then touched on the ASB matter only to repeat acknowledgment of the residents’ agreement to reposition the CCTV cameras as requested, and to thank them for their co-operation in this.
25. The Ombudsman has therefore been unable to find that the landlord’s communication was abusive or heavy-handed in any sense, or that the incorrect approach was taken. It has subsequently been concluded that there was no maladministration. 

Determination

26. In accordance with paragraph 54 of the Scheme there was no maladministration in relation to the tone and content of the landlord’s warning letter to the resident, and an associated email.