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Notting Hill Genesis (NHG) (202217561)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202217561

Notting Hill Genesis (NHG)

30 April 2024


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:
    1. The landlord’s handling of repairs and remedial works, including the standard of workmanship.
    2. The landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for reimbursement for possessions and flooring damaged by the leak, and the landlord’s decision to signpost the resident to its insurers.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s complaint handling.

Background

  1. The resident wrote to the landlord on 20 March 2022 about ongoing repairs following leak(s) in the property. The resident expressed dissatisfaction about things like the quality of workmanship, damage resulting from the leak and the length of time taken to resolve. This was raised as a formal complaint on 14 April 2022.
  2. The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 22 June 2022. It offered the resident £1,991.68 compensation and instructed the resident to claim for damage to her carpet via her contents insurance. The resident was satisfied with this outcome.
  3. The resident reported a new leak on 16 July 2022. She chased the landlord frequently before raising a formal complaint on 9 August 2022, as the repair had not yet been attended. On 10 August 2022 she added that she had sought advice about the landlord’s previous decision to direct her to her contents insurance to claim for the damaged carpet, and was unhappy with the landlord’s position.
  4. On 20 October 2022 the resident complained that her complaint of 9 August 2022 had not been responded to. She chased the landlord on 8 November 2022 and contacted the Ombudsman on the same day for help progressing her complaint. She continued to chase throughout this period and to raise additional issues with the workmanship of some ongoing repairs, including concerns about the need to re-grout the bathroom tiles.
  5. The Ombudsman wrote to the landlord on 9 December 2022 instructing it to provide a final response to the resident’s complaints. The landlord inspected the works done to date on 21 December 2022 and issued its stage 2 response on 22 December 2022. The response:
    1. Stated that there had been some failings, which it would investigate.
    2. Noted that the service the resident had received had “not been a high level”.
    3. Acknowledged that the resident had not been receiving updates and “had to keep chasing”.
    4. Said that the landlord would investigate instances of missed appointments.
    5. Provided the resident with details for making a liability claim for damaged items.
    6. Offered £1,000 compensation for distress and inconvenience.
    7. Pledged to put an action plan in place and ensure it kept her updated.
  6. The landlord sent the response to the resident on 25 January 2023, after some further works had been attended. On 31 January 2023 it wrote to her again following its investigation into missed appointments and other failings. It said that the failings identified warranted a further £30 compensation for the missed appointment, and a £20 good will gesture. .
  7. On 15 February 2023 the resident informed the landlord she would accept the final response on the condition that “the repairs are completed soon”. The resident raised some new concerns at this time regarding workmanship. On 24 April 2023 the resident informed the Ombudsman that she was unhappy with the landlord’s final response to the complaint because:
    1. It had directed her to its insurers but the contact details provided by the landlord to make the claim had been incorrect.
    2. The repairs remained outstanding.
    3. She was unhappy with the quality of workmanship completed so far, and had no confidence that upcoming works would be of satisfactory quality.
  8. On 25 August 2023 the landlord surveyed the works done such as tiling, flooring and bath panelling. It found that the workmanship was poor and that “all of it should be done again”. All works were recompleted on 27 September 2023, however the resident remained unhappy with the workmanship.
  9. On 6 March 2024 the resident told the Ombudsman that she wanted the works completing to an acceptable quality, as had been promised by the landlord. She wanted a payment that was being dealt with by the insurance team to be paid and further compensation for her time and trouble, distress and inconvenience, and further missed appointments.

Assessment and findings

Scope

  1. Generally the Ombudsman investigates issues and events up to the date of the landlord’s final complaint response. This is because events that occurred after the date of the final response will not have been addressed via the landlord’s complaint process. However in cases such as this one, where actions promised via the complaint process remain outstanding following the final response, the Ombudsman will consider these are part of the landlord’s handling of the complaint.

The landlord’s handling of repairs and remedial works, including the standard of workmanship.

