Hyde Housing Association Limited (202301710)

REPORT

COMPLAINT 202301710

Hyde Housing Association Limited

20 June 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

This complaint is about the landlord’s:
1. Response to the resident’s reports of repairs at her property, including:
  1. Repairs to the internal walls to her property.
  2. Door handles hanging off.
  3. The water supply to the bathroom sink.
  4. That her toilet was broken.
  5. Issues with her boiler.
2. Handling of the associated complaint.

Background

The resident has an assured shorthold fixed term tenancy for the property which commenced on 30 January 2017. The property is a 3-bedroom house with a garden.
On 12 November 2021, the resident made 3 repair reports, for which she received automated response emails from the landlord confirming the details it had been provided with. These were:
1. The walls required a fresh coat of paint. In addition, some cracks and plastering were required.
2. Two door handles were hanging off, one of which was for the bedroom of children aged 6 and 8 years old. The second was for the utility cupboard.
3. The bathroom sink tap was not flowing, the drain/plug no longer fitted and the toilet was broken.
On 4 January 2022, the resident logged a formal complaint with the landlord saying she was still waiting for its contractor to contact her about the repairs she reported on 12 November 2021. The resident also said that she had made reports and complaints about her boiler which had never been resolved and that the ‘‘short term’’ fixes had left her without a reliable working boiler.
The landlord acknowledged the resident’s complaint on 16 March 2022.
The landlord issued its stage 1 response on 18 May 2022, in which it apologised for the delay the resident had experienced in having repairs completed. The landlord offered the resident £150 compensation, made up of £50 for her time and trouble, a further £50 for the delay and £50 for the delay in acknowledging her complaint. To resolve the complaint the landlord said that its contractor had booked an appointment for that day, to complete the plastering works confirmed by its building surveyor on 3 May 2022. However, the resident had contacted them and re-booked for 4 June 2022. The landlord also said that:
1. Its heating contractor was attending that day to investigate the boiler issues.
2. Another contractor would be attending to address the toilet, water pressure and bathroom sink repairs on the 9 June 2022, and the door handles on 10 June 2022.
3. A named member of staff would be overseeing the commitments and make sure everything was completed to a good standard within the 6-week timeframe. The named member of staff would also act as the resident’s point of contact until the commitments have been delivered.
The resident escalated her complaint on 23 May 2022, stating that the landlord’s response had taken months and parts of her complaint were still outstanding. It had been 5 months and members of her household (including children) had been locked inside rooms as the door handles had worsened. The resident also said that the plastering was outstanding.
The landlord issued its final response to the resident’s complaint on 11 October 2022. In its response, the landlord:
1. Confirmed that it had agreed to complete the following and provided the date that it had agreed to do so:
  1. To investigate the boiler issues on 18 May 2022.
  2. To replaster/skim the bottom of the hallway stairs, the hallway, the bedrooms, and the bathroom on 4 June 2022.
  3. To replace the top ducting to the toilet on 4 June 2022.
  4. To attend bathroom repairs to sink and water pressure on 9 June 2022.
  5. To replace door handles on 10 June 2022.
2. Confirmed that the only repairs that had been completed were replacing the door handles, investigating the boiler issues, where all it has been found all now left in working order, and completing the repairs to the bathroom sink and water pressure.
3. Apologised that the remaining repairs had not been completed as agreed, which it acknowledged was ‘‘unacceptable and had been due to poor communication’’.
4. Said that the resident should not have had to keep contacting to get the repairs arranged and that there should not have been so many appointments that were wasted or where no follow ups took place.
5. Increased its offer of compensation from £150 to £300 “to make up for what happened’’. The landlord confirmed that this was made up of:
  1. £100 for the delay in arranging the repairs.
  2. £100 for the delay in the complaint process.
  3. £100 for the time and trouble and distress and inconvenience.
The landlord’s records noted that its contractor attended on 27 and 28 October 2022 to complete the ‘decoration’ to the kitchen, hallway, bathroom, and upstairs corridor. It noted on 4 November 2022 that the appointment for 25 October 2022 had been missed and that the resident had had to chase the appointment on 27 October 2022.
On 28 December 2022, the resident emailed the landlord to say that she was advised on 11 October 2022 that she would have the ducting replaced in her toilet and was called to confirmed that this would take place on 2 December 2022. The resident said they received confirmation email alerts about the appointment the day before, however, no one attended. The resident said that they had ‘‘exhausted (themselves) trying to get simple repairs made in a timely manner to maintain the upkeep of (their) home. At every turn, (they have to fight to get (the landlord) to honour appointments and make repairs (it was) contracted to complete as (their) landlord’’.
The landlord’s records note on 9 March 2023 that the following works remained outstanding:
1. Stairwell to be plastered and painted after drying out.
2. Large front bedroom and ground floor bedroom small plastering works and painting after drying out.
3. Ducting works in the toilet.

