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Citizen Housing (202221319)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202221319

Citizen Housing

24 May 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 landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports that the master bedroom of his property was too cold and uninhabitable.
  2. The Ombudsman has also considered the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Background

  1. The resident purchased a 60% share of the new build property in April 2021. The property is a 3-bedroom house. The landlord is the property’s freeholder. The landlord has said it does not have any vulnerabilities listed on its systems for the resident. However, it was aware the resident’s wife was pregnant at the time of the complaint.
  2. On 10 January 2022 the resident contacted the landlord to report that the third floor is always cold and he believes there is not sufficient insulation. The landlord raised a repair for one of its contractors to attend and investigate. They attended the resident’s home on 25 January 2022 and reported back that an enhanced follow on was required. The landlord carried out a further inspection on 19 April 2022.
  3. The resident submitted a formal complaint to the landlord concerning its handling of his reports on 6 June 2022. The landlord sent the resident a holding response on 16 June 2022. This said that a thermal heat loss calculation survey was required before the complaint could be responded to. It confirmed the landlord would contact the resident with an appointment date. The thermal heat loss survey was undertaken on 3 November 2022 and the landlord responded to the resident, at stage one of its complaints process, on 7 December 2022. This confirmed that side flank cavity insulation had sagged post installation. It said that the landlord was seeking advice from the installers and once a date was in place for works it would contact the resident.
  4. The resident responded on the same day requesting his complaint was escalated to stage two of the landlord’s complaints process. He said that he was not satisfied with the works the landlord intended to undertake. He also outlined that no compensation had been offered, his master bedroom had been uninhabitable and that he had not been reimbursed for a survey he had undertaken.
  5. The landlord provided its final response to the complaint on 16 January 2023. This confirmed an appointment for 20 January 2023 for the sagged cavity wall insulation to be refilled but did not offer any compensation to the resident.
  6. In bringing his complaint to this Service the resident has said:
    1. Once the landlord had refilled the sagging insulation the problem with cold in the master bedroom was resolved.
    2. The landlord told the resident it would cover the cost of the survey he had undertaken.
    3. The landlord should compensate him for being without a master bedroom for over a year.

Assessment and findings

Policies and procedures

  1. The landlord’s complaints policy outlines that “A complaint is defined as an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of actions by the organisation, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf affecting an individual or group of residents.”
  2. The landlord’s complaints policy also outlines timescales for responding to complaints at stage one and stage two. It states that stage one complaints will be logged and acknowledged within 5 working days and responded to within 10 working days. It also outlines that stage two complaints will be responded to within 20 working days.
  3. The Ombudsman’s complaint handling code states “A complaint response must be provided to the resident when the answer to the complaint is known, not when outstanding actions required to address the issue are completed. Outstanding actions must still be tracked and actioned promptly with appropriate updates provided to the resident.”
  4. The Ombudsman’s complaint handling code also stated “Landlord’s must confirm the following in writing to the resident at completion of stage one in clear, plain language … details of how to escalate the matter to stage two if the individual is not satisfied with the response.”

Scope

  1. The resident’s home came with a defects period of 12 months. During this period the builders/developers remain responsible for any defects/snagging issues. Repairs are usually reported to the landlord and then addressed towards the end of the defects period (unless urgent) and signed off as completed by the resident. Once the defect period has ended any repairs required would fall under the terms of the lease agreement.
  2. In this case, it was evident that the issue reported was more urgent and could not wait until the end of the defect period. However, the responsibility, for defects reported in the first 12 months, would be for the builders/developers to carry out any repair works of this nature. The landlord’s role, therefore, would be to facilitate the repair works by communicating with the developers, and, in turn, relaying information back to the resident.
  3. Given this, the defects themselves are outside of the scope of this investigation. However, we have considered how the landlord responded to the resident’s reports of a cold master bedroom and whether it responded appropriately.