  1. The landlord’s repairs policy states that it “aspires to complete the standard repairs within 20 working days from date of report”. The Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles (DRPs) are to ‘be fair’, to ‘put things right’, and to ‘learn from outcomes’.
  2. In this case, there is no dispute that the landlord failed in its obligations under its own repairs policy to resolve the repairs in good time. The landlord’s December 2022 stage 2 response accepted the resident’s account of issues such as delays, poor communication and poor workmanship, offering £1,000 compensation. This took the total compensation paid to £2,991.68. It also promised to put a plan in place to resolve the repairs and keep the resident updated.
  3. It was appropriate that the landlord acknowledged its failings and the compensation offer provided reasonable redress in respect of the issues described, in line with the Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance. The resident was happy “on the condition that the repairs be completed soon”. However, there is no evidence that an action plan was provided. Given the landlord’s stage 2 response, the landlord should have ensured that these actions were completed, and that the repairs were scheduled in good time. The landlord’s repairs policy states that standard repairs should be completed within 20 working days, which would have been a reasonable timescale to apply in this instance. However the works were not completed until 25 August 2023 (and the evidence available shows that a surveyor found the quality of these works to be poor, and they had to be redone again in October 2023). Although there is evidence for some delays outside the landlord’s control, such as periods of illness where the resident could not accommodate works, the delays appear largely unexplained on the part of the landlord’s contractor. The evidence shows that the landlord had to chase regularly for updates and replies from the contractor. Although the landlord made reasonable efforts to evoke action from its contractor, it is ultimately responsible for the service provided by its contractors. Therefore, although the landlord had been fair and offered reasonable compensation to the resident, it did not go on to adequately ‘put things right’ by carrying out the actions promised and completing the repairs in a timely manner.
  4. The landlord signed off the works in October 2023, however the Ombudsman notes that the resident continued to contact the contractor about leaks and other issues until March 2024 including the resident’s reports of “poor quality grouting”. In the conversations between the resident and contractor, there appears to be an acceptance from the contractor that it was expected to reattend to carry out further works. It is therefore unclear whether or not all works have been completed satisfactorily.
  5. The landlord instructed a new surveyor to attend on 22 March 2024, in response to an information request made by the Ombudsman, but this was primarily to locate a leak which the resident believed to be ongoing (no leak was found), and there is no evidence that outstanding quality issues that had been previously raised, such as the grouting, were inspected. The Ombudsman requested a copy of the surveyor’s report, however it was not sent by the landlord.
  6. In conclusion, there were delays in completing the repairs and it remains unclear as to whether these have been completed satisfactorily. Therefore, there was a service failure in the landlord’s handling of repairs and remedial works, including the standard of workmanship.
  7. The Ombudsman’s Remedies Guidance states that, where there has been a failing or a series of failings over a significant period, compensation of over £1,000 is due. Although there was a significant period of adverse effect experienced by the resident following the stage 2 response, it is the Ombudsman’s view that the compensation offered during the internal complaints process (in excess of £2,900), was sufficient to ‘put right’ failings over the entire period. Therefore, no further compensation is awarded by this Service in this regard.
  8. While it is positive that the landlord offered a reasonable amount of compensation, there is no indication that it has taken steps to investigate and address the reasons for the initial and ongoing failings in the handling of the repairs in this case (which this report comments on further in the complaint handling section below). It is especially concerning that these failings appear to have continued past the date of the stage 2 response. As noted above, the status of the repairs themselves is also unclear. As such, a finding of service failure is made, along with orders to ensure that the landlord can ‘learn from outcomes’.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for reimbursement for possessions and flooring damaged by the leak, and the landlord’s decision to signpost the resident to its insurers.

  1. The resident was unhappy that the landlord had directed her to claim on her own contents insurance in its stage 1 response. The resident was later however directed to the landlord’s insurance, as the resident believed the landlord’s negligence may have been a factor in the cause of the damage. The landlord first explained this to the resident on 12 August 2022 and attended to assess the cause of the damage. On 30 November 2022, the landlord again directed the resident to her own insurance, but added that it would query this due to some of the damage being caused by “the ongoing leak”. In the landlord’s stage 2 response, it directed the resident to its own liability insurance.
  2. The delay in providing these details appears to be because the landlord disputed, or did not have sufficient evidence to support, the resident’s account of the cause of the damage. This however was a failing which led to unnecessary delays. This is because the resident made it clear she wanted to make a claim against the landlord’s insurance on 10 August 2022, but the landlord did not direct the resident to its insurers until 22 December 2022. The landlord’s complaints policy states that where this type of situation occurs, it “should refer these to the [landlord’s] insurer”. It is not the role of the landlord’s staff to assess the merit of any potential claim where there is a dispute, but that of the insurer. The Ombudsman has seen a number of instances of the landlord not following this policy, resulting in it declining to direct the resident to its insurance. For example, in April 2022 when it stated that it was “not responsible for the damage to the carpet”.
  3. On 14 August 2023, the landlord’s insurers accepted that the landlord was responsible for the damage as alleged by the resident. Because the value of the claim fell within the level of excess payable by the landlord, the insurer instructed the landlord to process a payment to the resident. The evidence shows that the resident chased this frequently with the landlord. The Ombudsman made a further information request to the landlord regarding this payment on 7 March 2024. It responded on 26 March 2024 stating that it was “disappointed” the payment remained outstanding. It paid the amount to the resident successfully in April 2024. The evidence shows that the resident’s chasing correspondence, which was frequent, was successfully forwarded to the right department. However, updates and responses were not forthcoming to the resident, to inform her that it was having trouble processing the payment. Although the landlord made some efforts to rectify the failed payment, it did not follow up the issue until completion. As a result, there was a service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for reimbursement for possessions and flooring damaged by the leak, and the landlord’s decision to signpost the resident to its insurers.
  4. There is evidence of significant time, trouble and inconvenience gone to by the resident in chasing this payment. To remedy this, an order for compensation is made below. Further, the resident was right to later point out to this service that in the time she was waiting (22 June 2022 to April 2024), the value of the claim is likely to have devalued, leaving the resident out of pocket. Orders are therefore made below to ‘put things right’.
  5. The resident also expressed dissatisfaction at the landlord’s decision to involve insurers at all, instead desiring that the landlord make a direct payment without first tendering a claim. In circumstances where a resident wishes the landlord to compensate for damaged or lost possessions, the Ombudsman would expect the landlord to consider this. The evidence shows that the landlord did this at the time. In the event of a dispute, such as in this case, the landlord should then refer the issue to its insurers. Although there was a delay in doing this, the landlord followed the correct process and there was no failing in this regard. The resident also wanted the landlord to take responsibility for replacing the flooring, which it did in October 2023.