Assessment and findings

When investigating a complaint, the Ombudsman applies its Dispute Resolution Principles. These are high level good practice guidance developed from the Ombudsman’s experience of resolving disputes, for use by everyone involved in the complaints process. The 3 principles driving effective dispute resolution are:
1. Be fair – treat people fairly and follow fair processes.
2. Put things right.
3. Learn from outcomes.
When considering how a landlord has responded to a complaint, the Ombudsman considers not just what has gone wrong, but also what, if anything, the landlord has done to put things right. This includes the steps the landlord has taken to address the shortcoming and prevent a reoccurrence, as well as any compensation offered.

The landlord’s response to the resident’s reports of repairs at her property.

Under Section 11 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, the landlord is responsible for keeping the structure and exterior of the property in good repair. The landlord must also keep in proper working order the installations in the dwelling house for the supply of water, gas, electricity, sanitation, space heating, and heating water. These obligations are confirmed in Sections 4(b)(1, 2 and 3) of the tenancy terms and conditions.
On 21 November 2021, the resident reported repairs to the internal walls to her property, door handles hanging off, the water supply to the bathroom sink and that her toilet was broken.
In accordance with its repairs policy, the landlord should have logged the resident’s report that her toilet was broken as an emergency repair and to have attended within 4 hours and resolved within 24 hours. The remaining repairs would not be classed as emergency and so, in accordance with the landord’s repairs policy, should have been dealt with within 20 working days, by 20 December 2021.
However, the landlord failed to complete the repairs within the required deadline and by the time of the resident’s initial formal complaint on 4 January 2022 no action had been taken. It was at the point of her formal complaint that the resident also said that she had made reports and complaints about her boiler which had never been resolved and that the ‘‘short term’’ fixes had left her without a reliable working boiler.
Given that no work had been carried out in response to the resident’s reports of 21 November 2021, and that in her complaint the resident had advised that since reporting the repairs the toilet had not flushed and the sink had no running water at all, this Service would have expected to see a sense of urgency by the landlord in ensuring the repairs were competed as soon as possible. However, this was not the case and at the time of the landlord’s final response on 11 October 2022, of the repairs reported by the resident in November 2021, only the replacement of the door handles, the boiler and repairs to the bathroom sink and water pressure repair had been completed. The plastering and replacement of the top ducting to the toilet remained outstanding.
Given the length of time the resident had been waiting for the landlord to compete the repairs, it was appropriate for it to have apologised to her for those delays and for the repairs that remained outstanding. However, the £200 compensation in its final response, made up of £100 for the delay in arranging the repairs and £100 for the time and trouble and distress and inconvenience, was not proportionate to the level of its failure in this case. This is because these failures resulted in a significant level of unnecessary distress, inconvenience, and frustration to the resident, and in her having to repeatedly chase the works and to seek information about what works were going to be done and when.
The failure of the landlord to respond to the resident’s reports in a timely manner led to her having to contact the landlord on 13, 17 and 30 January 2022, and again on 1 February 2022, having had no contact from its contractor. It was then not until 14 April 2022, almost 5 months after her initial repair reports, that the landlord’s contractor carried out an inspection.
Further, in her escalation request of 23 May 2022, the resident explained that:
1. The issue of the plastering was raised in November 2021 and they had ‘‘endured weeks of people randomly turning up and expecting access whilst underestimating the time required to complete the job.’’
2. The landlord’s contractor had attended on 18 May 2022 but it was unclear what they were there to do. She was told that she would not need to move or cover furniture if the visit was to start the plastering works. However, the contractor said he was unable to access the parts of the house he needed and so the works were rescheduled for 4 June 2022. The resident said that it was her understanding that it was only the plastering that had been rebooked for 4 June 2022.
3. It had not been made clear that the heating contractor was coming to look at the boiler and so it was a surprise to hear that she had missed their visit on 18 May 2022. The resident also noted that the heating contractor had not rescheduled a date for this to be done.
4. A plasterer had attended on 19 May 2022 and told her that she would need to move her furniture and cover with dust sheets and so this had to be rescheduled for 4 June 2022. On 4 June 2022, the plasterer called to say that they could no longer honour the appointment but eventually agreed to attend on 5 June 2022. When the plasterer attended on 5 June 2022, they plastered parts of the bathroom and hallway, however several rooms remained untouched, despite the plasterer saying he could do all of the plastering within a couple of hours.
The resident also reported to the landlord:
1. On 13 June 2022, the plasterer and another colleague arrived unannounced at 8:10am to finish the work. The resident said that they had to turn them away as no appointment had been made and she could not take the day off or work from home at such short notice. The resident said the operative apologised and advised that someone would call to reschedule but she was still waiting for that call.
2. On 19 June 2022, another operative from the contractor attended unannounced at 8:10am when she was getting ready for school and work. The operative completed the door handles and parts of the plastering in the kitchen, then left saying he would be 20 minutes but not returning for nearly 3 hours. The works were not finished that day.
In its stage 1 response, the landlord provided the resident with a named point of contact who it said would be overseeing the commitments and make sure everything was completed to a good standard and within a 6-week timeframe. The named member of staff would also act as the resident’s point of contact until the commitments have been delivered. However, this too was poorly managed and some of the responses by the named point of contact were not only inappropriate but appeared to seek to imply a responsibility on the resident for some of the delay.
On 9 June 2022, the resident emailed the point of contact but received no response and so she emailed them again on 20 June 2022. The named point of contact emailed the resident the same day to apologise for the inconvenience but they had not been made aware that anyone would be contacting them as residents were not supposed to email personal company emails. Having been advised of operatives turning up unannounced or not knowing what they were supposed to do, the point of contact would have been expected to have apologised, which they did, and then to have taken steps to ensure that this did not happen again. However, their response was to suggest that the issue was with the resident’s expectations rather than any failure on the landlord’s behalf. The point of contact referring to the appointments ‘‘not being booked in to (the resident’s) standards’’.
Further, on 6 July 2022, the resident emailed her point of contact again to say that that morning the contractor had arrived to complete the plastering repairs. The resident asked why nobody picked up the email she had sent on 21 June 2022, requesting that this appointment be changed to 8 July 2022. (A copy of the resident’s email of 21 June 2022 has been seen by this Service). Again, the single point of contact’s response to the resident was totally inappropriate, them saying ‘‘It turns out you were in the residence on the 6 July 2022, so I don’t understand why works weren’t able to go ahead given the works required were in your hallway and so would not have obstructed you working from home’’.
Given the considerable failures by the landlord in this case, it is the view of this Service that the £200 compensation offered by the landlord was not sufficient to put things right not been ‘put right’. This is because this amount falls significantly below what this Service would expect to be offered in cases where there has been such a long delay in repairs being resolved and where there has been significant distress and inconvenience to the resident.
As per paragraph 42a of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, we may not consider complaints about matters that have not exhausted the landlord’s complaints process. However, where the landlord has made commitments as part of its final complaint response, we will consider subsequent events in order to establish whether the landlord has put things right and learned from outcomes in accordance with the Ombudsman’s Dispute Resolution Principles.
Despite the landlord’s apologies in its final response, there was then another excessive delay in the landlord completing the outstanding works. Both the landlord and the resident were asked by this Service to confirm when these were completed. In her response, the resident confirmed that all plastering and painting repairs were not completed until 28 May 2024. The landlord did not respond to this Service’s request.
Given the extensive delays in this case, and the landlord’s failure to make these right, a finding of maladministration has been made and the landlord ordered to increase the amount of compensation to the resident for this element of her complaint to £1,000. This is inclusive of the £200 previously offered by the landlord and is at the top end of the amounts suggested in this Service’s remedies guidance for situations where there have been failures by the landlord which had a significant impact on the resident.