Cold master bedroom

  1. On 10 January 2022 the resident contacted the landlord to report an issue with the heating in the top floor of his property. He explained that the third floor was always cold and that he believed there was not enough insulation in place. In response to the resident’s reports a repair was raised for a contractor to attend the resident’s home and inspect the issue. An appointment was booked for 25 January 2022. This was a reasonable response to the resident’s initial reports.
  2. On 25 January 2022 the landlord received a report from its contractor confirming the appointment had gone ahead. The contractor reported that at the time of his visit the top floor of the property had been 12 Celsius(c). The report also said that when the resident turned the heating on, this didn’t raise the temperature of the room by many degrees. The report said that the contractor believed the radiators in place were short of what was required to heat the room and an enhanced follow on was required.
  3. Later that same day the resident called the landlord for an update. He was told that its contractor had only attended that day and as such he needs to wait 5 working days for any follow on works to be requested. However, there is no evidence the landlord followed up with the resident following the results of its inspection on 25 January 2022. This was unreasonable and resulted in delays to progressing any required repairs.
  4. On 1 March 2022 the resident contacted the landlord for an update following its inspection. The resident reported that he was not happy with the length of time taken so far to resolve the issue. The landlord told the resident that further information was required before repairs could be undertaken. On 9 March 2022 the landlord wrote to the resident offering an end of defects period inspection with the developer on 28 March 2022. The resident was not available on this date and as such the appointment was rearranged for 12 April 2022.
  5. On 5 April 2022 the resident sent the landlord a copy of an independent snagging report he had completed for his property. He said he had needed to arrange this independently due to a lack of progress from the landlord and developer since he reported the repair. He outlined that this had cost him £505 in total and included the invoice as evidence of payment. On 12 April 2022 the resident contacted the landlord by phone requesting to raise a complaint about the operative who had attended his home. In response to this the landlord arranged to inspect the resident’s home along with the developer on 19 April 2022.
  6. On 20 April 2022 the developer emailed the resident confirming the inspection had gone ahead. They said that the design co-ordinator was currently on annual leave but on his return the developer would be discussing the heating issue. Having not received any further updates the resident contacted the landlord and developer on 9 May 2022 requesting an update. The landlord responded the next day informing the resident that the relevant employee was on annual until 11 May 2022 but it would enquire on his return whether there had been any feedback from the technical design manager. There is no evidence the landlord followed up and responded to the resident. This was unreasonable and resulted in time and trouble for the resident needing to contact the landlord again.
  7. On 31 May 2022 the resident contacted the landlord again requesting an update following its inspection on 19 April 2022. On 1 June 2022 the developer responded to the resident. It said that it had received the drawings from its design team and was satisfied the heating system had been fitted exactly to specification. The resident responded, to the developer and landlord, the same day outlining his disappointment with the developers response. He said the developer had previously confirmed the designs were correct so he was unsure of the reason for the recent delay. He said he was expecting a resolution and requested an outcome as to what will be done to rectify the issue.
  8. The landlord replied to the resident on 6 June 2022. It said that when it visited the resident’s home in April the temperature in the affected room was 23c. It said the heat output of the radiators were adequate and built to specification. It also said that the independent report provided by the resident did not flag any issues with the heat output or system either. It said it had been agreed that the landlord would visit the resident again in October 2022 to see if there were significant changes to the property’s temperature with the winter months.
  9. The resident responded on the same day outlining his dissatisfaction with the landlord’s proposals. He said that he did not agree to the landlord returning in October and that he was expecting the issue resolved before next winter.
  10. On 16 June 2022 the landlord wrote to the resident confirming that his complaint had been placed on hold. It said that it would arrange an appointment for the end of September or first week of October for a thermal heat loss survey to be undertaken. It said that once this was completed the landlord would be able to provide a full response to the complaint. Having carefully considered the landlord’s approach at this stage it is the Ombudsman’s opinion that the landlord acted reasonably given the circumstances. The landlord was entitled to rely on the findings of the developer that an inspection was required in colder temperatures. As it was now June this would involve waiting for the temperature to drop in the autumn.
  11. On 6 September 2022 the resident contacted the landlord by phone to request an update on when works will be completed by the developer. The landlord contacted the resident by phone on 26 September 2022. It told the resident that the heat loss survey had been accidently booked for his neighbours property. It apologised for this and offered the resident an appointment for 27 September 2022. The resident said that he did not feel it was yet cold enough for an accurate survey and he would prefer this undertaken at the end of October / beginning of November.
  12. An appointment was arranged for 3 November 2022 and the thermal heat loss survey was undertaken on this date. The next day the resident contacted the landlord by email requesting a copy of the survey results. There is no evidence the landlord responded to the resident’s email which was unreasonable. On 17 November 2022 the resident contacted the landlord again outlining he had not had a response to his email of 4 November 2022. The landlord responded the same day informing the resident that it should have a copy of the survey results available by the end of the week.
  13. On 25 November 2022 the landlord sent a copy of the survey report to the resident. It advised he should await further correspondence from the developer once all parties have had a chance to read through and discuss action points from the report.
  14. On 7 December 2022 the landlord responded to the resident’s complaint at stage one of its complaints process. It said that following the thermal heat loss survey it had identified an area of insulation which had sagged post installation. It advised that the developer may have to re-blow the cavity with more insulation. However it was awaiting advice from its specialist.
  15. The developer attended the resident’s home on 20 January 2023 and undertook works to refill the sagged area of insulation. On 24 January 2023 the resident contacted the landlord to find out when holes drilled in the render to refill the insulation would be repaired. An appointment was arranged for 13 March 2023, however, on this date the landlord contacted the resident to reschedule the appointment. The appointment was rearranged for 28 March 2023 and went ahead as scheduled.
  16. As part of his complaint to this Service the resident has said the landlord told him it would reimburse the cost of a survey he had undertaken privately. In its final response the landlord has said the decision to arrange an independent inspection was taken by the resident and it does not accept responsibility for the costs. Having reviewed all the available evidence the Ombudsman has not seen any evidence the landlord agreed to reimburse the cost of the survey. Further to this, there is no evidence of the resident informing the landlord that he intended to have the survey undertaken. Given this it would not be appropriate for the Ombudsman to order the landlord to now reimburse the cost of the survey. 
  17. Overall, the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of cold amount to maladministration. There were initial delays in following up its contractors report from 25 January 2022. Further, whilst generally responsive to the resident’s communications, more should have been done to keep the resident updated on the progress of his reports. It is noted there were occasions where the resident was caused time and trouble contacting the landlord multiple times for an update.