Complaint Handling

  1. The landlord’s complaint policy sets out that it should respond to stage 1 complaints within 10 days. It should respond at stage 2 within 20 days. The Ombudsman’s Complaint Handling Code (the Code), by which the landlord is bound, sets out the expectations of the landlord in dealing with complaints. This includes timescales in which to respond, sharing the same timescales with the landlord’s own policy, which the landlord exceeded significantly at stage 2 by 115 days. The reason for this, the landlord explained, was that it first needed to wait until the repairs were complete to issue a response. As the Ombudsman pointed out to the landlord on 9 December 2022 however, the Code states that a response to a complaint should be issued “when the answer to the complaint is known, not when the outstanding actions required to address the issue, are completed.” The landlord’s delay in responding at stage 2 delayed the resident’s ability to seek a resolution via this Service. There were also delays at stage 1, though the reason for this is unclear.
  2. During these delays, the resident chased frequently, experiencing increasing levels of frustration. Although the landlord informed the Ombudsman it would not respond until the repairs were complete, there was no evidence that it informed the resident of this. Instead, it failed to respond to her chasers or to acknowledge the outstanding complaint. At times this caused a great deal of frustration for the resident, in part because it continued to correspond with her about other matters. For example in an email on 8 November 2022, where the resident asked for an update on her complaint. She added that “also I have no hot water or heating”. The landlord responded to the resident’s service request, but again did not acknowledge the complaint, leaving the resident to respond “you are ignoring my calls… you are not responding to my questions about my complaint… I don’t understand why you are ignoring me”. A staff member replied “I am in meetings. I have raised a repair”. There is no evidence it responded to the question about the complaint at a more convenient time, as would have been appropriate. The resident approached the Ombudsman the same day. On top of the delays, there was a further failing because the landlord did not provide the resident with an update. The landlord’s frequent tendency however to fail to respond to correspondence which referenced the resident’s complaint, understandably caused damage to the landlord’s relationship with the resident and resulted in distress.  
  3. Despite the above failings, the complaint responses which were issued by the landlord were of good quality. The landlord offered adequate compensation for the substantive issue, and was generally fair in its responses and decisions (reflected by the resident initially being satisfied with the outcome of both responses.
  4. However, the landlord did not offer compensation for the impact that its complaint handling failings had on the resident, and as noted above there is no evidence that the landlord used the complaints process to ‘learn from outcomes’. In its stage 2 response, it pledged to carry out further investigations in order to identify the cause of the failings it mentioned and “make recommendations to improve services”. However there is no evidence it did so. The recurrence of failings assessed above for over 12 months following the stage 2 complaint suggests that if it did complete any learning, it was not effective. Therefore there was a service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling, and orders are made below for remedy.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was a service failure in the landlord’s handling of repairs and remedial works, including the standard of workmanship.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was a service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s request for reimbursement for possessions and flooring damaged by the leak, and the landlord’s decision to signpost the resident to its insurers.
  3. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was a service failure in the landlord’s complaint handling.

Orders

  1. Within four weeks of the date of this determination, the landlord must:
    1. Pay the resident an additional £275, comprised of:
      1. £125 for the time and trouble caused by the handling of the insurance claim.
      2. £150 for the time and trouble caused by the handling of the complaint.
    2. Pay the resident a sum equal to 8% interest on the value of the insurance claim. It should use the date of the stage 1 response as a starting date for this calculation.
    3. Send an independent surveyor to assess the quality of the works done at the property, including but not limited to, the grouting of the tiles. The surveyor should make a clear record of the inspection and findings. The landlord should then write to the resident and the Ombudsman providing a copy of the surveyor’s record, and setting out timescales for any intended next steps (which should then be adhered to).
    4. Conduct a senior level review of the failings in this case which relate to the delays in repairs and communication. It should write to the Ombudsman with the details and outcome of this review, setting out what it has done, or intends to do, to improve its service in this regard going forward.
    5. That the landlord review this case in light of the complaint handling failures assessed above, including its failure to follow its policy regarding the resident’s insurance claim. It should ensure that training is provided on these areas to all relevant staff members if it has not been done so already.