Handling of the associated complaint

The resident raised her initial formal complaint on 4 January 2022. In accordance with the landlord’s complaints policy, it should have acknowledged the complaint within 5 working days, no later than 11 January 2022. It should then have provided its stage 1 response within a further 10 working days, no later than 25 January 2022. However, the landlord did not do so, not acknowledging the complaint until 16 March 2022 and then not providing its stage 1 response until 18 May 2022, almost 4 months outside of the timescales set out in its complaints policy.
The resident escalated her complaint on 23 May 2022. In accordance with the landlord’s complaints policy, it should have responded to the complaint within 20 working days, no later than 20 June 2022. However, the landlord did not do so until 11 October 2022, almost another 4 months outside of the timescales set out in its complaints policy.
In its final response, the landlord offered the resident £100 for the delay in the complaint process, this being increased from the £50 offered at stage 1. However, given the delay in the landlord acknowledging the resident’s complaint and the excessive delay in it providing its responses at both stages of the complaints process, it is the view of this Service that this amount was not proportionate to the level of failings. As such, a finding of maladministration has been made and the landlord ordered to pay the resident an additional £200, bringing the total compensation for its complaint handling failures to £300 compensation.

Determination

In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its response to the resident’s reports of repairs at her property.
In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in respect of its handling of the associated complaint.

Orders

That within 28 calendar days of the date of this report, the landlord is ordered to:
1. Apologise to the resident for the failures identified.
2. Pay the resident a total of £1,300 made up of:
  1. £1,000 for the failures in respect of its response to her reports of repairs at her property. This is inclusive of the £200 previously offered by the landlord, if this has not already been paid.
  2. £300 for its complaint handling failures. This is also inclusive of the £100 previously offered by the landlord, if this has not already been paid.
The Ombudsman has recently made several orders in other investigations into this landlord about reviewing its repairs service delivery and its complaint handling. The Ombudsman has therefore not made orders or recommendations around these aspects of service but expects the landlord to take all relevant learning from this case into account going forward.