Complaint Handling

  1. The landlord initially logged a stage one complaint from the resident on 8 June 2022. However, having reviewed the resident’s correspondence prior to this date it is clear he is wishing to raise a formal complaint. The landlord’s records state that when the resident contacted it on 14 April 2022 he stated his desire to raise a complaint about its handling of cold issues in his home. Further to this and resident states in his email of 1 June 2022 that he wishes to escalate and that he would like his complaint responded to.
  2. The landlord’s complaints procedure outlines that a complaint is defined as an expression of dissatisfaction however made. Given this, it was unreasonable the landlord did not log the resident’s concerns as a formal complaint prior to doing so on 8 June 2022.
  3. On 16 June 2022 the landlord wrote to the resident placing his complaint on-hold until the winter months when a thermal heat loss survey could be undertaken. The Ombudsman’s complaint handling code outlines that landlord’s provide a response to the complaint “when the answer to the complaint is known, not when the outstanding actions required to address the issue are completed.” Given this, it would have been reasonable for the landlord to provide its stage one response to the resident outlining a heat loss survey was required and the proposed date for this to take place.
  4. The landlord provided its first stage response to the resident on 7 December 2022. This was 8 working days after receiving the thermal heat loss survey report from its contractor. This was reasonable. However, having reviewed the landlord’s response it is noted it does not advise the resident of his right to escalate his complaint if he remains dissatisfied. This was unreasonable and not in line with the Ombudsman’s complaint handling code or the landlord’s policies and procedures.
  5. Overall the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint amounts to service failure and there is a series of orders set out below.

Determination

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s reports of cold.
  2. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was service failure in the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.

Orders

  1. The landlord should take the following actions within the next four weeks and provide evidence of compliance to the Ombudsman:
    1. Pay the resident a total of £350 compensation. This consists of:
      1. £300 for the distress and inconvenience caused through the landlord’s handling of his reports of cold.
      2. £50 for the time and trouble caused by the landlord’s handling of the resident’s complaint.
    2. Write to the resident to apologise for the failings identified in this report.